  According to the honing theory of creativity, the iterative process
culminating in a creative work is made possible by the self-organizing nature
of a conceptual network, or worldview, and its innate holistic tendency to
minimize inconsistency. As such, the creative process is not limited to the
problem domain, and influences on creativity from domains other than that of
the final product are predicted to be widespread. We conducted a study in which
participants with varying levels of creative experience listed their creative
outputs, as well as influences (sources of inspiration) on these outputs. Of
the 758 creative influences, 13% were within-domain narrow, 13% within-domain
broad, 67% cross-domain, and 6% unclear. These findings support the hypothesis
that to trace the inspirational sources or 'conceptual parents' of a creative
output, and thus track its cultural lineage, one must look beyond the problem
domain to the creators' self-organizing, inconsistency-minimizing worldview at
large.
