Creativity depends on individuals’ willingness to invest in their novel ideas early in the creative process. Burgeoning research on idea evaluation suggests that while people can identify their novel ideas, they may reject them because they are risky and uncertain. Selecting novel ideas is crucial at the earliest phase of the creative process, in which individuals may evaluate several generated ideas to identify those they want to develop and share with others. To uncover when and why people select these ideas, we develop and test theory on the early-stage selection of novel ideas. Integrating theory from attachment, self-construal, and creativity we posit that creators can become attached to, and therefore select their early-stage novel ideas when the idea features affirm core aspects of their self. Individuals with an independent self-construal wish to affirm their unique identity and idiosyncratic agenda and thus are more likely to feel attached to, and select their novel ideas. In contrast, individuals with an interdependent self-construal are less likely to become attached to novel ideas, because these ideas do not validate their self. Findings from a field study on three early-stage hackathons and three experiments support our theory. Our research points to idea attachment as a new mechanism that explains when and why creators embrace early-stage novel ideas.

创造力取决于个人在创作过程早期投资于他们的新颖想法的意愿。关于想法评估的新兴研究表明，虽然人们可以识别他们的新颖想法，但他们可能会拒绝它们，因为它们具有风险和不确定性。在创作过程的最初阶段，选择新颖的想法至关重要，在这个阶段，个人可能会评估几个产生的想法，以确定他们想要发展并与他人分享的想法。为了揭示人们选择这些想法的时间和原因，我们开发并测试了早期选择新想法的理论。 整合来自依恋、自我解释和创造力的理论，我们假设创作者可以依恋，因此当想法特征肯定了他们自我的核心方面时，他们会选择他们早期的新颖想法。具有独立自我建构的人希望确认他们独特的身份和特殊议程，因此更有可能感到依恋并选择他们的新想法。相比之下，具有相互依赖的自我解释的人不太可能依附于新奇的想法，因为这些想法无法验证他们的自我。对三个早期黑客马拉松和三个实验的实地研究结果支持了我们的理论。我们的研究指出，想法依附是一种新机制，可以解释创作者何时以及为何接受早期的新颖想法。