Are people more creative alone or together?

It appears the brain doesn’t care if you’re an introvert or an extrovert. It needs solo- and group-time to be creative–in that order.

 

The way to maximize creative potential is to flow between being alone and being in a group, and back again. While collaboration clearly assists in generating ideas,  both research and history show the importance of solitude and being alone with one’s thoughts in order to generate real breakthroughs.
So the answer is that human beings are most creative when we get time by ourselves and then time with one another. The way to maximize creative potential is to flow between being alone and being in a group, and back again. When you’re alone, you’re essentially building a woodpile in your brain. Then, when you join a group, you’re igniting a shower of sparks that might light it up. Of course, you sometimes need to go be alone again in order to let the sparks you’ve started generating get close enough to the wood.