Exploring how different levels of similar and opposite relations influence creativity: the creative effect of synonymy and antonymy

The degree of similarity between constituent concepts is a crucial factor in conceptual combination. This study examined how different levels of synonymy and antonymy between constituent words influence creative performance in conceptual combination tasks. Study 1 included 204 Taiwanese college students, and Study 2 included 160. Across both studies, synonymy and antonymy did not differ significantly in fluency (quantity), indicating comparable accessibility for idea generation. In contrast, antonymy consistently yielded higher originality (quality) than synonymy, although the effects were small to medium. Within-group analyses further showed that strong antonymous relations facilitated creative performance, particularly at early stages of response generation. In Study 2, both high-level synonyms and antonyms were preferentially selected as first responses, whereas the originality advantage of antonymy emerged mainly during early ideation and diminished across later responses. These findings suggest that oppositional relations provide a constrained structural affordance that modestly enhances originality under specific task conditions.