Please answer this one-question test:
Did you choose option A? Of course you did, because nobody would say they hate creativity – it would be like saying you hate the special olympics. But a new study , “The bias against creativity: why people desire but reject creative ideas”, by Jennifer S. Mueller (The Wharton School), Shimul Melwani (University of Pennsylvania), and Jack A. Goncalo (Cornell University) reveals a hitherto unknown ambivalence about creativity that lives under the surface, camouflaged, like a suckerfish. According to their paper, people experiencing uncertainty tend to hold an unacknowledged negative bias against creativity. Furthermore, those holding such a bias also have more difficulty recognizing a creative idea when they encounter one.
In this study, the authors conducted two experiments, in which each had a designated “uncertainty” group (members in this group were told they could receive extra money, but that it would be distributed via lottery. Stressful.). Experiment 1 tested the subjects’ reaction to words representing creativity vs. practicality. Experiment 2 had the participants write essays on creative problem-solving, and then rate the creativity and practicality of a new running shoe.
Both experiments uncovered a hidden negative bias against creativity in the uncertainty group. Furthermore, the uncertainty group rated the novel shoe idea as less creative than did the control group.
While reading this study, I was reminded of the fact that both the US TV channels HBO and Showtime passed on the show “Mad Men” before it went on to become a hit series on AMC. Certainly, many such examples exist in the arts world. And, of course, there are plentiful such stories from science: think heliocentrism and continental drift . In biology, think Margulis’ theory of endosymbiosis and McClintock’s jumping genes.
Faculty of 1000 member Eduard Stange writes in his evaluation of the article that such biases are not confined to the distant past:
Quite recently, it took years for the Helicobacter theory of ulcer disease to be accepted, and I was one of the skeptics. Similarly, even this year’s Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine discusses Crohn’s disease in terms of dysregulated adaptive immune response and ignores the overwhelming evidence for a defective barrier.
And the uncertainty effect may not be limited to individual decision-making. As the authors write:
If people hold an implicit bias against creativity, then we cannot assume that organizations, institutions, or even scientific endeavors will desire and recognize creative ideas even when they explicitly state that they want them.
Oh boy. So what are the creatively inclined to do? It seems that the problem is not a supply of creative ideas, but rather how to gain acceptance for those ideas already out there in circulation. Therefore, the authors conclude that,
…the field of creativity may need to shift its current focus from identifying how to generate more creative ideas to identifying how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity.
In other words, we need more scientific AMCs to pick up the slack that the HBOs leave behind.
Please answer this one-question test:
Creativity is
Did you choose option A? Of course you did, because nobody would say they hate creativity – it would be like saying you hate the special olympics. But a new study , “The bias against creativity: why people desire but reject creative ideas”, by Jennifer S. Mueller (The Wharton School), Shimul Melwani (University of Pennsylvania), and Jack A. Goncalo (Cornell University) reveals a hitherto unknown ambivalence about creativity that lives under the surface, camouflaged, like a suckerfish. According to their paper, people experiencing uncertainty tend to hold an unacknowledged negative bias against creativity. Furthermore, those holding such a bias also have more difficulty recognizing a creative idea when they encounter one.
In this study, the authors conducted two experiments, in which each had a designated “uncertainty” group (members in this group were told they could receive extra money, but that it would be distributed via lottery. Stressful.). Experiment 1 tested the subjects’ reaction to words representing creativity vs. practicality. Experiment 2 had the participants write essays on creative problem-solving, and then rate the creativity and practicality of a new running shoe.
Both experiments uncovered a hidden negative bias against creativity in the uncertainty group. Furthermore, the uncertainty group rated the novel shoe idea as less creative than did the control group.
While reading this study, I was reminded of the fact that both the US TV channels HBO and Showtime passed on the show “Mad Men” before it went on to become a hit series on AMC. Certainly, many such examples exist in the arts world. And, of course, there are plentiful such stories from science: think heliocentrism and continental drift . In biology, think Margulis’ theory of endosymbiosis and McClintock’s jumping genes.
Faculty of 1000 member Eduard Stange writes in his evaluation of the article that such biases are not confined to the distant past:
And the uncertainty effect may not be limited to individual decision-making. As the authors write:
Oh boy. So what are the creatively inclined to do? It seems that the problem is not a supply of creative ideas, but rather how to gain acceptance for those ideas already out there in circulation. Therefore, the authors conclude that,
In other words, we need more scientific AMCs to pick up the slack that the HBOs leave behind.