ArticlePDF Available

The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas

November 2011
Psychological Science 23(1):13-7

DOI:10.1177/0956797611421018

Source
PubMed

Authors:

Jennifer Mueller

University of San Diego

Shimul Melwani

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Jack A Goncalo

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

People often reject creative ideas, even when espousing creativity as a desired goal. To explain this paradox, we propose that people can hold a bias against creativity that is not necessarily overt and that is activated when people experience a motivation to reduce uncertainty. In two experiments, we manipulated uncertainty using different methods, including an uncertainty-reduction prime. The results of both experiments demonstrated the existence of a negative bias against creativity (relative to practicality) when participants experienced uncertainty. Furthermore, this bias against creativity interfered with participants' ability to recognize a creative idea. These results reveal a concealed barrier that creative actors may face as they attempt to gain acceptance for their novel ideas.

Content uploaded by Jack A Goncalo

Content may be subject to copyright.

Cornell University ILR School

DigitalCommons@ILR

Articles and Chapters ILR Collection

1-1-2011

e Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire

But Reject Creative Ideas

Jennifer S. Mueller

University of Pennsylvania

Shimul Melwani

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Jack A. Goncalo

Cornell University, jag97@cornell.edu

is Article is brought to you for free and open access by the ILR Collection at DigitalCommons@ILR. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles

and Chapters by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@ILR. For more information, please contact jdd10@cornell.edu.

Please take our short DigitalCommons@ILR user survey.

Mueller, Jennifer S.; Melwani, Shimul; and Goncalo, Jack A., "e Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative

Ideas" (2011). Articles and Chapters. Paper 450.

hp://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/450

Bias Against Creativity

Running head: BIAS AGAINST CREATIVITY

The bias against creativity: Why people desire but reject creative ideas

Jennifer S. Mueller

University of Pennsylvania

Shimul Melwani

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Jack A. Goncalo

Cornell University

Keywords: Creativity, bias

**In press at Psychological Science.

Acknowledgements: This idea behind this paper was inspired by Barry Staw’s chapter, “Why No

One Really Wants Creativity.” We would also like to thank the following people for their

insights and help in developing this paper: Jeff Lowenstein, Matthew Cronin and Jennifer

Whitson.

Bias Against Creativity

Abstract

People often reject creative ideas even when espousing creativity as a desired goal. To explain

this paradox, we propose that people can hold a bias against creativity that is not necessarily

overt, and which is activated when people experience a motivation to reduce uncertainty. In two

studies, we measure and manipulate uncertainty using different methods including: discrete

uncertainty feelings, and an uncertainty reduction prime. The results of both studies

demonstrated a negative bias toward creativity (relative to practicality) when participants

experienced uncertainty. Furthermore, the bias against creativity interfered with participants’

ability to recognize a creative idea. These results reveal a concealed barrier that creative actors

may face as they attempt to gain acceptance for their novel ideas.

Bias Against Creativity

Do people desire creative ideas? Most scholars would propose that the answer to this

question is an obvious ‘yes,’ asserting that creativity is the engine of scientific discovery

(Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), the fundamental driving force of positive change (George, 2007),

and associated with intelligence, wisdom, and moral goodness (Niu & Sternberg, 2006;

Sternberg, 1985). However, while people strongly endorse this positive view of creativity,

scholars have long been puzzled by the finding that organizations, scientific institutions, and

decisions-makers routinely reject creative ideas even when espousing creativity as an important

goal (Ford & Gioia, 2000; Staw, 1995; West, 2002). Similarly, research documents that teachers

dislike students who exhibit curiosity and creative thinking even though teachers acknowledge

creativity as an important educational goal (Dawson, D'Andrea, Affinito, & Westby, 1999;

Runco, 1989; Westby & Dawson, 1995). We offer a new perspective to explain this puzzle. Just

as people have deeply-rooted biases against people of a certain age, race or gender that are not

necessarily overt (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995), so too can people hold deeply-rooted negative

views of creativity that are not openly acknowledged. Revealing the existence and nature of a

bias against creativity can help explain why people might reject creative ideas and stifle

scientific advancement, even in the face of strong intentions to the contrary.

Creative ideas are both novel and useful (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), and novelty is

the key distinguishing feature of creativity beyond ideas that are merely well done (Amabile,

Barsade, Mueller, & Staw, 2005). Yet the requirement that creative ideas contain novelty can

also promote a tension in evaluators’ minds when they judge whether to pursue an idea. Indeed,

evaluators have a hard time viewing novelty and practicality as attributes that go hand in hand,

often viewing them as inversely related (Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2009). There are several

reasons why. Practical ideas are generally valued (Sanchez-Burks, 2005). However, the more

Bias Against Creativity

novel an idea, the more uncertainty can exist about whether an idea is practical, useful, error free,

and reliably reproduced (Amabile, 1996). When endorsing a novel idea, people can experience

failure (Simonton, 1984), perceptions of risk (Rubenson & Runco, 1995), social rejection when

expressing the idea to others (Moscovici, 1976; Nemeth, 1986), and uncertainty about when their

idea will reach completion (Metcalfe, 1986). Uncertainty is an aversive state (Fiske & Taylor,

1991; Heider, 1958) which people feel a strong motivation to diminish and avoid (Whitson &

Galinsky, 2008). Hence, people can also have negative associations with novelty; an attribute at

the heart of what makes ideas creative in the first place.

Although the positive associations with creativity are typically the focus of attention both

among scholars and practitioners, the negative associations may also be activated when people

evaluate a creative idea. For example, research on associative thinking suggests that strong

uncertainty feelings may make the negative attributes of creativity, particularly those related to

uncertainty, more salient (Bower, 1981).

This evaluative process is not necessarily overt, making the bias against creativity

potentially insidious. In fact, there is often strong normative pressure to endorse creative ideas

(Flynn & Chatman, 2001) and a strong social desirability bias against expressing any view of

creativity as negative (Runco, 2010). This resulting state is similar to that identified in research

on racial bias; a conflict between an explicit preference towards creativity and unacknowledged

negative associations with creativity (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). In other words, uncovering a

bias against creative ideas requires a method more subtle than simply asking directly. Therefore,

we decided to employ a measure that assesses explicit attitudes in addition to implicit attitudes

which are less susceptible to self-presentation biases and normative pressures (Greenwald,

Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009). In two studies, we test whether uncertainty measured and

Bias Against Creativity

manipulated in two different ways, promotes a greater bias against creativity relative to

practicality. In the second study we investigate whether this bias deters peoples’ ability to

recognize creative ideas.

EXPERIMENT 1

Method

Participants and Design

Participants (N = 73) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: uncertainty (n =

28) or baseline (n = 45). 51% were men (mean age= 22.74 years). Each participant took an

implicit attitude test (IAT) as well as an explicit attitude test to assess their bias against creativity

relative to practicality.

Procedure and Materials

Participants in the uncertainty condition were told that they might receive additional

payment based on a random lottery (not performance). Participants in the baseline condition

were not given the opportunity to receive extra money. A pilot study (N = 82) verified that the

uncertainty manipulation evoked significantly higher uncertainty feelings than a baseline

condition. All participants took an openness to experience inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992), a

trait which is highly related to creativity (Feist, 1998).

Participants’ automatic mental associations with creativity versus practicality were

assessed using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998).

This measure relies on test-takers' speed of response to represent the strength of their mental

associations. The IAT measures participants’ reaction times when rating pairings between an

attitude object (e.g., creativity or practicality) and an evaluative dimension (e.g., good or bad). In

the computerized version of the IAT, this pairing is achieved by using the keyboard (say, a left

Bias Against Creativity

key) to be pressed in response to items from the two paired categories, creativity+bad, while

another key (say, the right key) is pressed for the other pair, practicality+good. The speed at

which this pairing is completed compared to opposite pairing is interpreted as a measure of the

strength of the implicit evaluation. Our IAT used words that reflected creativity (e.g. novel,

creative, inventive, original) versus practicality (e.g. practical, functional, constructive, and

useful). In addition our IAT used words that reflected good (rainbow, cake, sunshine, laughter,

peace, heaven) versus bad (vomit, hell, agony, rotten, poison, ugly). The block order was

counterbalanced such that half of the participants performed the creative + good component first,

whereas the other half performed the creative + bad component first. The IAT effect was formed

by subtracting response latencies for the creative + good task from the creative + bad tasks. We

scored the IAT using the D statistic (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003), a method less

influenced by procedural variables, such as order or counterbalancing, as well as cognitive

ability (Cai, Sriram, Greenwald, & McFarland, 2004). The implicit bias score was calculated by

subtracting creativity from practicality attitudes; higher values indicate more bias against

creativity relative to practicality.

Participants also rated their explicit positive and negative associations with creativity and

practicality. Specifically, participants rated their attitudes towards creativity and practicality on a

7-point scale ranging from 1=strongly negative, 4 = neutral, and 7= strongly positive.

Participants assessed attitudes towards creativity (e.g., creative, inventive, original, and novel;

alpha = .77), and practicality (e.g., practical, functional, constructive, useful; alpha = .88).

Participants indicated positive associations (i.e., above the scale mid-point) with both creativity

(M=5.37, SD=.75) and practicality (M=5.43, SD=.91). Explicit bias was calculated by

subtracting creativity from practicality associations (M=.06, SD=.91).

Bias Against Creativity

Results and Discussion

Table 1 shows descriptives for all major variables. An ANCOVA controlling for

openness to experience revealed no significant differences in explicit bias when comparing the

high (M=.02, SD=.83) and low uncertainty conditions (M=-.11, SD=.96), F(1, 70)= .07, P=.78.

However a second ANCOVA also controlling for openness to experience revealed that

participants in the uncertainty condition showed an implicit bias against creativity relative to

practicality (M=.15, SD=.54) which significantly differed from participants in the baseline

condition who showed an implicit bias in favor of creativity relative to practicality (M=-.23, SD=

.47), F(1, 70)= 13.13, P=.001; condition accounted for 11% of the variance in implicit bias.

Discussion

Experiment 1 shows that people hold ambivalent attitudes towards creativity. While

participants in the baseline condition evidenced positive implicit associations with creativity

relative to practicality, participants in the uncertainty condition exhibited an implicit bias against

creativity relative to practicality. In Experiment 2 we wished to extend these findings to show

that the motivation to reduce uncertainty when problem solving can activate the creativity bias.

Specifically, scholars propose that effective creative problem solving includes both generating

many novel options and subsequently reducing uncertainty by identifying the single best option

from the set (Cropley, 2006). We propose that this latter orientation towards identifying the

optimal solution may prime an uncertainty reduction motive or intolerance for uncertainty and

thereby evoke the creativity bias. Additionally, we explore whether the creativity bias might also

deter the recognition of a creative idea.

EXPERIMENT 2

Method

Bias Against Creativity

Participants and Design

140 undergraduate students (55% female; mean age= 20.66) were randomly assigned to

one of two conditions: high tolerance for uncertainty (n = 70) and low tolerance for uncertainty

(n = 70).

Procedure and Materials

Participants in the high tolerance for uncertainty condition were told to write an essay

supporting the statement, “For every problem, there is more than one correct solution” while

those in the low tolerance for uncertainty condition were asked to write an essay supporting the

statement, “For every problem, there is only one correct solution.” A three item manipulation

check assessed uncertainty when evaluating an idea (e.g., “I feel uncertain about this idea),”

anchors from 1 = not at all, 7 = very much so (alpha = .78). Participants in the low tolerance

condition were significantly more uncertain (M=4.36, SD=1.23) than those in the high tolerance

condition (M= 3.87, SD=1.33; F(1, 133)=5.14, P=.025). After being exposed to the experimental

manipulation, each participant took the same implicit and explicit creativity-practicality bias tests

used in Experiment 1. Subsequently, participants were asked to rate a creative idea which we

pre-tested using a different sample of undergraduates (N = 36) who rated this idea (a running

shoe with nanotechnology that adjusted fabric thickness to cool the foot and reduce blisters) as

being highly creative (M=5.82, SD=.80), novel (M=5.62, SD=1.02), and practical (M=5.85,

SD=.92) on a 7-point scale ranging from 1=not at all to 7=extremely so. Before exposure to the

manipulation, participants also took the openness to experience inventory.

Participants rated the idea using the creativity scale, employing the same six synonyms

for creativity used in both the implicit and explicit bias tests (M=5.41, SD=1.05, alpha=.78).

Results and Discussion

Bias Against Creativity

Table 2 shows descriptives for all major variables. An ANCOVA controlling for

openness to experience revealed that participants in the low tolerance for uncertainty condition

were not significantly different in their level of explicit bias against creativity (M= .20, SD=.81)

as compared to participants in the high tolerance condition (M= .22, SD=.94), F(1, 133)= .14,

P=.71. However, a second ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience revealed that

participants in the low uncertainty tolerance condition were more implicitly biased against

creativity relative to practicality (M= .07, SD=.43) than participants in the high uncertainty

tolerance condition (M= -.16, SD=.46), F(1, 133)= 7.87, P=.007, who exhibited positive

associations with creativity relative to practicality. A third ANCOVA controlling for openness to

experience identified that participants in the low tolerance condition rated the idea as less

creative (M= 5.06, SD=1.06) than participants in the high tolerance condition (M= 5.76,

SD=.93), F(1, 137)= 15.48, P=.000.

A hierarchical regression showed that the relationship between experimental condition

and creativity ratings (B = -.64, t (134) = -3.81, p < .001) became less significant when including

implicit bias in the model (B = -.56, t (134) = -3.30, p < .01). A 95% bootstrapped confidence

interval of the indirect effect of condition on creativity ratings through implicit bias did not

include zero [-.24, -.02], demonstrating partial mediation (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Mediation

analyses controlled for both explicit bias and openness to experience at each step indicating that

relatively low levels of uncertainty tolerance led to higher levels of the implicit bias that in turn

contributed to lower ratings of creativity controlling for participants’ explicit bias and general

openness to experience.

Discussion

Bias Against Creativity

Experiment 2 both replicated the finding that uncertainty promotes negative associations

with creativity relative to practicality, and extended this finding by showing that the bias against

creativity interfered with participants’ ability to recognize a creative idea.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocket propulsion, endured ridicule and derision

from his contemporary scientific peers who stated his ideas were ludicrous and impossible. This

example is not unique, and would puzzle creativity theorists as research shows that expert raters

who are themselves creative are even more likely to accurately recognize and assess creativity

(Hennessey, Amabile, & Mueller, 2010; Runco & Smith, 1992). Our results show that regardless

of how open minded people are, when they feel motivated to reduce uncertainty either because

they have an immediate goal of reducing uncertainty, or feel uncertain generally, this may bring

negative associations with creativity to mind which result in lower evaluations of a creative idea.

Our findings imply a deep irony. Prior research shows that uncertainty spurs the search for and

generation of creative ideas (Audia & Goncalo, 2007; Tiedens & Linton, 2001), yet our findings

reveal that uncertainty also makes us less able to recognize creativity, perhaps when we need it

most.

Beyond merely having a preference for the status quo or familiar ideas (Eidelman,

Crandall, & Pattershall, 2009; Zajonc, 2001), our results suggest that people have ambivalent

feelings towards creativity. On one hand, participants in the baseline and uncertainty tolerance

conditions demonstrated positive implicit associations with creativity relative to practicality.

Additionally, 95% of participants in the high uncertainty and uncertainty intolerance conditions

rated their explicit attitudes towards creativity as positive- higher than ‘4’ the mid-point of a 7-

point scale- and statistically equivalent to practicality. On the other hand, the implicit measure

Bias Against Creativity

identified that participants in each high uncertainty condition associated words like “vomit,”

“poison,” and “agony,” more so with creativity than practicality. Because there is such a strong

social norm to endorse creativity and people also feel authentic positive attitudes towards

creativity, people may be reluctant to admit that they do not want creativity; hence, the bias

against creativity may be particularly slippery to diagnose. The implicit measures may have

picked up negative associations with creativity under conditions of uncertainty because the

methodology is more resistant to social desirability bias (Greenwald et al., 2009).

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 they want them. This is because when journals extol creative

research, universities train scientists to promote creative solutions, R&D companies commend

the development of new products, pharmaceutical companies praise creative medical

breakthroughs, they may do so in ways that promote uncertainty by requiring gate-keepers to

identify the single “best” and most “accurate” idea thereby creating an unacknowledged aversion

to creativity. In addition, our results suggest that if people have difficulty gaining acceptance for

creative ideas especially when more practical and unoriginal options are readily available, 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.

Future research should identify factors which mitigate or reverse the bias against creativity.

Bias Against Creativity

REFERNCES

Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to "The Social Psychology of Creativity."

(Vol. 317). Boulder, CO, US: Westview Press.

Amabile, T. M., Barsade, S. G., Mueller, J. S., & Staw, B. M. (2005). Affect and creativity at

work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50, 367-403.

Audia, P., & Goncalo, J. (2007). Past success and creativity over time: A study of inventors in

the hard disk drive industry. Management Science, 53(1), 1.

Bower, G. H. (1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36(2), 129-148.

Cai, H., Sriram, N., Greenwald, A. G., & McFarland, S. G. (2004). The Implicit Association

Test's "D" Measure can Minimize a Cognitive Skill Confound: Comment on McFarland

and Crouch (2002). Social Cognition, 22(6), 673-684.

Costa, P., & McCrae, R. (1992). Normal personality assessment in clinical practice: The NEO

Personality Inventory. Psychological Assessment, 4(1), 5-13.

Cropley, A. (2006). In praise of convergent thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 18(3), 391-

404.

Dawson, V. L., D'Andrea, T., Affinito, R., & Westby, E. L. (1999). Predicting creative behavior:

A reexamination of the divergence between traditional and teacher-defined concepts of

creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 12(1), 57-66.

Eidelman, S., Crandall, C. S., & Pattershall, J. (2009). The existence bias. Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology, 97(5), 765-775.

Feist, G. J. (1998). A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity. Personality

and Social Psychology Review, 2(4), 290-309.

Fiske, S., & Taylor, S. (1991). Social cognition. New York: McGraw-Hill

Bias Against Creativity

Flynn, F. J., & Chatman, J. A. (2001). Strong cultures and innovation: Oxymoron or

opportunity? . In T. Holden, N. Sparrow & W. Starbuck (Eds.), International Handbook

of Organizational Culture and Climate (pp. 263-287). Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

Ford, C. M., & Gioia, D. A. (2000). Factors Influencing Creativity in the Domain of Managerial

Decision Making. Journal of Management, 26(4), 705-732.

Gaertner, S., & Dovidio, J. (Eds.). (1986). The aversive form of racism. New York: Academic

Press.

George, J. M. (2007). Chapter 9: Creativity in Organizations. The Academy of Management

Annals, 1(1), 439 - 477.

Greenwald, A., McGhee, D., & Schwartz, J. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit

cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

74, 1464-1480.

Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and

stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102(1), 4-27.

Greenwald, A. G., Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2003). Understanding and using the Implicit

Association Test: I. An improved scoring algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 85(2), 197-216.

Greenwald, A. G., Poehlman, T. A., Uhlmann, E. L., & Banaji, M. R. (2009). Understanding and

using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 97(1), 17-41.

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Hennessey, B. A., & Amabile, T. M. (2010). Creativity. Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 569-

598.

Bias Against Creativity

Hennessey, B. A., Amabile, T. M., & Mueller, J. S. (2010). Chapter 46: Consensual Assessment.

. In Encyclopedia of Creativity, 4th edition.

Metcalfe, J. (1986). Premonitions of insight predict impending error. Journal of Experimental

Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 12(4), 623-634.

Moscovici, S. (1976). Social influence and social change. London: UK: Academic Press.

Nemeth, C. (1986). Differential contributions of majority and minority influence. Psychological

Review, 93(1), 23-32.

Niu, W., & Sternberg, R. (2006). The philosophical roots of Western and Eastern conceptions of

creativity. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Vol, 26(1-2), 18-38.

Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2004). SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects

in simple mediation models. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers.

Special Issue: Web-based archive of norms, stimuli, and data: Part 2, 36(4), 717-731.

Rietzschel, E., Nijstad, B., & Stroebe, W. (2009). The selection of creative ideas after individual

idea generation: Choosing between creativity and impact. British Journal of Psychology,

0(1-23).

Rubenson, D. L., & Runco, M. A. (1995). The psychoeconomic view of creative work in groups

and organizations. Creativity and Innovation Management, 4(4), 232-241.

Runco, M. A. (1989). Parents' and teachers' ratings of the creativity of children. Journal of Social

Behavior & Personality, 4(1), 73-83.

Runco, M. A. (2010). Creativity has no dark side. In D. H. Cropley, A. J. Cropley, J. C. Kaufman

& M. A. Runco (Eds.), The Dark Side of Creativity. New York, NY: Cambridge

University Press.

Bias Against Creativity

Runco, M. A., & Smith, W. R. (1992). Interpersonal and intrapersonal evaluations of creative

ideas. Personality and Individual Differences, 13(3), 295-302.

Sanchez-Burks, J. (2005). Protestant relational ideology: The cognitive underpinnings and

organizational implications of an American anomaly. Research in organizational

behavior, 26, 265-305.

Simonton, D. K. (1984). Genius, Creativity, and Leadership: Histriometric Inquiries. Boston,

MA: Harvard University Press

Staw, B. M. (1995). Why no one really wants creativity. In C. Ford & D. A. Gioia (Eds.),

Creative Action in Organizations: Ivory Tower Visions and Real World Voices. Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Implicit theories of intelligence, creativity, and wisdom. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 49(3), 607-627.

Tiedens, L. Z., & Linton, S. (2001). Judgment under emotional certainty and uncertainty: The

effects of specific emotions on information processing. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 81(6), 973-988.

West, M. A. (2002). Ideas are ten a penny: It's team implementation not idea generation that

counts. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 51(3), 411-424.

Westby, E. L., & Dawson, V. L. (1995). Creativity: Asset or burden in the classroom? Creativity

Research Journal, 8(1), 1-10.

Whitson, J., & Galinsky, A. (2008). Lacking control increases illusory pattern perception.

Science, 322(5898), 115.

Zajonc, R. B. (2001). Mere exposure: A gateway to the subliminal. Current Directions in

Psychological Science, 10(6), 224-228.

Bias Against Creativity

Table 1. Descriptives for all major variables used in Experiment 1, N = 731

Mean SD 1 2 3

1. Openness to Experience

4.01

.65

2. Condition ( 1 = uncertainty, 0 = baseline)

.38

.43

.11

3. Explicit Bias

.06

.91

.32

.07

4. Implicit Bias

.09

.53

.25**

.35**

.29*

*p < .05; **p < .01

1uncertainty condition contained 28 participants and the baseline condition contained 45

participants

Bias Against Creativity

Table 2. Descriptives of all major variables used in Experiment 2, N = 1401

Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5

1. Openness to Experience

5.59

.99

2. Condition ( 1 = low tolerance for uncertainty, 0 = high

tolerance for uncertainty)

.50

.08

3. Uncertainty Feelings When Evaluating an Idea

4.12

1.30

.04

.20*

4. Explicit Bias

.21

.87

.23**

.01

5. Implicit Bias

.05

.46

.34**

.25**

.13

.20*

6. Creativity Rating

5.41

1.05

.20*

.33**

.01

.24**

.33**

*p < .05; **p < .01

170 participants were in the low tolerance for uncertainty condition, and 70 participants were in the high tolerance for uncertainty

condition

Greater psychological distance, better creative-idea selection: the mediating role of construal level

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2025

Background Creativity research has often focused on idea generation rather than the crucial process of idea selection, which is essential for identifying practical and innovative solutions. Previous studies suggest that individuals frequently struggle with effectively selecting creative ideas, often performing no better than random chance. Psychological distance, defined as the subjective perception of how close or distant an event is, can facilitate decision-making and creative cognition, offering a potential mechanism for enhancing creative-idea selection. Methods The research consists of four studies examining the effects of psychological distance on creative-idea selection and the mediating role of construal level in this relationship. Study 1a investigates the correlation between perceived psychological distance and idea-selection performance. Study 1b manipulates psychological distance to assess its effects on idea selection. Study 2 introduces the construal level as a mediating variable and tests a mediation model. Finally, Study 3 manipulates the construal level directly to confirm its causal relationship with creative-idea selection. Results Our results indicate that greater psychological distance is associated with higher originality in the selected ideas and an increased selection of optimal ideas. However, psychological distance does not significantly impact the usefulness of the ideas. Study 1a found a positive correlation between psychological distance and the originality of selected ideas. Study 1b further confirmed that manipulating psychological distance enhances the originality of selected ideas and increases the rate of optimal idea selection. Study 2 demonstrated that construal level mediates the relationship between psychological distance and idea selection, particularly influencing originality. Study 3 confirmed the causal role of construal level, showing that a higher-level construal mindset leads to the selection of more original ideas. Conclusions This research underscores the importance of psychological distance and construal level in creative-idea selection. Increasing psychological distance can enhance individuals’ ability to select more creative ideas by fostering higher-level construals. These findings offer practical implications for improving the creative selection processes in various contexts, suggesting that subtle cues (e.g., emphasizing future scenarios or abstract thinking) can help individuals make more effective creative choices.

Why do you think you are creative? An analysis of sources and correlates of creative self-concept judgements

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2025
Think Skills Creativ

Judging one's creativity compared to others is a complex task, which raises the question of what information people rely on when making these judgements. We studied a sample of 400 people who assessed their creativity on a percentile-type scale (0-100) relative to others (i.e., global creative self-concept; CSC), justified their judgements openly, and completed several other measures of CSC, real-life creativity, Big-5 personality as well as traits that are known to influence self-assessments (e.g., self-esteem, narcissism, and tendency for social comparison). The global CSC self-assessment was highly related to other domain-general CSC measures but still was associated more strongly with CSC in some domains (e.g., visual arts) compared to others (e.g., scientific creativity). Justifications of CSC self-assessments were analyzed in the context of Ban-dura's four sources of information, which revealed that mastery experience was the most salient source for these judgements. In fact, higher CSC was related to recalling more mastery experiences and mentioning fewer (often negative) vicarious experiences. Results further showed that CSC was correlated more to creative activities than to creative achievements, and was related to higher openness, self-esteem, self-concept clarity, narcissism and lower tendency for social comparisons. In sum, findings offer insights into how personal experiences, besides broader personality traits, contribute to viewing oneself as more versus less creative.

Centralization, Local Autonomy and Municipal Activism: A New Framework for Examining Relations Between Central and Local Government

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2025

This study offers a new framework for examining central–local government relations by distinguishing between two concepts that are usually combined: local autonomy and municipal activism. We define local or municipal autonomy as the legally defined powers and roles of local authorities, typically granted by law and state directives or reforms. Municipal activism consists of actions and decisions by local authorities that may challenge the formal boundaries of local autonomy, in a policy environment with certain attributes. This paper, using the example of Israel’s education system, examines how features of local autonomy as defined by law enhance and shape the emergence of municipal activism. We focus on the impact that incoherence and lack of clarity in legal guidance and directives may have on local policy actors’ decision making. The findings show that in uncertain and incoherent policy environments, local government tends toward municipal activism. However, the surprising findings challenge the prevailing assumptions regarding the connection between a municipality’s characteristics and its municipal activism. The findings can be applied to various policy domains, such as urban planning or sustainability policy, where the interplay between legal autonomy and municipal activism has become increasingly prevalent.

Measuring The Mediating Effect Of Family Role And Learnt Entrepreneurial Skills On Entrepreneurial Success

Research

Full-text available

Jan 2024

The study delves into the mediating role of "Family and Entrepreneurial Skill Sets" in the relationship between "Ease of Start-up and Entrepreneurial Success" within the domain of unorganized roadside food court businesses. Gathering 509 responses through four questionnaire scales-ease of start-up (11 items), entrepreneurial success (11 items), family role (8 items), and entrepreneurial skills (7 items)-the analysis utilized Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient, yielding values exceeding 0.86 for all scales, indicating their reliability. Employing structural equation modeling, linear regression, and Pearson correlation, alongside tests for discriminant validity using AVE, CR, and HTMT ratios, all values fell within acceptable ranges. Results underscore the significant mediating effects of family role and entrepreneurial abilities, evidenced by substantial "indirect effect" values (IDE=0.748 and IDE=0.712), surpassing direct impact values. Moreover, notable associations were found between "Ease of Start-up" and "Family Role," "Entrepreneurial Success," and "Entrepreneurial Skills," emphasizing the pivotal role of family involvement and entrepreneurial aptitude in the success of ventures within the unorganized roadside food court sector. The study underscores the necessity of a robust entrepreneurial mindset and requisite skill sets for the initiation and prosperity of new ventures in this domain.

Unethical Conduct Under Uncertainty: A Fear-Based Perspective

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2025

Rising uncertainty in the business environment has coincided with a significant increase in unethical behaviors within organizations, posing substantial financial and reputational risks. Unethical conduct is estimated to cost organizations around the world more than USD 4.5 trillion per year, impacting corporate financial stability, investor confidence, and market integrity. Traditional risk assessment and predictive models, which rely on historical data, often fail to account for behavioral responses to uncertainty, creating blind spots in financial risk management and economic forecasting. This paper advances the literature by applying experimental methodologies to investigate the underlying emotional, fear-based mechanisms (namely short-term focus and self-concern) impacting decision-making under uncertainty. By utilizing two distinct types of experimental studies (comprising three studies in total), we empirically examine how uncertainty influences the types of unethical behaviors that are prevalent in today’s organizations. Our findings contribute to the fields of financial risk management and behavioral economics by offering evidence-based insights into the psychological drivers of unethical decision-making. We conclude with managerial implications, outlining proactive strategies to mitigate the financial and operational risks associated with individuals’ responses to uncertainty.

Work Orientation’s Impact on Layperson Ratings of Creativity, Intelligence, Conscientiousness, and Hiring Likelihood

Preprint

Full-text available

Jan 2025

Most previous studies on creativity and motivation looked into the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on creativity. However, there have been newer motivation approaches related to work orientation and needs that may offer a chance to gain new insight into how people think about creativity. The present study used a hypothetical hiring scenario to assess layperson beliefs about creativity, conscientiousness, intelligence, and the likelihood of hiring potential candidates who endorsed one of six work orientations (Job, Career, Calling, Kinship, Passion, and Autonomy). In addition, the study accounted for potential domain effects by differentiating between art-and business-related hiring contexts. Data were gathered among 279 university students (62% females). The results suggested that hiring likelihood and ratings of a hypothetical employee's intelligence and conscientiousness were more associated with the orientations of Calling, Career, and Passion; however, creativity was more associated with Autonomy. Job orientation received the lowest ratings for all rated qualities. The findings were mostly consistent across domains of arts and business. Nonetheless, the relationship between hiring probability and hypothetical employees' creativity and intelligence did vary by domain. We discuss the implications of the results and outline fruitful directions for future research

Empowerment or disempowerment: The influence of using AI on creative personality

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2024

Creative personality is often considered stable and unique. However, when artificial intelligence (AI) participates in creative tasks, the “digital authority” role of AI may cause automation bias in human use of AI, making it difficult for humans to maintain a leading role in creativity, even with a creative personality. Yet, significant research gaps persist. First, the organizational personality literature is dominated by the classic dispositional view that personality traits are stable. Second, despite calls to promote research on the impact of AI on personality traits, the field lacks theoretical and empirical research. Our knowledge regarding the effects of AI on human creative personality and its underlying mechanisms is notably limited. Considering the above calls and limitations, this study adopts a developmental perspective on personality to clarify the impact of using AI in creative work on creative personality. Specifically, it encompasses three distinct sub-studies. Study 1 reveals the mechanisms by which the use of AI mediates creative personality. By drawing on the concepts of "I can" and "I should", we examine the negative effects of using AI and automation bias on creative self-efficacy and creative role identity. Study 2 explores the long-term effects of using AI and automation bias on individual creative personality. Furthermore, study 3 investigates the effectiveness of self-leadership, focusing on how individuals defend their innovative subjectivity. This study makes three primary theoretical contributions. First, this study emphasizes the long-term effects of AI on creative personality. Although the potential influence of using AI on creativity has emerged as a prominent research topic, much of the focus has been on the impact of AI on the creative process, creative outcomes, and creative environment. Studies have shown that using AI can both foster and hinder creativity. Building on this, our research highlights a significant, yet potentially overlooked, drawback of using AI. It contributes to a more nuanced and complete picture of how emerging technologies can shape an individual's creative personality. This study posits that using AI may engender an individual's automation bias, which could disrupt the positive pathways of "I can create” and "I should create", ultimately diminishing individual creative personality. By doing so, we extend the literature on the negative effects of AI on creative personality and remind human beings of their unique roles as primary agents in creative work. Second, this study introduces self-leadership as an effective strategy for reaffirming humans as the central agents of creativity. Prevailing research often positions AI at the core of creative work, inadvertently obscuring the subjectivity of human beings. This study, however, asserts that although AI has a certain degree of autonomy, human beings remain the essential protagonists in creative work. To this end, this study proposes a strategy of internal control that reinforces the subject position of human creativity, fundamentally shifting from external organizational supervision to self-regulation. By embracing self-leadership, individuals can counteract the tendencies towards "cognitive saving" and social loafing, thereby preventing the degradation of creative personality that arises from using AI. In this way, this study reveals a pathway to counteract the negative effects of AI on creative personality, thereby optimizing the benefits of AI applications on creativity. Third, this study builds an overall theoretical model that encapsulates the impact of using AI on creative personality, the underlying mechanisms, and potential countermeasures. Prior research has predominantly examined how individuals with different personality traits respond to AI and the compatibility between personality traits and AI. However, there is still limited understanding about how AI affects individual personality traits as AI becomes more integrated into creative work. AI, with its exceptional capabilities, dynamism, and autonomy, stands out as a unique factor affecting creativity. Considering that particularity, there is an urgent need for a thorough and detailed theoretical framework. To this end, the theoretical model of this study encompasses the long-term effects of using AI on creative personality, elucidates the underlying mechanisms, and proposes effective coping strategies. In summary, our theoretical framework aims to provide scholars with a more comprehensive and profound understanding of how using AI influences individual creative personality, while also offering guidance on how to prevent the erosion of human creativity and avoid becoming subservient to AI.

Creative self-efficacy and its relationship to peer feedback

Article

Feb 2025
INNOV EDUC TEACH INT

Creativity for Teachers: A Cognitive Science Approach

Book

Feb 2025

Social Capital and National Innovativeness – The Influence of Trust and Tolerance on the National Capacity to Innovate

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2025

While national innovativeness is of pivotal relevance for economic development, so far, relatively little attention has been paid to the social drivers of innovativeness. Thus, the role of social norms and values as drivers of innovativeness is somewhat blurry. Tackling this gap, the article at hand reflects the concepts of social capital, trust, and tolerance, before a model of social capital and innovativeness is developed and tested empirically, followed by the presentation and discussion of the results and a brief conclusion.

Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes, Self-Esteem, and Stereotypes

Article

Full-text available

Jan 1995

Social behavior is ordinarily treated as being under conscious (if not always thoughtful) control. However, considerable evidence now supports the view that social behavior often operates in an implicit or unconscious fashion. The identifying feature of implicit cognition is that past experience influences judgment in a fashion not introspectively known by the actor. The present conclusion—that attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes have important implicit modes of operation—extends both the construct validity and predictive usefulness of these major theoretical constructs of social psychology. Methodologically, this review calls for increased use of indirect measures—which are imperative in studies of implicit cognition. The theorized ordinariness of implicit stereotyping is consistent with recent findings of discrimination by people who explicitly disavow prejudice. The finding that implicit cognitive effects are often reduced by focusing judges’ attention on their judgment task provides a basis for evaluating applications (such as affirmative action) aimed at reducing such unintended discrimination.

Understanding and Using the Implicit Association Test: I. An Improved Scoring Algorithm

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2003

In reporting Implicit Association Test (IAT) results, researchers have most often used scoring conventions described in the first publication of the IAT (A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGhee, & J. L. K. Schwartz, 1998). Demonstration IATs available on the Internet have produced large data sets that were used in the current article to evaluate alternative scoring procedures. Candidate new algorithms were examined in terms of their (a) correlations with parallel self-report measures, (b) resistance to an artifact associated with speed of responding, (c) internal consistency, (d) sensitivity to known influences on IAT measures, and (e) resistance to known procedural influences. The best-performing measure incorporates data from the IAT's practice trials, uses a metric that is calibrated by each respondent's latency variability, and includes a latency penalty for errors. This new algorithm strongly outperforms the earlier (conventional) procedure.

Mood and Memory

Article

Full-text available

Feb 1981

Gordon Bower

Describes experiments in which happy or sad moods were induced in Ss by hypnotic suggestion to investigate the influence of emotions on memory and thinking. Results show that (a) Ss exhibited mood-state-dependent memory in recall of word lists, personal experiences recorded in a daily diary, and childhood experiences; (b) Ss recalled a greater percentage of those experiences that were affectively congruent with the mood they were in during recall; (c) emotion powerfully influenced such cognitive processes as free associations, imaginative fantasies, social perceptions, and snap judgments about others' personalities; (d) when the feeling-tone of a narrative agreed with the reader's emotion, the salience and memorability of events in that narrative were increased. An associative network theory is proposed to account for these results. In this theory, an emotion serves as a memory unit that can enter into associations with coincident events. Activation of this emotion unit aids retrieval of events associated with it; it also primes emotional themata for use in free association, fantasies, and perceptual categorization. (54 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Why No One Really Wants Creativity

Article

Full-text available

Jan 1995

Barry M. Staw

In Praise of Convergent Thinking

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2006

Arthur Cropley

Free production of variability through unfettered divergent thinking holds out the seductive promise of effortless creativity, but runs the risk of generating only quasi-creativity or pseudo-creativity if it is not adapted to reality. Thus, creative thinking seems to involve two components: generation of novelty (via divergent thinking) and evaluation of the novelty (via convergent thinking). In the area of convergent thinking, knowledge is of particular importance: It is a source of ideas, suggests pathways to solutions, and provides criteria of effectiveness and novelty. The way in which the two kinds of thinking work together can be understood in terms of thinking styles or of phases in the generation of creative products. In practical situations, divergent thinking without convergent thinking can cause a variety of problems including reckless change. None the less, care must be exercised by those who sing the praises of convergent thinking: Both too little and too much is bad for creativity.

Creativity Has No Dark Side

Article

Jun 2010

Mark A. Runco

Creativity does not have a dark side. Creative products and efforts can be malevolent, but that is apparent in their impact and is not an inherent quality of creativity nor a requisite trait in the creative personality. Claiming that there is a dark side to creativity is much like arguing that hammers are evil because they can be used to dismantle as well as construct things. Creativity is indeed in some ways a tool of humanity, but of course that is merely a metaphor and, as such, only imperfectly applicable. The important point is that the process that underlies all creative things is not moral or immoral, ethical or unethical, good or evil. It is essentially blind. Like a tool, it can be applied in many different ways, some of which are benevolent and some of which are unethical and immoral, but to understand creativity it is best to be parsimonious and leave out what is extraneous, and that includes all possible effects. This chapter develops this view of parsimonious creativity and describes the ostensible dark side as a function of values and decisions that are ancillary to actual creative work. There is no denying that creative talents have in the past been used in highly unfortunate ways. Many famous examples of this have been described by McLaren (1993), Stein (1993), and the authors of others chapters in this volume.

Consensual Assessment

Chapter

Dec 2011

Creativity research has moved from an almost exclusive emphasis on the creative person towards a more balanced inquiry that centers on both individual difference issues and questions about the nature of creative products and the conditions that facilitate their creation. Over 30 years of research show that product creativity can be reliably and validly assessed based on the consensus of experts. The Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT) proposes that independent raters familiar with a product domain, persons who have not conferred with one another or received special training, are best able to decide whether one product is more creative than another. Although product creativity may be difficult to characterize, it is something that people can recognize and agree upon when they see it.

Creativity: Asset or Burden in the Classroom?

Article

Jan 1995
CREATIVITY RES J

Erik L. Westby

Two studies were conducted to examine teachers' perceptions of creative students. Study 1 was based on earlier works that identified personality characteristics associated with creativity. The prototypicality of these characteristics as they applied to creative children was rated by college students. Elementary school teachers were then asked to rate their favorite and least favorite students based on these characteristics, There was a significant difference between the teachers' judgments of their favorite and least favorite students on these measures. Judgments for the favorite student were negatively correlated with creativity; judgments for the least favorite student were positively correlated with creativity. Students displaying creative characteristics appear to be unappealing to teachers. Study 2 explored the conflict between the results of Study 1 and teachers' self-reports that they enjoy working with creative children. Teachers' concepts of creativity were different from concepts that have guided previous research. In a reanalysis of data from Study 1 employing the teacher-generated creativity prototype, there was a tendency (though nonsignificant) for the favorite students to be more similar to the creative prototype than the least favorite students. Areas of divergence in concepts of creativity and the implications for the promotion of creativity in education are discussed.

Factors Influencing Creativity in the Domain of Managerial Decision Making

Article

Aug 2000

This study examines factors that influence the creativity of managers’ decisions. A domain-based, evolutionary model that describes the influence of context on creative action is combined with a teleological model of creative managerial decision making derived from the strategy formulation and organizational decision process literatures. Results show that two key dimensions of managerial creativity, the novelty and the value of choices, were affected by markedly different factors. Surprisingly, influences on the novelty of managers’ choices were essentially independent of influences on the value of those choices. Overall, this study represents an initial attempt to describe and empirically examine processes that affect the creativity of executives’ choices.

Protestant Relational Ideology: The cognitive underpinnings and organizational implications of an American anomaly

Article

Dec 2004
RES ORGAN BEHAV

Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks

Cross-national comparisons of relational work styles suggest that the United States is an anomaly in its low relational focus. This article describes Protestant Relational Ideology (PRI), a cultural construct that explains the origins and nature of this anomaly. This construct refers to a deep-seated belief that affective and relational concerns are considered inappropriate in work settings and, therefore, are to be given less attention than in social, non-work settings. Akin to an institutional imprinting perspective, a review of sociological and historical research links PRI to the beliefs and practices of the founding communities of American society. A social cognition perspective is used to explain the mechanisms through which PRI influences American relational workways. The article also describes a program of research that uses PRI to address a wider set of organizational behavior issues that include: antecedents of prejudice and discrimination in diverse organizations; sources of intercultural miscommunication; beliefs about team conflict; mental models of “professionalism” and its effect on organizational recruitment and selection.