Posted on 09/01/2011 10:17:10 PM PDT by Kevmo
People are biased against creative ideas, studies find
Goncalo
By Mary Catt
The next time your great idea at work elicits silence or eye rolls, you might just pity those co-workers. Fresh research indicates they don't even know what a creative idea looks like and that creativity, hailed as a positive change agent, actually makes people squirm .
"How is it that people say they want creativity but in reality often reject it?" said Jack Goncalo, ILR School assistant professor of organizational behavior and co-author of research to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science. The paper reports on two 2010 experiments at the University of Pennsylvania involving more than 200 people .
The studies' findings include:
Creative ideas are by definition novel, and novelty can trigger feelings of uncertainty that make most people uncomfortable.
People dismiss creative ideas in favor of ideas that are purely practical -- tried and true.
Objective evidence shoring up the validity of a creative proposal does not motivate people to accept it.
Anti-creativity bias is so subtle that people are unaware of it, which can interfere with their ability to recognize a creative idea.
For example, subjects had a negative reaction to a running shoe equipped with nanotechnology that adjusted fabric thickness to cool the foot and reduce blisters .
To uncover bias against creativity, the researchers used a subtle technique to measure unconscious bias -- the kind to which people may not want to admit, such as racism. Results revealed that while people explicitly claimed to desire creative ideas, they actually associated creative ideas with negative words such as "vomit," "poison" and "agony."
Goncalo said this bias caused subjects to reject ideas for new products that were novel and high quality .
"Our findings imply a deep irony," wrote the authors, who also included Jennifer Mueller of the University of Pennsylvania and Shimul Melwani of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill .
Uncertainty drives the search for and generation of creative ideas, but "uncertainty also makes us less able to recognize creativity, perhaps when we need it most," the researchers wrote. "Revealing the existence and nature of a bias against creativity can help explain why people might reject creative ideas and stifle scientific advancements, even in the face of strong intentions to the contrary. ... The field of creativity may need to shift its current focus from identifying how to generate more creative ideas to identify how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity."
The study, "The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas," might validate the frustrations of creative people, Goncalo said .
Mary Catt is assistant director of communications at the ILR School .
Oh B.S. If people were really biased against creative ideas Obama would not be the president.
Funny... when I was in design school, the students who were slack or came up with ideas that were negatively critiqued (usually because of, shall we say, “implementation problems”) were the ones who always ranted about how the professors just didn’t understand their particular brand of creative genius.
I believe it. Just try suggesting to 100 people that government schools should be abolished, and see how many people are even interested in discussing it vs. how many will vehemently argue that the idea is “crazy.”
Hmmm, reminds me of a “crazy” idea I posted.
___________________________________________________________________
Here’s my modest proposal for education reform.
We have been discussing ways to fast track kids through high school to avoid the liberal agenda and other idiocies:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1315730/posts?page=84#84
Proposal for the Free Republic High School Diploma.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1316882/posts
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To Mary Catt: Should you happen to read this , I think that “ - - - to identify how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity.” - - - “ puts y’all on the wrong, and dead end path.
Y’alls other tested speculations might be right but I’ve looked at them and they all turn out to be minor factors. Try repetition testing on the same speculation and I think y’all see what I mean.
In my humble, but ALWAYS correct opinion, the very last entities to recognize creativity will be institutions. That is why they are called Institutions!
What y’all need to do is pursue testing of the speculation that a creative idea triggers the “ flight or fight response” vs the “ fight or flight response” for various subgroups of a given population: sex, age, income, ethnic, peers, profession, education, religion, politics, etc. Then test vs the populations, etc., Nations, Past National Cultures ( Salem, Mass. might do ).
Join FR and ping me when the results are done. Been working on this problem for a very long time, so I hope this helps.
Here’s my “creative” idea..
Impeach this idiot kenyan president and allow normal Americans to prosper on their own.
As a very creative person and someone who also has worked high level management jobs, I have found the creative stuff to freak most people out, even in the arts—except in music. Music is now one of my full time gigs along with martial arts. Martial arts is another area that people can be in awe of creative solutions because it astounds the ‘enemy’ who doesn’t expect to get their ass beat in just that way. lol.
By the way met Breitbart on a flight out of LA a few weeks ago. Cool dude. Husband just happened to be listing to his book on the ipad when he passed by. Hope all is well in LA my FRiend.
People hear a new idea and if it is instantly understandable and appealing, they like it. If it's something that's a radical shift, they wisely think about it before committing or rejecting it.
I guess I just don't see the news here.
I think that this article hits the nail on the head. It seems that even though our situation in this country is pretty drastic most people don’t want anything “too extreme”. It doesn’t matter that extreme is what is needed when the ship is sinking. Most people are such sheep it is pathetic. They think everything will always go on the same way as it has no matter what and therefore what is known will do just fine. They won’t wake up until it is too late unless some kind miracle from God happens.
Hey, I am womenfolk and I am almost always the one with the new ideas. Usually they are shot down on the spot but are also implemented later after their own agenda has failed them once again. Not one person says or will acknowledge that it was my idea in the first place. I don't bother to remind them because it wouldn't make any difference anyway. At least something is getting done in a better way.
Perfect counterpoint to the article that shows it works both ways. Slacker/idiots can't appreciate/understand good ideas but think the garbage from their own minds is brilliant (Obama anyone?) and the real inventors/designers will appreciate good ideas/inventions because they can be inspired to be more creative, while spurning the obvious garbage ideas.
Back in the day... Oh my how that sounds like my dad and granddad. Anyways back when I was a productive worker in the work force I was always running into the NIH, (Not Invented Here), syndrome.
Eventually I came up with a pretty good method of getting the ‘bosses’ to accept new and/or innovative ideas. I would get them to think that they had posed the idea/solution themselves in an brainstorming meeting several months earlier.
One of them was so into the latest Fad idea that it was pretty easy to do. You know like this:
Me: You know boss I’ve been thinking about what you said a couple of month’s ago and I think you had a darn good idea.
Boss: Really? I’m glad you liked it. How long do you think it will take to implement it?
Me: I’m not sure, let me crunch the numbers and I’ll let you know next week at our scheduled meeting.
Boss: Sounds good, I knew you’d come around and agree with me.
Me: Yep, your correct as usual Sir.
Just out of curiosity, when was this?
In the 60s, when I was in art school, crit transitioned from private portfolio review by the instructor to group crit in public by the class.
My experience was that the group crit became more and more personal and even vicious. There was a lot of male fury over competitive women. Crit became less and less constructive and more and more about boosting the position of person delivering the analysis.
The private crit wasn’t always fair, of course. Many instructors were hidebound and all were male. But that approach was rarely about destroying the opposition.
Implementation is an issue. Designing and carrying out production is as important as the idea itself and marketing is, as well. I often come across wonderful items online and then discover they were simply graduate design thesis that no one ever took any further.
I have always just gone ahead with my own ideas and just prototyped them as best I could. If they costed out, I went to limited production and market tests. If not, then not. Even the rejects usually had some degree of utility and often that was incorporated later on as different processes/materials became available or as markets changed. There is something to be learned from every failure.
Two axioms that apply are:
Never be the first in the market with a revolutionary product/idea.
If everyone loves your idea, it will probably fail. If everyone tells you it is crazy and won’t fly, it will probably succeed.
Creativity will always out, IMO. But it really isn’t something that can be held up for a group vote. Back in the early 70s, an adviser told me that only 5% of art students ever succeeded in the real world. I personally think the number is closer to 2%.
Is this study trying to run interference for the upcoming "jobs proposal" speech?
It's so creative and so brilliant that people will be turned off of it because of their unconscious bias, not because it's a stupid idea.
No need to wait for the upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science.
Now why would this "reporter" pull this months old rabbit out of the hat now?
People aren't stupid.
As an engineer who has made a career on creative ideas, I say B.S. People, myself included, are biased against new unproven ideas, obvious brain farts, and potential scams.
Any new idea deserves to be thoroughly and soundly thrashed in every possible way in order to weed out the errors and SCAMS. Good and useful ideas will survive and stand on their own legs.
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