Are People Biased Against Creativity?

How to win over naysayers and create your thing

It seems that for every story of wild creative success, there is another about a future brilliant idea being ridiculed and viewed as absurd.

The surprising thing about much of this type of criticism is that it comes from within a field of apparently like-minded individuals. Artists closed off to new art; scientists closed off to new ideas; or businesses that turn away from new and potentially profitable endeavours.

Why does this happen? Aren’t these people supposed to be creative too? Doesn’t this mean they should entertain a good idea when they see one?

People appear to be motivated to do this when they feel a need to reduce uncertainty in a situation. This is an impulse that is somewhat paradoxical because, citing Audia & Goncalo (2007), the researchers note that uncertainty also causes people to desire the production of creative ideas.

They also found that under circumstances of high uncertainty, people associate negative words like ‘poison’ and ‘vomit’ more with creativity than with keeping the status quo.

This is a paradox that many have firsthand experience with, especially in the business world. Many of us have been in situations where our bosses espouse the virtues of creativity and implore us to be creative problem solvers and, yet, when we generate a creative solution anyone disregards it that could act on it.

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