Managing The Psychological Bias Against Creativity

You come up with a great new idea at work, or at home. Or a political leader actually tries something “new and different” when faced with a previously intractable problem. But then, rather than grateful acceptance, or even a fair hearing, the idea is squashed, ridiculed, or otherwise ignored.

Sound familiar? It should. As anyone who has ever suggested a creative solution knows, people often avoid the uncomfortable uncertainty of novel solutions regardless of potential benefit. Creativity, no matter how much we say we like it, frequently elicits what my grandmother used to warn about, “too smart is half stupid” (for a current illustration look no further than the Obama administration).

Now, new research, soon to appear in Psychological Science, titled “The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas” empirically documents how our resistance to uncertainty makes the “old ways” far stickier than they should be given the practical benefits of creative, new solutions. Once again, the biases built into our minds leave us simultaneously moving in opposite directions; we like creativity but avoid creative ideas because creative ideas are too, in a word, creative.

What this means in practical terms is that if a solution to an obstinate problem doesn’t make you feel at least a little uncomfortable, then it is likely to be something that has been previously tried and found wanting. Of course, finding yourself uncomfortable when presented with a creative, new solution does not mean that the new solution automatically has value. In fact, we’re built to be wary of uncertainty and novelty for very good reasons: sometimes creative solutions are profoundly wrong-headed. However, the absence of discomfort can indicate that you may indeed be once again trying to do the same thing while hoping for a different result.

People have different levels of tolerance for uncertainty. But by making such discomfort expectable you just may be able to search for and adopt potentially useful creative solutions that would have otherwise been dismissed. Many people say they rely on “instincts,” what “feels right,” their “gut.” This research does not suggest changing that. But it does suggest that it may be time to recalibrate, time to recognize that something may be the right decision because it feels a little wrong. In fact, not feeling a little uncomfortable in decision making, thinking you’ve got the problem licked, may be itself a dangerous illusion, a warning sign that you’re slipping into the comfort of the unsuccessful familiar rather than striving for the discomfort of potentially useful creativity.

I can’t resist a favorite old tale because when it comes to solving previously intractable problems, the campfire story about silent mosquitoes applies.  It goes something like this (and this is just a story, one meant to entertain kids, it’s not entomology): “If you’re ever in your tent and you hear a mosquito buzzing around your ear, don’t worry, that’s the female mosquito and they don’t bite. Only the male mosquito bites, and they don’t buzz. So, if you’re ever in your tent and you don’t hear something buzzing, well, that’s when you have to worry.” So, if you are ever solving problem for which a creative solution might be useful and you don’t hear a little buzzing discomfort, well, that’s when you should worry.