
Original Thinkers Can Be More Dishonest [pdf] (2011) - sergeant3
https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-102-3-445.pdf
======
droithomme
This paper uses the Gough Creativity Scale to measure creativity in
participants.

The Gough Creativity Scale asks people to check the adjectives that apply to
them.

If you check "Honest" that is -1 for your creativity rating.

These results are built into the pre-assumptions of the self-assessment metric
the study used for a creative rating.

Therefore the study uses circular reasoning and is invalid.

~~~
thaumasiotes
That's a bias, but it's not sufficient to guarantee that the highest
"creativity" scores show a lower prevalence of self-reported honesty than the
lower scores. It could easily be the other way around.

If I measured creativity in a group of test subjects using the Gough
Creativity Scale and found that, e.g., the people in the top 10% of measured
creativity were Honest at double the rate of the bottom 90%, would that
finding be invalid because of the design of the Gough Creativity Scale?

------
pella
#1. "Evil Genius? How Dishonesty Can Lead to Greater Creativity"

Psychological Science published online 18 February 2014

 _" Abstract: We propose that dishonest and creative behavior have something
in common: They both involve breaking rules. Because of this shared feature,
creativity may lead to dishonesty (as shown in prior work), and dishonesty may
lead to creativity (the hypothesis we tested in this research). In five
experiments, participants had the opportunity to behave dishonestly by
overreporting their performance on various tasks. They then completed one or
more tasks designed to measure creativity. Those who cheated were subsequently
more creative than noncheaters, even when we accounted for individual
differences in their creative ability (Experiment 1). Using random assignment,
we confirmed that acting dishonestly leads to greater creativity in subsequent
tasks (Experiments 2 and 3). The link between dishonesty and creativity is
explained by a heightened feeling of being unconstrained by rules, as
indicated by both mediation (Experiment 4) and moderation (Experiment 5)"_

[https://msbfile03.usc.edu/digitalmeasures/wiltermu/intellcon...](https://msbfile03.usc.edu/digitalmeasures/wiltermu/intellcont/Evil%20Genius-1.pdf)
( pdf )

\---

#2. "Computational Evidence that Self-regulation of Creativity is Good for
Society" 11 Aug 2014

[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1408.2512.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1408.2512.pdf) ( pdf
)

------
delish
My anecdotal experience:

In games with "choice" and "morals" (Fable, Black and White, The Sims) I often
chose evil. Evil choices attracted me more. From this study, I'm thinking they
might be more creative. I call myself a "programmer" and think myself a
"creative," not a "software engineer."

By contrast, my dad and some of my friends went for the good guys in video
games, and they don't call themselves creatives.

Just anecdote. Still this study offers an explanation for something that's
bugged me for years: how am I attracted to evil choices in video games?

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larrymcp
I have in fact noticed that most of my friends are more honest than me.
Everybody seems generally more candid, more honorable, more trustworthy than
myself.

So I can see the day coming where I'm gonna have to face the facts and admit
I'm a big phony.

------
contingencies
Correlation is not causation.

~~~
thesimpsons1022
true. but either way this is an interesting correlation. No one said it
implied causation.

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charleyramm
I take that as a compliment.

