

People are biased against creative ideas, studies find - tokenadult
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug11/ILRCreativityBias.html

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ary
In case you're interested in reading the actual study here's a link to the
PDF. Why the article didn't link to it directly is a mystery to me.

[http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...](http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1457&context=articles&sei-
redir=1)

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bane
I've observed this as well and I think I've recently glommed onto an idea that
seems to explain it.

Most people operate in their day-to-day via procedures. They learn that to
accomplish task X, they do A then B then C.

Creative ideas require a procedure-less thinking process (or at least one
where the procedure is not all that important so long as X is accomplished).

Most of the time I've hit resistance to a creative idea is because it requires
people to learn new procedures to implement the idea. "You mean to accomplish
X I should do A then D _then_ F? What's wrong with A, B then C?"

Even in the face of evidence that the new idea might be easier, or faster, or
as a side-effect _also_ accomplish task Y, people simply don't want to take
the mental effort to learn the new process.

Creative thinking is just not highly valued among the vast majority of
humanity and it's a very hard sell.

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ChrisNorstrom
I always thought it was evolutionary. To be afraid of change and new things
because new things bring unforeseen consequences. Better to stick with what
works, picking berries in this bush, rather than venture across the river to
get to the other bushes and risk being eaten by something.

Also, I remember a study done a long time ago on primates on an island. They
all had a very specific way of opening coconuts or whatever, that they taught
their young and each other, it wasn't very effective. So the researchers
taught one of the primates a new and better way of opening a coconut and
released him back with the others. Even though they others could clearly see
that his way of opening coconuts was better and easier, the group stuck with
the ways of the old. Perhaps because they wanted to conform and not stand out.
Little by little a large number of them started using the new method over
time. And when a certain percentage of them were using the new method the
others converted as well. Lesson: We do what we do because society tells us
to.

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entangld
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good,
you'll have to ram them down people's throats. -- Howard Aiken

~~~
chegra
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or
more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a
new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by
the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by
the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries
… and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in
anything new until they have had actual experience of it."

– Niccolo Machiavelli

~~~
wisty
Julia Gillard (Australian Prime Minister, who's getting voted out for trying
to introduce a Carbon Tax and use the money to reform income taxes) really
needed to hear that.

~~~
Evgeny
On the other hand, if your idea generates a lot of hostility it does not
necessarily mean that it's creative or beneficial.

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famousactress
It's not that surprising it it? Most new ideas are unproductive (not to
suggest that having them is!). Makes sense that we'd develop a resistance to
them as a defense mechanism.

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hasenj
The study sounds dubious. (Though I do agree with the conclusion, but for
other reasons).

> 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.

As if no reasonable person could ever have a negative reaction to that? I hope
this wasn't their only test.

Personally, I think most people are biased against creative ideas because most
people are concrete thinkers (as opposed to abstract thinkers). Their motto in
life is "better the evil you know". Now all you have to do is test people on
whether they're abstract or concrete thinkers, then correlate that to how they
react to new ideas. I think you will find most concrete thinkers will react
negatively to creative ideas that haven't been tried before.

~~~
sadlyNess
>Goncalo said this bias caused subjects to reject ideas for new products that
were novel and high quality.

Article lost me here. Because its hard to judge an idea as 'novel and high
quality' in prospect. They should have used an idea that's proven but unknown
to the test subjects.Makes the study harder but you end up with more concrete
proof.

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teamonkey
I've experienced this problem in focus testing.

"What do you think of this new idea?"

\- "I don't like that, it's not something I'd want. I think it would be
pointless."

<lets them try a demo>

\- "Wow, this is amazing!"

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tcarnell
For me it is rewarding to here these findings written on paper. I am forever
generating ideas and am continuously faced with awkard silences as people are
not sure whether to laugh or congratulate me - it seems true, many people are
unable to distinguish a good idea from a bad one (although the article talks
specifically about 'creativity').

NB: In many occasions laughing maybe the most appropriate option!

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Alex3917
SciFi idea: An alternate universe where people are able to recognize talented
people and quality work/ideas when they see them. Society quickly collapses.

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TeMPOraL
"People dismiss creative ideas in favor of ideas that are purely practical --
tried and true."

What about practical, creative ideas, aka. hacks and lifehacks? Most of the
people I know dismiss any 'non-standard' solution unless you actually
implement it, and then force them to accept it. If you tell your idea before
actually realizing it, there's no way they'll let you.

Also reminds me of stories from "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - it
seems that Feynman experienced this first-hand as a child, when trying to
optimize some kitchen chores (one of the solutions is now sold in stores, and
nobody objects it now...).

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erikb
It is totally reasonable that people act like that. They already have
experience in how they solve their daily problems. So beside being highly
unlikely to work, new ideas also mean a cost of relearning old habits. This is
a big cost and people don't want to do that. Actually we spent a lot of time
and energy to not need to relearn our habits so often. Not having to pay this
cost is luxury or maybe even goal of life to many people.

~~~
helmut_hed
Yes! Sadly most of the new "visionary", "creative" ideas people try to
promulgate are, in fact, _bad_. Usually there's a reason things are done the
way they are, and the complexities of the current system are hard to
appreciate from the outside. So a bias against "creative" ideas may be
entirely appropriate.

Now, on the flip side, some creative ideas are awesome, and would be great,
but no one knows about them, and everyone is tired of suffering through the
99% that are fiascoes, so they resist them. It's a pity, but the response is a
reasonable one. Thus both the barriers to, and the rewards of, a truly
groundbreaking innovation are high, and the innovator is called upon to do a
lot of painful, frustrating, tedious selling of the idea.

~~~
erikb
Yeah it's really tedious to try to change something. It's a pitty people don't
value the work you've put into getting something done at all. I also
surprisingly saw, that people don't know how much trouble it is, because it
tends to look so easy to get something great done.

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7952
Some of us are deeply biased in favour of creativity. Isn't it possible that
this creates a backlash? Especially when lots of new ideas are actually
unproven. The best way to change things is incrementally in small steps. It is
ego that makes us think that we can just skip steps.

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pedalpete
Could this be another reason why 2nd mover in a field actually has an
advantage, above being able to learn from the first mover mistakes?

The first in the market educates, and all but a few say "I don't want that,
that's useless". Then a competitor arrives, and now the idea is no longer as
creative, it is now somewhat familiar, and a much smaller leap for people to
grasp.

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kul
Isn't that what makes them creative ideas? Else they'd be obvious.

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known
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Appeal_to_tra...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition)

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brianl
I think it also matters where the idea comes from: boss, peer, intern,
consultant, etc.

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entangld
I think this is the downside of intelligence. You see so many patterns you
start to believe that everything falls into one. New ideas are assumed to be
no better than old ones.

I don't think it should matter where an idea comes from. I read an article
from Fred Wilson that mentioned (in a good way) how surprised a CEO was to
find so many good ideas coming from customer service reps (who have the most
direct experience with customers). I won't assume you ignored interns, but I
think stereotyping by position is a good recipe for overlooking opportunities,
just to save yourself some mental fatigue.

~~~
dpe82
At my former employer (a commercial software division of a major electronics
manufacturer) my managers were dumbfounded when I suggested we ask the tech
support people for input when we did feature planning for the next version.

That was around the time I started thinking about finding somewhere else to
work.

