Management Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 3620 Locust Walk, Ste. 2000, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Psychol Sci. 2012 Jan 1;23(1):13-7. doi: 10.1177/0956797611421018. Epub 2011 Nov 29.
People often reject creative ideas, even when espousing creativity as a desired goal. To explain this paradox, we propose that people can hold a bias against creativity that is not necessarily overt and that is activated when people experience a motivation to reduce uncertainty. In two experiments, we manipulated uncertainty using different methods, including an uncertainty-reduction prime. The results of both experiments demonstrated the existence of a negative bias against creativity (relative to practicality) when participants experienced uncertainty. Furthermore, this bias against creativity interfered with participants' ability to recognize a creative idea. These results reveal a concealed barrier that creative actors may face as they attempt to gain acceptance for their novel ideas.
人们常常会否定有创意的想法，即便他们本身就提倡创新。为了解释这个矛盾，我们提出人们可能对创造力存在一种无意识的偏见，而这种偏见只有在人们需要降低不确定性时才会被激活。在两个实验中，我们通过不同的方法来操纵不确定性，包括使用减少不确定性的启动。两个实验的结果都表明，当参与者感到不确定时，他们会对创造力产生负面的偏见（相对于实用性而言）。此外，这种对创造力的偏见会干扰参与者识别创意的能力。这些结果揭示了一个隐藏的障碍，即有创造力的人在试图为他们的新想法获得认可时可能会面临的障碍。
