An alligator's reaction to newness in its environment is to eat it, attack it, or run from it. Humans, like alligators and other reptiles, have a brain stem, the part of the brain that controls the fight/flight reaction. At New & Improved, we refer to the brain stem as the "gator brain." Reacting to newness or new ideas from the gator brain is a sure way to kill creativity in yourself and others around you. Humans are so quick to disregard new ideas that don't fit their conventional ways of thinking. If an idea does not fit what we know, our "gator brains" throw it away. We train people to shift from their "gator brain" to their neo-cortex where we can shape novelty into something useful.
There is some new research that shows that there is something else that kills creative ideas--a bias against novelty. In an article by Mary Catt, titled "People are biased against creative ideas, studies find", she reports findings from a research study, “The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas” (Goncalo, Mueller, Melwani) that will be published in a future issue of Psychological Science. The studies findings include:
- Creative ideas are by definition novel, and novelty can trigger feelings of uncertainty that make most people uncomfortable.
- People dismiss creative ideas in favor of ideas that are purely practical--tried and true.
- Objective evidence shoring up the validity of a creative proposal does not motivate people to accept it.
- Anti-creativity bias is so subtle that people are unaware of it, which can interfere with their ability to recognize a creative idea.
According to Goncalo, one of the researchers, "Revealing the existence and nature of a bias against creativity can explain why people might reject creative ideas and stifle scientific advancements, even in the face of strong intentions to the contrary. . .The field of creativity may need to shift its current focus from identifying how to generate more creative ideas to identify how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity.
So, it seems that individually, we need to learn to tame our "gator brains" and organizationally, we need to learn to create a climate that is more conducive to creativity and innovation.
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