Inside the Box
The bias against creativity: Why people desire but reject creative ideas
Jennifer Mueller, Shimul Melwani & Jack Goncalo
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
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 which is activated when people experience a motivation to reduce uncertainty. In two studies, we measure and manipulate uncertainty using different methods including: discrete uncertainty feelings, and an uncertainty reduction prime. The results of both studies demonstrated a negative bias toward creativity (relative to practicality) when participants experienced uncertainty. Furthermore, the 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.
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Incentives and creativity: Evidence from the academic life sciences
Pierre Azoulay, Joshua Graff Zivin & Gustavo Manso
RAND Journal of Economics, Fall 2011, Pages 527-554
Abstract:
Despite its presumed role as an engine of economic growth, we know surprisingly little about the drivers of scientific creativity. We exploit key differences across funding streams within the academic life sciences to estimate the impact of incentives on the rate and direction of scientific exploration. Specifically, we study the careers of investigators of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), which tolerates early failure, rewards long-term success, and gives its appointees great freedom to experiment, and grantees from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), who are subject to short review cycles, predefined deliverables, and renewal policies unforgiving of failure. Using a combination of propensity-score weighting and difference-in-differences estimation strategies, we find that HHMI investigators produce high-impact articles at a much higher rate than a control group of similarly accomplished NIH-funded scientists. Moreover, the direction of their research changes in ways that suggest the program induces them to explore novel lines of inquiry.
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Melissa Schilling & Elad Green
Research Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
Some ideas have dramatically more impact than others - they may overturn existing paradigms or launch new areas of scientific inquiry. Where do such high impact ideas come from? Are some search processes significantly more likely to lead to breakthrough idea generation than others? In this research, we compare "high impact" papers from the social sciences with random-but-matched articles published in the same journals in the same years. We find that search scope, search depth, and atypical connections between different research domains significantly increase a paper's impact, even when controlling for the experience and prior publishing success of the author(s).
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Stepping back to see the big picture: When obstacles elicit global processing
Janina Marguc, Jens Förster & Gerben Van Kleef
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can obstacles prompt people to look at the "big picture" and open up their minds? Do the cognitive effects of obstacles extend beyond the tasks with which they interfere? These questions were addressed in 6 studies involving both physical and nonphysical obstacles and different measures of global versus local processing styles. Perceptual scope increased after participants solved anagrams in the presence, rather than the absence, of an auditory obstacle (random words played in the background; Study 1), particularly among individuals low in volatility (i.e., those who are inclined to stay engaged and finish what they do; Study 4). It also increased immediately after participants encountered a physical obstacle while navigating a maze (Study 3A) and when compared with doing nothing (Study 3B). Conceptual scope increased after participants solved anagrams while hearing random numbers framed as an "obstacle to overcome" rather than a "distraction to ignore" (Study 2) and after participants navigated a maze with a physical obstacle, compared with a maze without a physical obstacle, but only when trait (Study 5) or state (Study 6) volatility was low. Results suggest that obstacles trigger an "if obstacle, then start global processing" response, primarily when people are inclined to stay engaged and finish ongoing activities. Implications for dealing with life's obstacles and related research are discussed.
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"Fit": Field Experimental Evidence on Sorting, Incentives and Creative Worker Performance
Kevin Boudreau & Karim Lakhani
Harvard Working Paper, April 2011
Abstract:
We present the results of a 10-day field experiment in which over 500 elite software developers prepared solutions to the same computational algorithmic problem. Participants were divided into two groups with identical skills distributions and exposed to the same competitive institutional setting. The "sorted" group was composed of individuals who preferred the competitive regime instead of a team-based outside option. The "unsorted" group had population-average preferences for working in the regime or the outside option. We find this sorting on this basis of institutional preferences doubled effort and the performance of solutions - controlling for skills, monetary incentives and institutional details.
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Uncertainty forecasts improve weather-related decisions and attenuate the effects of forecast error
Susan Joslyn & Jared LeClerc
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although uncertainty is inherent in weather forecasts, explicit numeric uncertainty estimates are rarely included in public forecasts for fear that they will be misunderstood. Of particular concern are situations in which precautionary action is required at low probabilities, often the case with severe events. At present, a categorical weather warning system is used. The work reported here tested the relative benefits of several forecast formats, comparing decisions made with and without uncertainty forecasts. In three experiments, participants assumed the role of a manager of a road maintenance company in charge of deciding whether to pay to salt the roads and avoid a potential penalty associated with icy conditions. Participants used overnight low temperature forecasts accompanied in some conditions by uncertainty estimates and in others by decision advice comparable to categorical warnings. Results suggested that uncertainty information improved decision quality overall and increased trust in the forecast. Participants with uncertainty forecasts took appropriate precautionary action and withheld unnecessary action more often than did participants using deterministic forecasts. When error in the forecast increased, participants with conventional forecasts were reluctant to act. However, this effect was attenuated by uncertainty forecasts. Providing categorical decision advice alone did not improve decisions. However, combining decision advice with uncertainty estimates resulted in the best performance overall. The results reported here have important implications for the development of forecast formats to increase compliance with severe weather warnings as well as other domains in which one must act in the face of uncertainty.
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Nicole McNeil et al.
Child Development, September/October 2011, Pages 1620-1633
Abstract:
This study examined whether practice with arithmetic problems presented in a nontraditional problem format improves understanding of mathematical equivalence. Children (M age = 8;0; N = 90) were randomly assigned to practice addition in one of three conditions: (a) traditional, in which problems were presented in the traditional "operations on left side" format (e.g., 9 + 8 = 17); (b) nontraditional, in which problems were presented in a nontraditional format (e.g., 17 = 9 + 8); or (c) no extra practice. Children developed a better understanding of mathematical equivalence after receiving nontraditional practice than after receiving traditional practice or no extra practice. Results suggest that minor differences in early input can yield substantial differences in children's understanding of fundamental concepts.
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The past makes the present meaningful: Nostalgia as an existential resource
Clay Routledge et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, September 2011, Pages 638-652
Abstract:
The present research tested the proposition that nostalgia serves an existential function by bolstering a sense of meaning in life. Study 1found that nostalgia was positively associated with a sense of meaning in life. Study 2 experimentally demonstrated that nostalgia increases a sense of meaning in life. In both studies, the link between nostalgia and increased meaning in life was mediated by feelings of social connectedness. Study 3 evidenced that threatened meaning increases nostalgia. Study 4 illustrated that nostalgia, in turn, reduces defensiveness following a meaning threat. Finally, Studies 5 and 6 showed that nostalgia disrupts the link between meaning deficits and compromised psychological well-being. Collectively, these findings indicate that the provision of existential meaning is a pivotal function of nostalgia.
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Mirrors, mirrors on the wall ... the ubiquitous multiple reflection error
Rebecca Lawson
Cognition, forthcoming
Abstract:
Participants decided when somebody, Janine, could see their face in a horizontal row of adjacent mirrors mounted flat on the same wall. They saw real mirrors and a shop-dummy representing Janine. Such coplanar mirrors reflect different, non-overlapping areas of a scene. However, almost everybody made an unexpected error: they claimed that Janine would see her face reflected in multiple mirrors simultaneously. They therefore responded as if each mirror showed similar information and thus grossly overestimated how much each mirror revealed. Further studies established that this multiple reflection error also occurred for vertical rows of mirrors and for different areas of a single, large mirror. The error was even common if the participant themselves sat in front of a set of covered-up mirrors and indicated where they would be able to see their own reflection. In the latter case, people often made multiple reflection errors despite having seen all the mirrors uncovered immediately before they responded. People's gross overestimation of how much of a scene a mirror reflects and their inability to learn to correct this false belief explains why, despite a lifetime's experience of mirrors, they incorrectly think they will see themselves in all nearby mirrors.