People usually associate creativity with positive things, like producing beautiful art, scientific breakthroughs or successful new innovations.
But creativity might also have a dark side.
Research from 2012 suggests that people with higher creativity were more likely to be dishonest than less creative people.
This was based on a number of different experiments:
- Workers in an advertising agency who reported their own job required high levels of creativity, and their managers also considered creative, were more likely to align themselves with survey questions indicating dishonesty (like stealing office supplies)
- Study participants with higher creativity scores were more likely to cheat in a series of tests to earn more money (while participants with high intelligence were no more likely to cheat)
- Study participants who were primed to think creatively also were then more likely to behave dishonestly
Further experiments then tried to find out why creative people may be more willing to be dishonest.
The reason found was that more creative people are better able to justify their unethical behaviour.
They may be better able to come up with original justifications to themselves why it was OK to behave in a dishonest way, or at least were more confident in their ability to justify it if they were to be caught.
In a previous podcast episode, we heard about research into malevolent creativity. Now, there is more evidence that not all creativity is positive.
Nick Skillicorn
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Consider their reality. In the real world if you suggest something we call creative. The first words you will hear in most cases. That not now thins work. Even when what they are doing is failing or not producing the results they are looking for. They will not even try. Especially if it going to impact the short term revenue or the influence of a privileged few. So to help you cannot always be up front,but to help it always cost the creator what every they are welling try to in most cases help do what the experts could not with money. Yet when proven, will always leave the creator behind. As hen/she is seen as a threat. As they always try to attach self interest to the the solution, only to realize to late all they did was limit the sustainable future of their community. Found it always require three tripys and a bout a decade to introduce sustainable change for all the community. Now just for a privileged few that allowed money and self interest drive the agenda to an unsustainable future for every including the community but not for a privileged few in most case ,not all. As they were trained this is the way iit always worked. So why change.