Abstract
Understanding the factors that hinder support for creative ideas is important because creative ideas fuel innovation—a goal prioritized across the arts, sciences and business. Here we document one obstacle faced by creative ideas: as ideas become more novel—that is, they depart more from existing norms and standards—disagreement grows about their potential value. Specifically, across multiple contexts, using both experimental methods (four studies, total n = 1,801) and analyses of archival data, we find that there is more variability in judgements of the value of more novel (versus less novel) ideas. We also find that people interpret greater variability in others’ judgements about an idea’s value as a signal of risk, reducing their willingness to invest in the idea. Our findings show that consensus about an idea’s worth diminishes the newer it is, highlighting one reason creative ideas may fail to gain traction in the social world.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
De-identified participant data for all studies are permanently and publicly available on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/h3puf/. Source data are provided with this paper.
Code availability
The code to replicate the analyses in the manuscript and Supplementary Information is available permanently and publicly on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/h3puf/.
References
Baer, M. Putting creativity to work: the implementation of creative ideas in organizations. Acad. Manag. J. 55, 1102–1119 (2012).
Perry-Smith, J. E. & Mannucci, P. V. From creativity to innovation: the social network drivers of the four phases of the idea journey. Acad. Manag. Rev. 42, 53–79 (2017).
Berg, J. M. Balancing on the creative highwire: forecasting the success of novel ideas in organizations. Adm. Sci. Q. 61, 433–468 (2016).
Staw B. M. in Creative Action in Organizations: Ivory Tower Vision and Real World Voices (eds Ford, C. M. & Gioia, D. A.) 161–166 (Sage, 1995).
Zhou, J., Wang, X. M., Bavato, D., Tasselli, S. & Wu, J. Understanding the receiving side of creativity: a multidisciplinary review and implications for management research. J. Manag. 45, 2570–2595 (2019).
Harvey, S. & Mueller, J. S. Staying alive: toward a diverging consensus model of overcoming a bias against novelty in groups. Organ. Sci. 32, 293–314 (2021).
Mueller, J. S., Melwani, S. & Goncalo, J. A. The bias against creativity: why people desire but reject creative ideas. Psychol. Sci. 23, 13–17 (2012).
Mueller, J., Melwani, S., Loewenstein, J. & Deal, J. J. Reframing the decision-makers’ dilemma: towards a social context model of creative idea recognition. Acad. Manag. J. 61, 94–110 (2018).
Lu, S., Bartol, K. M., Venkataramani, V., Zheng, X. & Liu, X. Pitching novel ideas to the boss: the interactive effects of employees’ idea enactment and influence tactics on creativity assessment and implementation. Acad. Manag. J. 62, 579–606 (2019).
Acar, O. A., Tarakci, M. & Van Knippenberg, D. Creativity and innovation under constraints: a cross-disciplinary integrative review. J. Manag. 45, 96–121 (2019).
Runco, M. A. & Jaeger, G. J. The standard definition of creativity. Creat. Res. J. 24, 92–96 (2012).
Boudreau, K. J., Guinan, E. C., Lakhani, K. R. & Riedl, C. Looking across and looking beyond the knowledge frontier: intellectual distance, novelty and resource allocation in science. Manag. Sci. 62, 2765–2783 (2016).
Rindova, V. P. & Petkova, A. P. When is a new thing a good thing? Technological change, product form design and perceptions of value for product innovations. Organ. Sci. 18, 217–232 (2007).
Criscuolo, P., Dahlander, L., Grohsjean, T. & Salter, A. Evaluating novelty: the role of panels in the selection of R&D projects. Acad. Manag. J. 60, 433–460 (2017).
Baldwin, C. Y. & Clark, K. B. Design Rules: The Power of Modularity (MIT, 2000).
Amabile, T. M. Creativity in Context (Westview, 1996).
Kerr, N. L. & Tindale, R. S. Group performance and decision making. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 55, 623–655 (2004).
Runco, M. A., McCarthy, K. A. & Svenson, E. Judgments of the creativity of artwork from students and professional artists. J. Psychol. 128, 23–31 (1994).
Kozbelt, A., Seidel, A., ElBassiouny, A., Mark, Y. & Owen, D. R. Visual selection contributes to artists’ advantages in realistic drawing. Psychol. Aesthet. Creat. Arts 4, 93–102 (2010).
Hickey, M. An application of Amabile’s Consensual Assessment Technique for rating the creativity of children’s musical compositions. J. Res. Music Educ. 49, 234–244 (2001).
Kaufman, J. C., Baer, J. & Cole, J. C. Expertise, domains and the consensual assessment technique. J. Creat. Behav. 43, 223–233 (2009).
Harvey, S. & Kou, C. Y. Collective engagement in creative tasks: the role of evaluation in the creative process in groups. Adm. Sci. Q. 58, 346–386 (2013).
Khessina, O. M., Goncalo, J. A. & Krause, V. It’s time to sober up: the direct costs, side effects and long-term consequences of creativity and innovation. Res. Organ. Behav. 38, 107–135 (2018).
Csikszentmihalyi, M. Handbook of Creativity (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Meyer, J. W. & Rowan, B. Institutionalized organizations: formal structure as myth and ceremony. Am. J. Sociol. 83, 340–363 (1977).
DiMaggio, P. Culture and cognition. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 23, 263–287 (1997).
Moreau, C. P., Lehmann, D. R. & Markman, A. B. Entrenched knowledge structures and consumer response to new products. J. Mark. Res. 38, 14–29 (2001).
Kahneman, D., Sibony, O. & Sunstein, C. R. Noise (HarperCollins, 2022).
Amabile, T. M. A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. Res. Organ. Behav. 10, 123–167 (1988).
Miron-Spektor, E. & Erez, M. in The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox (eds Lewis, M. et al.) 434–451 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2017).
Mueller, J., & Yin, Y. in Handbook of Research on Creativity and Innovation (eds Zhou, J. et al.) 267–289 (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021).
Fleming, L. Recombinant uncertainty in technological search. Manag. Sci. 47, 117–132 (2001).
Mumford, M. D., Blair, C., Dailey, L., Leritz, L. E. & Osburn, H. K. Errors in creative thought? Cognitive biases in a complex processing activity. J. Creat. Behav. 40, 75–109 (2006).
Licuanan, B. F., Dailey, L. R. & Mumford, M. D. Idea evaluation: error in evaluating highly original ideas. J. Creat. Behav. 41, 1–27 (2007).
Elsbach, K. D. & Kramer, R. M. Assessing creativity in Hollywood pitch meetings: evidence for a dual-process model of creativity judgments. Acad. Manag. J. 46, 283–301 (2003).
Goncalo, J. A., Flynn, F. J. & Kim, S. H. Are two narcissists better than one? The link between narcissism, perceived creativity and creative performance. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 36, 1484–1495 (2010).
Mueller, J. S., Wakslak, C. J. & Krishnan, V. Construing creativity: the how and why of recognizing creative ideas. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 51, 81–87 (2014).
Proudfoot, D. & Fath, S. Signaling creative genius: how perceived social connectedness influences judgments of creative potential. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 47, 580–592 (2021).
Hunter, S. T., Blocker, L. D., Gutworth, M. B. & Allen, J. Why we support some original ideas but reject others: an application of signaling theory. J. Creat. Behav. 57, 199–220 (2023).
Harrison, S. H. & Rouse, E. D. An inductive study of feedback interactions over the course of creative projects. Acad. Manag. J. 58, 375–404 (2015).
Dow, J. & da Costa Werlang, S. R. Uncertainty aversion, risk aversion and the optimal choice of portfolio. Econometrica 60, 197–204 (1992).
Whalen, J., Gallistel, C. R. & Gelman, R. Nonverbal counting in humans: the psychophysics of number representation. Psychol. Sci. 10, 130–137 (1999).
Craig, B. Sundance—A Festival Virgin’s Guide 3rd edn (Cinemagine Media Publishing, 2016).
Goncalo, J. A. & Staw, B. M. Individualism–collectivism and group creativity. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 100, 96–109 (2006).
Nemeth, C. J. Differential contributions of majority and minority influence. Psychol. Rev. 93, 23 (1986).
Nemeth, C. J. & Staw, B. M. The tradeoffs of social control and innovation in groups and organizations. Adv. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 22, 175–210 (1989).
Runco, M. A. & Smith, W. R. Interpersonal and intrapersonal evaluations of creative ideas. Pers. Ind. Diff. 13, 295–302 (1992).
Kaufman, J. C., Baer, J., Cole, J. C. & Sexton, J. D. A comparison of expert and nonexpert raters using the Consensual Assessment Technique. Creat. Res. J. 20, 171–178 (2008).
Berg, J. M. & Yu, A. Getting the picture too late: handoffs and the effectiveness of idea implementation in creative work. Acad. Manag. J. 64, 1191–1212 (2021).
Simonton, D. K. Cinematic success criteria and their predictors: the art and business of the film industry. Psychol. Mark. 26, 400–420 (2009).
Davis, B. C., Hmieleski, K. M., Webb, J. W. & Coombs, J. E. Funders’ positive affective reactions to entrepreneurs’ crowdfunding pitches: the influence of perceived product creativity and entrepreneurial passion. J. Bus. Ventur. 32, 90–106 (2017).
Weisberg, R. W. On the usefulness of ‘value’ in the definition of creativity. Creat. Res. J. 27, 111–124 (2015).
Lee, C. Y. & Morewedge, C. K. Noise increases anchoring effects. Psychol. Sci. 33, 60–75 (2022).
Ward, T. B., Patterson, M. J., Sifonis, C. M., Dodds, R. A. & Saunders, K. N. The role of graded category structure in imaginative thought. Mem. Cogn. 30, 199–216 (2002).
Maio, S., Dumas, D., Organisciak, P. & Runco, M. Is the reliability of objective originality scores confounded by elaboration? Creat. Res. J. 32, 201–205 (2020).
Baer, J. & McKool, S. S. in Handbook of Research on Assessment Technologies, Methods and Applications in Higher Education (ed. Schreiner, C. S.) 65–77 (IGI Global, 2009).
Wilson, T. D., Houston, C. E., Etling, K. M. & Brekke, N. A new look at anchoring effects: basic anchoring and its antecedents. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 125, 387 (1996).
Lee, A. Welcome to the Unicorn Club: Learning from Billion-Dollar Startups. TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/ (2013).
Sampling Source FAQs. Lucid Holdings https://support.lucidhq.com/s/article/Sample-Sourcing-FAQs (2022).
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A. G. & Buchner, A. G* Power 3: a flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral and biomedical sciences. Behav. Res. Methods 39, 175–191 (2007).
Sundance Film Festival 2023: Submitting your project (Sundance.org, 2023); https://dotorg-stg-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/submissions/2023_Submissions_FAQ.pdf
Coppock, A. & McClellan, O. A. Validating the demographic, political, psychological and experimental results obtained from a new source of online survey respondents. Res. Pol. 6, 2053168018822174 (2019).
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by funds from the ILR School, Cornell University and an Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Technology theme grant from the Johnson College of Business, Cornell University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. We are grateful to E. Mannix and the members of ExPO Lab for their feedback on this research. We thank S. Parry for advice on statistical analyses. We thank S. Owens for providing information about the film categories at Sundance.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
W.J. developed the study concept. W.J. and D.P. designed the studies. W.J. and D.P. collected and analysed the data. W.J. drafted the manuscript. D.P. revised the manuscript and prepared the final text for submission.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Human Behaviour thanks Samuel Hunter and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Table 1 and analyses for studies 4 and 5.
Source data
Source Data Fig. 1
Statistical source data.
Source Data Fig. 2
Statistical source data.
Source Data Fig. 4
Statistical source data.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Johnson, W., Proudfoot, D. Greater variability in judgements of the value of novel ideas. Nat Hum Behav 8, 471–479 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01794-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01794-4