Creativity and honesty

[fritzie]

A recent Harvard study comparing highly creative people and less creative people claims that of the sample of individuals studied, highly creative people are less honest than less creative people. This is not the first study that has reached this result. One argument that has been put forward is that creative people are more likely to be nonconformists in many ways.
Would you say that the creative people you have known in your life and training are typically more or less honest than less creative people and in what ways?

[mame]

Can you please post a link to the study you refer to?

[stlukesguild]

I suppose one may assume that some among the more creative are prone to exaggeration and even outright fiction... or the blurring of the fictional with fact. Art, after all, is rooted in fiction... in artifice.

Oscar Wilde, who was never wrong about anything, observed:

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.

A lie is the beginning of a new story. That's why we love Art

[Clive Green]

It depends on what you mean by honest. More likely to be creative in telling stories (fibbing), and inventing excuses for not finishing work on time ? probably

More likely to steal, cheat on their partners and deliberately defraud - not in my experience.

Depends on what you mean by creative. Henry Ford - not creative, Pablo Picasso - creative.

[fritzie]

Mame asked that I post a link to the Harvard study. I do not know how to do that, but the authors are Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely from Harvard Business School. I found the link in an article in the Huffington Post by Shelley Carson, a psychology professor at Harvard whose specialties are creativity and abnormal psychology.

[La_]

interesting question and i think it has some basis in fact ... creative people do tend to be more imaginative, more easily bored, more defiant; would be more apt perhaps to get creative in scams and such.
one would have to be creative to build computer viruses for example; it's the creative souls who do graffiti ... who take more risks ... so yeah, i can see it.
not to slam the less creative, but i think they tend to accept things as they are more ... are less likely to stir the pot so to speak, and likely are not intelligent?/creative enough to think up a well planned plot, let alone get away with one (re: bank heist or whatever)

la

[Use Her Name]

I heard that it was highly intelligent people who were less honest then average or lower intelligence people. Nevertheless, I think qualifying what kind of "honesty" is meant would be a good start. I know that if I can get around, under, over things I will. Being a conformist (as in "sheeple") is no way to live. Living creatively means first having to figure out how to do things. I certainly will never qualify for a home loan, being self employed.

[La_]

harvard study news (http://www.canada.com/Creative+people+more+inclined+cheat+says+study/4196976/story.html)

is this the study you speak of?

[mame]

Txs La -
Something niggles about this study........and that it was constructed/conducted within a business school is the first red flag.

Also, It doesn't look like "creativity" was defined for the purposes of this study nor how "more" and "less" creative in the study subjects was measured.

[alfreda]

I'm with Mame, there are something about this niggles me also. I would like to see the cheating stats vs profession vs gender vs demographics etc. I just don't buy this claim at all, it's very selective and limited.

I read that cheating is more prevalent in business schools (http://www.post-gazette.com/PG/06274/726256-28.STM):wink2:

[alfreda]

Would you say that the creative people you have known in your life and training are typically more or less honest than less creative people and in what ways?


No! cheating/dishonesty exists in all walks of life and has nothing to do with being more or less creative (define creative?), rich or poor, educated or uneducated.

cheating across cultures (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/24/cheating)
Plagiarism epidemic (http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-07-27-IHE-plagiarism-China27_ST_N.htm)shuts down U.S. program in China

Poor People More Likely to Cheat (http://news.change.org/stories/poor-people-more-likely-to-cheat)?

Rich People are More Likely to Cheat (http://www.consumerismcommentary.com/rich-people-are-more-likely-to-cheat-on-income-tax-returns/)on Income Tax Returns

[Use Her Name]

I know that the creative people in my life open themselves to inspection and criticism of often their darkest hidden thoughts and so on. Sometimes to live through this, creative people find ways to not divulge so much personal information. Opening yourself up for public inspection takes a thick skin, and a lot of people can't really take it. Honesty about feeling, emotion, or basically putting your guts on the table for all to see takes not only a sublime kind of honesty, but also major courage. To varying degrees, an artist needs to be a bit of an exhibitionist, and immune to negative criticisms.

[La_]

i like to watch shows like criminal minds and csi ... can't remember ever seeing an artist as a criminal on any of those shows ... 'cept a fellow that built miniature to scale sets of the crime scene [csi vegas] ...

course all criminals are creative [comedy of errors creative or mind blowing complexity creative] ... that just doesn't always mean painter creative ...

hitler was a painter ... mostly architecture paintings, mostly watercolors i think ... wonder how he would have turned out had he been accepted in the university circles vs rejected like he was ...

i'm a strong believer that painting is a fabulous therapy/vent/aggression/meditation outlet that should be used way more effectively in combating so many society issues ...

honesty/dishonesty doesn't necessarily mean 'crime', but i thought it interesting anyway

la

[Horsa]

If the results of the study are valid, one possible explanation might lie in creative minds being better able to self-justify "dishonest" behavior.

Of course there are so many possible variables in teh whole thing, starting with "how do you measure creatity" and "how do you measure honesty" that a study could probably be written to "objectively" confirm any conclusion you liked.

[fritzie]

I very much doubt the study in question was meant to achieve any particular conclusion, as the authors won't have a chance to publish in the sort of journals that would matter to them if they didn't use valid research protocols. And the result confirms other studies done by other researchers with no particular agenda.

A question I think can reasonably be raised about the work is whether creative people who choose careers in business may be different in their expected behaviors from creative people who choose other sorts of careers, such a research or independent art.

In research creativity is measured in a variety of ways, all aimed at capturing whether the person is either adept or prolific at generating novel ideas. I have taken such tests, for example, and could look up the names of the most commonly used ones and post those if people are interested in that. As I have said, other research uses measures related not to creativity assessments but rather to the number of published works in juried publications, awards won for creative efforts, work hanging in galleries, and so forth.

[mame]

- and I would think that within a business construct, in measuring creativity, it might be pertinent whether the study subjects were R&D personnel, engineers or sales people......

[Evelien1]

I remember thinking when I was a young child: 'lying is really just pretending to tell the truth'.
I guess I was being creative.:):)

[Keith Russell]

A recent Harvard study comparing highly creative people and less creative people claims that of the sample of individuals studied, highly creative people are less honest than less creative people. This is not the first study that has reached this result. One argument that has been put forward is that creative people are more likely to be nonconformists in many ways.
Would you say that the creative people you have known in your life and training are typically more or less honest than less creative people and in what ways?

Nearly every one I know is creative in some way. Some are quite honest in their dealings with others; some...a little less so.

Certainly, in my experience, it isn't creativity that makes the difference, since in my experience, it is the constant...the "control"...

[Caril Chasens]

Many studies are crap. There are many ways to design a crap study and many ways to draw a dishonest conclusion from a study.

[Razz]

Well, very scientific and logic minded people tend to be more keen on facts. Maybe they simply have a less developed imagination. With exception to the rule naturally. I find it logical that imaginative and creative people tend to, not only lie more, but decorating the truth adding/subtracting things, maybe due to a personal intepretation of whatever matter at hand.

[wooly ess]

I think we need to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that only artists are creative, although that is the common stereotype. I spent my working life in a technical field, and some of the most creative people I know are scientists, engineers and accountants. Some of the dullest people I know are scientists, engineers and accountants. The same holds true of artists. The study is creative vs non creative, not engineers vs artists. Given that any field has a broad distribution of creativity, I suggest that no one field has a monopoly on honesty.

Now, are creative people in general, less honest than non-creative people? Somehow, it doesn't seem intuitively correct to me, but what do I know.

[Evelien1]

Hi wooly ess, :) I think you're right. (scientists can be very creative).

Creatives seem to worry less about objectivity. They just go after their interest, and make it true or real (instead of pondering: is this true or not).
But that's not the same as telling deliberate lies for gain or so. The honesty is in the intent, I guess, in being honest about what you want to show or make or achieve with the making.

Art (or creativity) is in a region of feelings, concepts, atmosphere. These are neither true or untrue just by themselves - not untill you apply them to a given part of reality. But as an artist (read: creative) you don't have to, you can skip it and and create something new. A robot probably can't tell the difference between this and lying, but human insight can.

[Razz]

I think we need to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that only artists are creative, although that is the common stereotype. I spent my working life in a technical field, and some of the most creative people I know are scientists, engineers and accountants. Some of the dullest people I know are scientists, engineers and accountants. The same holds true of artists. The study is creative vs non creative, not engineers vs artists. Given that any field has a broad distribution of creativity, I suggest that no one field has a monopoly on honesty.

Now, are creative people in general, less honest than non-creative people? Somehow, it doesn't seem intuitively correct to me, but what do I know.

Agreed. Creativity is also finding clever ways to solve problems in whatever field of expertise we're talking about. But still, people normally think of painting, drawing and sculpting when they are asked what it means to be creative.

[alfreda]

Well, very scientific and logic minded people tend to be more keen on facts. Maybe they simply have a less developed imagination. With exception to the rule naturally. I find it logical that imaginative and creative people tend to, not only lie more, but decorating the truth adding/subtracting things, maybe due to a personal intepretation of whatever matter at hand.


I know quite a few artists who have no imagination :wink2:

I have to respectfually disagree about scientific minds having less developed imaginations, some of our greatest inventions/innovations/discoveries come from people who could explore beyond facts and find creative solutions to life's most perplexing problems/needs etc.

Plenty of evidence of this creativity in the sciences :)

"but decorating the truth adding/subtracting things, maybe due to a personal intepretation of whatever matter at hand"

I also see this very evident in a number of careers, lately politics :evil: Some of the politicians seem to be VERY good at this.

[fritzie]

In my experience, research into creativity studies people across disciplines, acknowledging exactly what so many have said here- that creativity is not field dependent.

[ianuk]

Advertisers are imaginative people and they surely use a lot of fiction.

However, there are honest and dishonest people in every field. Prisons are full of creative and non creative people.
I have to somewhat agree with Keith Russell here in that I've never met a human being that is not creative in one form or another. Being able to think is creative and what sets us apart from the most intelligent of animals the bonobo. For example, the bonobo sets off to find food. He needs a stick to get the termites from the mound. he leaves throwing the stick away. Any human being will remember the location and try to build an impliment to make it easier to get the termites and, in that fact, every average human being is creative..

[Maria Gusta]

How is "honesty" defined in the study? Some people do not believe that any situational flexibility or proportionality is "fair". (Thus, all thieves should have a hand lopped off... The father stealing food for hungry children, the professional thief - who is less likely to get caught, and the MBA who can't worm out of being the company scapegoat.)

This mental and ethical rigidity tends to force defining situations in zero-sums; it's a black and white world with no gradations or hues. Unfortunately, it bears little or no resemblance to reality, and does not allow for decency, compassion or humane reactions. Mandatory sentencing (metaphorically or literally) passes as ethics in such heads.

[Tattau]

"The only difference between "Truth" and "Fiction" is that "Fiction" has to make sense."

I'm afraid that I have been a dreadfully dishonest person.

"See that fence post there? Well, it wasn't really there. It was further down the road. I needed a good foreground element for that barn, so I mirrored the sketch, so that the light source would be on the correct side... and that wagon wheel? I just made that up, because it makes the composition work."

Bean counting "scientist" are trying to quantify a part of basic human nature, and make assumptions about values and attributes associated with it... pure rubbish!

What was their control group? Did they poll a group of "uncreative' people for comparison? ...and how, exactly, did they determine the qualifications for that group?

These so-called "scientist" are little more than "yellow" journalist who need to go back to night-school and bone up on Science.

I think they are confusing correlation with causation.

[GlennM]

"The only difference between "Truth" and "Fiction" is that "Fiction" has to make sense."

I'm afraid that I have been a dreadfully dishonest person.

"See that fence post there? Well, it wasn't really there. It was further down the road. I needed a good foreground element for that barn, so I mirrored the sketch, so that the light source would be on the correct side... and that wagon wheel? I just made that up, because it makes the composition work."

Bean counting "scientist" are trying to quantify a part of basic human nature, and make assumptions about values and attributes associated with it... pure rubbish!

What was their control group? Did they poll a group of "uncreative' people for comparison? ...and how, exactly, did they determine the qualifications for that group?

These so-called "scientist" are little more than "yellow" journalist who need to go back to night-school and bone up on Science.

I think they are confusing correlation with causation.


I agree. I have heard it said that you can use statistics to prove anything. There is more than a kernel of truth in this.

I am of the school of thought that believes that both a saint and a demon exists within each of us, and the stronger of the two is the one you feed the most. I think this true for the brightest (more creative?) or the dullest (less creative?) of us.

[caldwell.brobeck]

I read the first 12 pages of the working paper (http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-064.pdf)(PDF), in the first test (the only one I read) creative levels were determined by self-reporting. That's just bad science.

[Horsa]

There are lies, there are damn lies, and then there's statistics.
Figures don't lie, but liars do figure.

Self-reporting is usually the least accurate way of obtaining information. Depending on how the question is asked and of whom people will under or over report to appear to give the "right" answer.

I am not sure what meaningful broad definitions of "creativity" and "honesty" would look like in a study that would allow broadly applicable (and accurate) generalizations to be made would look like....

[fritzie]

Most studies use measures including self report, inventories of actual creative work (like publications, performances, or exhibits in gallery shows), and tests that measure creativity by posing challenges that require creativity. The study reported above does this by combining several studies that use different measures, not all of which are self report.
The measure of honesty was described in the study. People were given a task and it was easy to monitor whether they cheated and by how much.
All research has flaws but that doesn't mean either that it is worthless or that those who try to figure out how the world works are necessarily trying to manipulate their data to support a particular result. Many people actually honestly want to figure out how things work.
When researchers get a result, others will try to test whether another way of getting at the same question yields a similar or contrary result.
I would propose that there is no reason for artists to scorn scholars as a group nor for scholars to scorn artists as a group. There is no reason for either not to retain an open mind, I think.