How to overcome biases against creativity: The role of familiarity with and confidence in original solutions
Reis and Kunde note that people favour traditional over more original solutions, perhaps because of the uncertainty that novel approaches bring. They test whether this anti-creativity bias can be countered by raising familiarity with, and confidence in, creative solutions. Participants chose between creative and traditional uses for given objects. In one study the objects repeated identically or conceptually, and in another the choice options were self-generated or externally provided. Spatial and temporal measures of response selection indicated an implicit bias toward the traditional.
Reis and Kunde note that people favour traditional over more original solutions, perhaps because of the uncertainty that novel approaches bring. They test whether this anti-creativity bias can be countered by raising familiarity with, and confidence in, creative solutions. Participants chose between creative and traditional uses for given objects. In one study the objects repeated identically or conceptually, and in another the choice options were self-generated or externally provided. Spatial and temporal measures of response selection indicated an implicit bias toward the traditional.
Written from the abstract as shown on the OpenAlex record, read 2026-11-04.
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Reis, M., & Kunde, W. (2024). How to overcome biases against creativity: The role of familiarity with and confidence in original solutions. Cognition, 245, 105741. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105741.