The Dark Side of Creativity

Creativity
The Dark Side of

by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
Creativity
November 24, 2015
Few psychological traits are as desirable as creativity — the ability to

come up with ideas that are both novel and useful. Yet it is also true
that creativity has been associated with a wide range of
counterproductive, rarely discussed qualities. Being aware of these
tendencies is important for anyone trying to better understand their
own creativity, or that of other people.
First, research has established a link between creativity and negative
moods. You don’t have to be depressed to be creative — and it’s
important to note that crippling depression is more destructive than
generative — but it is true that there is some empirical backing for the
stereotype that artists tend to be depressive or suffer from mood
swings. As Nietzsche once noted: “One must have chaos in oneself to
be able to give birth to a dancing star.” On average, people who
are very emotionally stable may be too happy to feel the need to
create. After all, if the status quo is fine, why change it?
Second, the very thinking patterns that define the creative process
and help lead to original thinking can have a maladaptive side. For
example, creativity requires the inability to suppress irrelevant
thoughts and inappropriate ideas. And creative thinkers also tend to
have poorer impulse-control.
More recently, creativity has also
YOU AND YOUR TEAM
been associated with dishonesty,
Thinking Creatively presumably because it enables
How to build this critical skill. individuals to creatively distort
reality. That is not to say that
creative people are necessarily
unethical. Rather, their lower tolerance for boredom and
conventionality, and their more vivid imaginations, equip them with
more sophisticated mental tools to both self-deceive and deceive
others.
It should be noted that this ability can often be deployed in the service
of others. Outstanding entrepreneurs may be able to use such skills to
convince others of their vision. (Remember Steve Jobs’s famous
“reality distortion field”?) Perhaps entrepreneurial talent requires a
certain ability to see something that isn’t there — something for
which there’s no evidence yet — and turn it into a compelling vision,
as well as products and services, for others.
Research has also found that creative individuals are often more
narcissistic, and that narcissism can actually boost creative
achievements. This makes intuitive sense. Narcissistic people are
focused on themselves, and naturally spend more time focused on
developing their own ideas and less time worrying about pleasing
other people. However, it’s important to note that narcissists tend to
think that they are more creative than they actually are, and most
people are unable to evaluate creativity accurately — so it could also
be that observers are just more easily deceived by individuals who
seem more confident and enthusiastic about their own ideas. In line,
research shows that even when narcissistic individuals are not more
creative, they are better able to sell their ideas to others, creating, in
effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy. (This is consistent with the finding
that narcissism often correlates with leadership,
including when leaders are visionary or entrepreneurial.)
Even seemingly desirable creative qualities often present more
problems than opportunities for the person who incarnates them. For
example, take nonconformity – a necessary prerequisite of
creativity. We may idolize rebels in popular culture, but in daily life
we pressure these disruptive misfits to get with the program.
Likewise, although the idea of embracing risk and tolerating failure
seems cool and sexy, the natural human tendency is to preserve the
status quo and make our environments as predictable and familiar as
possible. Truly creative people are therefore often perceived as a
threat.
Of course, the bright side of creativity tends to eclipse its dark side.
At the individual level, creativity has been linked to a wide range of
positive emotions, such as flow, engagement, and subjective
wellbeing. When people are assigned to meaningful jobs and given
autonomy over their work, they will unleash their creativity and enjoy
all its benefits. At the team level, coordinated group behavior and
interpersonal synergies turn creativity into actual innovation, the
practical side of creativity. And at the organizational and societal
levels, creativity provides the seeds of change and progress. Without
creativity, we would be still living in the dark ages.
But if creativity were as uniformly desirable and attractive as most
writings on the subject suggest, it would happen more often, and
without adverse consequences for creative minds. Too many of us
simply want to “boost our creativity” without acknowledging the
dark places it often comes from — or the challenging places it may
take us. The reality is that creativity is both taxing and complicated.
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the Chief Talent

Scientist at ManpowerGroup, a professor of
business psychology at University College London
and at Columbia University, and an associate at
Harvard’s Entrepreneurial Finance Lab. He is the
author of Why Do So Many Incompetent Men
Become Leaders? (and How to Fix It), upon which
his TEDx talk was based. Find him on
Twitter: @drtcp or at www.drtomas.com.

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Creativity

The Dark Side of

Few psychological traits are as desirable as creativity — the ability to

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the Chief Talent

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