ČLÁNEK: Evil genius? How Dishonesty Can Lead to Greater Creativity

Značení:

1 – primární informace

2 – sekundární informace

3 – terciální informace


ÚVOD:

Researchers across disciplines have become increasingly interested in understanding why even people
who care about morality predictably cross ethical boundaries. This heightened interest in unethical
behavior, defined as acts that violate widely held moral rules or norms of appropriate conduct
(Treviño, Weaver, & Reynolds, 2006), is easily understood. Unethical behavior creates trillions of
dollars in financial losses every year and is becoming increasingly commonplace
(PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2011).

One form of unethical behavior, dishonesty, seems especially pervasive (Bazerman & Gino, 2012).
Like other forms of unethical behavior, dishonesty involves breaking a rule—the social principle
that people should tell the truth. Much of the scholarly attention devoted to understanding why
individuals behave unethically has therefore focused on the factors that lead people to break
rules.

Although rule breaking carries a negative connotation in the domain of ethics, it carries a
positive connotation in another well-researched domain: creativity. To be creative, it is often
said, one must “think outside the box” and use divergent thinking (Guilford, 1967; Runco, 2010;
Simonton, 1999). Divergent thinking requires that people break some (but not all) rules within a
domain to construct associations between previously unassociated cognitive elements (Bailin, 1987;
Guilford, 1950). The resulting unusual mental associations serve as the basis for novel ideas
(Langley & Jones, 1988; Sternberg, 1988). The creative process therefore involves rule breaking, as
one must break rules to take advantage of existing opportunities or to create new ones (Brenkert,
2009). Thus, scholars have asserted that organizations may foster creativity by hiring people slow
to learn the organizational code (Sutton, 2001, 2002) and by encouraging people to break from
accepted practices (Winslow & Solomon, 1993) or to break rules (Baucus, Norton, Baucus, & Human,
2008; Kelley & Littman, 2001).

Given that both dishonesty and creativity involve rule breaking, the individuals most likely to
behave dishonestly and the individuals most likely to be creative may be one and the same. Indeed,
highly creative people are more likely than less creative people to bend rules or break laws
(Cropley, Kaufman, & Cropley, 2003; Sternberg & Lubart, 1995; Sulloway, 1996). Popular tales are
replete with images of “evil geniuses,” such as Rotwang in Metropolis and “Lex” Luthor in Superman,
who are both creative and nefarious in their attempts to ruin humanity. Similarly, news articles
have applied the “evil genius” moniker to Bernard Madoff, who made $20 billion disappear using a
creative Ponzi scheme.

The causal relationship between creativity and unethical behavior may take two possible forms: The
creative process may trigger dishonesty; alternatively, acting unethically may enhance creativity.
Research has demonstrated that enhancing the motivation to think outside the box can drive people
toward more dishonest decisions (Beaussart, Andrews, & Kaufman, 2013; Gino & Ariely, 2012). But
could acting dishonestly enhance creativity in subsequent tasks?

In five experiments, we obtained the first empirical evidence that behaving dishonestly can spur
creativity and examined the psychological mechanism explaining this link. We suggest that after
behaving dishonestly, people feel less constrained by rules, and are thus more likely to act
creatively by constructing associations between previously unassociated cognitive elements.


DISKUZE

There is little doubt that dishonesty creates costs for society. It is less clear whether it
produces any positive consequences. This research identified one such positive consequence,
demonstrating that people may become more creative after behaving dishonestly because acting
dishonestly leaves them feeling less constrained by rules.

By identifying potential consequences of acting dishonestly, these findings complement existing
research on behavioral ethics and moral psychology, which has focused primarily on identifying the
antecedents to unethical behavior (Bazerman & Gino, 2012). These findings also advance
understanding of creative behavior by showing that feeling unconstrained by rules enhances creative
sparks. More speculatively, our research raises the possibility that one of the reasons why
dishonesty is so widespread in today’s society is that by acting dishonestly, people become more
creative, which allows them to come up with more creative justifications for their immoral behavior
and therefore makes them more likely to behave dishonestly (Gino & Ariely, 2012), which may make
them more creative, and so on.

In sum, this research shows that the sentiment expressed in the common saying “rules are meant to
be broken” is at the root of both creative performance and dishonest behavior. It also provides new
evidence that dishonesty may therefore lead people to become more creative in their subsequent
endeavors.


ZDROJE:

K porovnání použitých zdrojů v článku Evile genius jsem si vybrala tři následující zdroje:

1.      Bailin, S. (1987). Critical and creative thinking. Informal Logic, 9, 23–30.

Cit. Divergent thinking requires that people break some (but not all) rules within a domain to
construct associations between previously unassociated cognitive elements.

Creative thinking, on the other hand, is precisely the type of thinking which can transcend
frameworks. It is inventive, imaginative, and involves the generation of new idea. Because it
involves breaking out of old frameworks, creative thinking is thought to exhibit characteristics
which are precisely the opposite of critical thinking. It is essentially generative, spontaneous,
and non-evaluative. It involves divergent thinking, rule-breaking, he suspension of judgment, ad
leaps of imagination.

2.      Cropley, D. H., Kaufman, J. C.  &  A. J. Cropley (2003) Malevolent creativity: A functional
model of creativity in terrorism and crime. Creativity Research Journal, 20, 105–11

Cit. Given that both dishonesty and creativity involve rule breaking, the individuals most likely
to behave dishonestly and the individuals most likely to be creative may be one and the same.
Indeed, highly creative people are more likely than less creative people to bend rules or break
laws

Criminality may sometimes be a kind of accidental by-product of creativity: Because creativity
requires deviating from the conventional, there is a permanent tension between being creative and
producing products that go too far, sometimes to the point of breaking the law (whether or not
other societies or later generations would approve of the law in question)

A second kind of link between creativity and crime is seen when creative individuals break the law,
not as part of their creativity or as a direct result of their kreativity but, so to speak, on the
side. A creative individual who committed a murder or robbed a bank would be an obvious example.
The fact that the murderer was highly creative might help him or her to plan and carry out the
crime in a novel way, but by and large the fact that the murderer was creative would be
coincidental.

3.      Gino, F., Ariely, D. (2012). The dark side of creativity: Original thinkers can be more
dishonest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 445–459

Cit. The causal relationship between creativity and unethical behavior may take two possible forms:
The creative process may trigger dishonesty; alternatively, acting unethically may enhance
creativity. Research has demonstrated that enhancing the motivation to think outside the box can
drive people toward more dishonest decisions.

Across the five studies, we demonstrated that both a creative personality and an activated creative
mindset promote individuals ability to justify their unethical actions.

Všechny tři původní zdroje mi pomohly k lepšímu pochopení problematiky článku. Vyjmuté myšlenky
shrnuté zpravidla do jedné věty mi častokrát nedaly adekvátní informaci, kterou bych potřebovala
pro porozumění problematice textu. Teprve po přečtení citovaných zdrojů jsem pochopila, význam
některých výroků. Nejvíce ze všech mi pomohl původní článek k první citaci, kde autor podrobněji
vysvětloval své závěry.  Bylo však obtížné vybrat větu, která přímo vypovídá o informaci, která
byla citována. K pochopení záměru, který měl autor článku Evil genius, je třeba si přečíst větší
část textu z původního článku.

ČLÁNEK: Chcete být kreativní? Podvádějte.

Chcete být kreativní, chcete oplývat představivostí a mít nové neotřelé nápady? Je zde jedno
řešení, jak toho dosáhnout. Podvádějte. Zní Vám to trochu neeticky? Ano, neetické to je. Nedostatek
morálky a etiky je právě tím tajným klíčem k Vašemu kreativnímu myšlení.

Psal se rok 2013 a na světlo světa vyšel nový vědecký článek: Evil genius? How Dishonesty Can Lead
to Greater Creativity. Již samotný název vzbuzuje zvědavost a vyzývavě se nám nabízí k přečtení.
Není snad kreativita dobrá věc? V naší euroamerické společnosti je vysoce ceněna, každý by si rád
do svého životopisu napsal do kolonky vlastnosti kreativní. Kreativita a kreativní chování má však
i svou stinnou stránku. Tuto temnou stránku nám chtěli ukázat autoři článku Evil genius Francesca
Gino a Wiltermuth S. Scott z Harvardské univerzity. Tito dva mladí vědci, resp. vědkyně a vědec, se
otázkou kreativity již nějakou dobu zabývají. Podle jejich názoru nečestné a kreativní chování mají
něco společného. Vzájemným pojítkem je porušování pravidel. Zároveň tvrdí, že kreativní chování
může vést k nečestnému a nečestné chování zase ke kreativnímu.  Svoje hypotézy se pokusili ověřit
pomocí pěti experimentů. Všechny experimenty měly podobnou strukturu. Lidé při nich měli možnost
podvádět (podvody samozřejmě výzkumníci rozpoznali). Poté probandům byla měřena kreativita. První
experiment se zaměřil, zda lidé, kteří se prokázali jako kreativnější, budou také více podvádět. Na
rozdíl od prvního experimentu, kde si participanti mohli vybrat, zda budou podvádět či ne, ve
druhém experimentu je výzkumníci přímo nabízeli k podvodu, aby mohli poté změřit, jestli toto
nečestné chování v nich probudí kreativitu. A světe div se, v následujícím úkolu byli participanti
opravdu kreativnější. Porušováním pravidel s nebo bez etických důsledků se zabýval třetí
experiment. Ukázalo se, že pokud lidem hrozí etické důsledky z jejich podvádění, např. lhaní,
jejich kreativita opět roste. Každý z nás někdy lhal a můžeme dát za pravdu výzkumníkům, že
„neprůstřelná“ lež potřebuje notnou dávku kreativity. Poslední dva experimenty se týkaly pocitu,
kdy nejsme spoutáni pravidly a zákazy. Jistě není divu, že i tyto experimenty potvrdili hypotézy
experimentátorů, že pocit nespoutanosti vede k větší kreativitě.

            Kreativita je stále kouzelné slůvko, které v nás vzbuzuje právě tu touhu po
překračování hranic, porušování pravidel a všech zaběhnutých konvencí. Pojďme tedy v sobě probudit
trochu té kreativity. Návod, jak na to, je ukryt v článku Evil genius.