How to squash a chimpanzee's creativity

Not completely sure that this fits tongue in groove with the career focus of this blog, but if you tilt your head to the left, squint with your right eye, and waggle your head back and forth, it should do the trick. It's about our innate creativity, and our unique ability to squelch it.

Besides, any post where I get to talk about monkeys has got to be good, right?

From an article on the deoxy.org website:

In one experiment chimpanzees were given canvas and paint and immediately began to apply themselves to make balanced patterns of color, somewhat reminicent of certain forms of modern art, such as abstract expressionism. The significant point about this experiment is that the animals became so interested in painting and it absorbed them so completely that they had comparatively little interest left for food, sex, or the other activities that normally hold them strongly. Additional experiments showed somewhat similar results for other primates. When very young children are given paints, their behavior is remarkably like that of the chimpanzees. This seems to indicate that creativity is a natural potential. Yet somehow, in most cases, the urge to create fades as the human being gets older. Or at best it continues in certain limited areas, such as science, music, or painting. Why should this happen?

An extension of Morris's experiment involved rewarding the chimpanzees for producing their paintings. Very soon their work began to degenerate until they produced the bare minimum that would satisfy the experimenter. A similar behavior can be observed in young children as they become "self-conscious" of the kind of painting the believe they are "supposed" to do. This is generally indicated to them by subtle and implicit rewards, such as praise and approval, and by the need to conform to what other children around them are doing. Thus creativity appears to be incompatible with external and internal rewards or punishments. The reason is clear. In order to do something for a reward, the whole order of the activity, and the energy required for it, are determined by arbitrary requirements that are extraneous to the creative activity itself.

This sentence pretty much sums it up:

Basically, the setting and goals and patterns of behavior, which are imposed mechanically or externally, and without understanding, produces a rigid structure in consciousness that blocks the free play of thought and the free movement of awareness and attention that are necessary for creativity to act.

Curt Rosengren
Passion Catalyst ^SM

Comments

[Pete]

Hi Curt,

As a highly creative person whose drive is continually muted by self-censorship (as opposed to being fueled by self-sensorship) I found this article on monkey painting to be highly relevant to my passion -- especially if one's peers are rigid conformists (the blight).

In my opinion, there is REAL reason to FEAR that one's employer (via the corporate culture) will punish you for being creative -- even if you do it on your own time and in your own place. If the expression of your creativity is done publicly and it reflects poorly on the values that your employer thinks they are trying to present then you risk being marginalized. So be careful when displaying creativity in the workplace.

That is the price of passion -- and the joy.

Pay the mortgage, feed the kids, do all that -- but remember to also find work that suits your passion. The closer your work (and employer) aligns with your passion, the more monkey paintings you will be able to produce. So you'll eat less, and have less sex, but isn't truly authentic PASSION worth it?

For nearly 25 years, Ricardo Semler, CEO of Brazil-based Semco, has let his employees set their own hours, wages, even choose their own IT. The result: increased productivity, long-term loyalty and phenomenal growth. Can his radical approach work for you?

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1584900,00.asp

As usual, I really very much appreciate your daily doses of inspiration -- please keep it up!

Thanks!

[Ben Smith]

My take on this would be to derive a definition for "The Law of Diminishing Creativity"...

Click my Trackback, and see if you agree with my definition.

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