13.2

5 cultural barriers that affect creativity are: a requirement for conformity, a reliance on statistical proofs, a dependence on generalizations, particular arenas for competition, and a reliance on expert knowledge.

Requirement for conformity: requiring sameness prevents people from thinking about how to be difference; feeling "foolish" or absurd can stop someone from letting their creativeness stand out.

Reliance on statistical proofs: didn't you know? 80% of statistics are made up on the spot. Relying on statistics, data that you don't know for sure is right, can lead to being influenced by what others have "observed" or recorded, not letting you create based on what you actually know.

A dependence on generalizations: not wanting to offend a particular person, treading lightly, and not wanting to make a stink, you make broad generalizations that doesn't attach itself to one thing, allowing interpretation to do what it will. However by doing this you prevent the further exploration of specific things, which can prevent success.

Particular arenas for competition: being competitive with someone can cancel out all kinds of creativity. It becomes not what can we create, but who can create the best. This makes us strive for quantity instead of quality.

A reliance on expert knowledge: by relying on "experts" to have an answer we prevent ourselves from properly exploring what our options are and what we could possibly do to make them better. Ii limits our creative selves because we don't do a lot of the thinking; we rely on an "expert" to do it for us.


Unfortunately I've noticed that in most groups one or more of these barriers happen. While it would be great to get around them, most of the time people don't realize that they're doing them. I think if people took a group communication class (like this) then it would help them to realize that they can't be creative while relying on others to do the work.