Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The present study examines the effects of novelty seeking (NS) personality trait on the undervaluation of product creativity, specifically the tendency to undervalue the usefulness of novel ideas or products, a bias termed “usefulness undervaluation bias”. Creativity is defined by novelty and usefulness, and it has been reported that there is a bias to undervalue the usefulness of novel creations due to uncertainty in judging it. In this study, two studies were conducted to determine whether individuals with high NS are reduced in this bias. Study 1 confirmed that individuals with higher NS rated creativity more positively, consistent with previous findings on openness to experience. Study 2 showed that raters with higher NS were less likely to underrate the usefulness of novel products, suggesting that NS moderates the relationship between perceived novelty and usefulness. These findings indicate that personality trait, especially NS, play an important role in creativity evaluation.