Self-esteem and the self-censorship of creative ideas

Creative processes halt when those who generate creative ideas self-censor them Self-censorship may become a greater concern in performance management as organizations of the future are likely to face growing pressures to be creative, innovative, and adaptive. Self-censorship was addressed in early research on managing the performance of brainstorming groups, and may have broad implications for creative performance in many facets of today's organizations. This paper re-examines the research on self-censorship in view of recent management and social psychology research in an effort to better understand how the self-esteem motive and a lack of self-concept clarity cause self-censorship. Person-focused and feedback-focused strategies to reduce self-censorship are described, and directions for future research are suggested.