Does Creativity Repulse You? Research Suggests It Might. Uncertainty is part of any creative process, but humans are hardwired to avoid the discomfort of doubt.

So you want to be a creator?

You have ideas. You think of them before you go to sleep. You've mentioned them at cocktail parties, to your spouse, to friends who have started businesses, to fellow engineers, to people who play guitar or do comedy at open mic nights. You have a family member who is a screenwriter. You've heard yourself say sheepishly, "I've had this idea…" or "Can I tell you my idea…" and then your voice peters out.

Or maybe you're not sure you have ideas. You sense that there could be one or two innovations in your pocket.

But what do you know about creativity? What business do you have pursuing the Big C-word? Does it have anything to do with you?

Related: Why Your Creativity Is Your Most Valuable Skill

Before I tell you that you know more than you think you do, and the steps are much more accessible than you imagine, I must first explain the hidden barrier. I refer here to the D-words, The Big D-Word, Doubt. Then there's the Little D-word — disgust.

Yes, creativity might disgust you, if you're honest. It's terrifying. Vomit-inducing, like a toxin.

Check out the science.

Powerful research comes from Jack Goncalo, a highly innovative thinker about creativity who, along with two collaborators, asked themselves a question: Do people really like creativity and creators?

This seems like a brainless question. Really? Do people really like creativity? Do we really like ice cream, puppies, rainbows?

In reality, the question they were asking is a fantastic one. In journalism circles, we sometimes call this kind of inquiry "the smart-dumb question." The idea is to take an idea we think we are absolutely certain we know the answer to and ask if we really are, in fact, absolutely certain. Have we taken a basic assumption for granted?

The question Goncalo and his fellow scientists posted in 2010 led to a paper published in 2012. In the paper's first paragraph, they state their premise: "Do people desire creative ideas? Most scholars would answer this question with an obvious "yes,' asserting that creativity is the engine of scientific discovery and the fundamental driving force of positive change. Furthermore, creativity is seen as being associated with intelligence, wisdom, and moral goodness."

However, the premise continues; research also shows that companies, research centers, leaders, and others "routinely reject creative ideas," and teachers "dislike students who exhibit curiosity and creative thinking."

You might too.

"We offer a new perspective," the research says, "to explain this puzzle."

My first exchange with Goncalo took place on January 13, 2020. By now, an infection being called simply "a coronavirus" had begun to spread, resulting in some alarm, but hardly hysteria. On January 15, The New York Times reported, two had died in China and 40 others were sick. A handful of cases of the "mysterious pneumonia-like coronavirus" had shown up in Thailand and Japan. The article speculated that the disease had spread from "a seafood market in Wuhan that sells other birds and animals."

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An organism that likely had evolved some time ago — nature's creation of unknown age — had begun to find a niche in the human world. Curiously, it would have much to teach us about how creativity works and thrives. But at that moment, the disease still seemed remote. Even knowing it was out there, somewhere, our family had flown back from Israel in a packed flight; the gravest threat to our safety I felt was from our 11-year-old son's staying up 20 hours straight to take advantage of the free movies (yes, he did). We also had flown back and forth over the winter holidays to Denver and then skied at Steamboat Springs, where I distinctly recall chatting with visitors from Italy, which would soon become a hotspot of infections with the incredibly contagious virus.

All the while, a biological creation lurked that would wind up underscoring precisely what Goncalo, now a professor of business at the University of Illinois, was poised to share with me: Creativity is terrifying, in ways we lie to ourselves about.

Goncalo and his fellow scientists ran two experiments. The first split research participants into two groups. One group was told they could receive extra money that would be distributed by a random lottery. They could get cash but couldn't control the outcome. The other group did not get any offer of a bonus.

This condition had the impact of making the lottery group feel uncertain.

The researchers then used an established research tool to measure how each group felt about creativity — not just how they said they felt on a conscious level, but also how they felt subconsciously. This is a kind of research that gets at what is known as "implicit bias." It's the same kind of research, broadly, that can be used to study how people feel about others of different races. People say one thing about creativity but, on a deep level, feel conflicted.

The researchers established through a questionnaire that study subjects expressed generally positive feelings about creativity. This was their "explicit" or stated belief system.

Then the researchers sought to unearth feelings that lurk below the surface. Using a clever computer program, they asked study participants to react so quickly to information that they don't really have time to "think." They just react.

Related: 9 Ways to Rewire Your Brain for Creativity

This particular study involved having participants react to ideas like "novel" and "original," along with ideas that are less associated with creativity like "practical" or "functional."

In this research, these words and related ideas were paired side by side on a computer screen with two different categories of images. Some of the images had positive associations, like rainbow, heaven, and cake. Others had decisively negative associations, like vomit, hell, and poison. When these study subjects responded in a rapid-fire manner, without thinking, their subconscious, hidden views of creativity emerged.

On a visceral level, creativity felt toxic, the study revealed. "People actually had a strong association between the concept of creativity and other negative associations like vomit, poison, and agony," Goncalo told me.

The subset of study subjects in the "uncertain" category — who didn't know if they'd get money — were even more likely than the control group to have negative associations with creativity.

What this suggested to researchers is that people say they like creativity, but they also like stability. So when things feel unstable, or uncertain, they are more likely to reject creativity because it suggests even greater chaos.

"People want creativity and stability," Goncalo said. It can be difficult to have both.

Creativity is disruptive. Creativity means changing how we relate to the world, go through our day-to-day lives, what we eat, listen to, watch, how we interact with one another. Creativity changes long-accepted behaviors, technology, and basic social contracts. It can be wrenching.

While this seems obvious upon reflection, it's not what we tell ourselves. "Saying you don't want creativity is like saying you don't like hope," Goncalo observed.

It would be hard to understate the significance of this finding in a modern world filled with change and chaos. Fairly, it is possible even to explain some of the rise of more authoritarian governments or leaders in some countries as a reaction to immense and fast-moving change. The advancements and innovations people say they crave, and many people authentically do, can run headlong into competing cravings they and others have for stability.

New ideas pose the threat of extinction in two different ways. This is not metaphorical. It's drawn from the biological: New forms of life and new ideas are almost always destined to fail. When viruses or bacteria mutate by accident, and when new combinations of cells emerge inside our bodies, these cells almost always die because they don't fit as well into the environment as the forms of life that came before. This is true of many ideas. Most don't work. They die off.

There's another way, though, in which change equals death. When the new forms of life, or ideas, do succeed, they displace what came before — and kill the past. New ideas kill habits, businesses, power structures, jobs.

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In my early twenties, I took a job at a small newspaper, earning $16,000 a year. To pad the paycheck, I worked the 6 a.m. shift at a local Chevron station on what was known then as "the full-service island." I filled gas tanks and washed windows. Then along came credit card readers and other technology that did away with the jobs on the full-service island. And along came the internet that did away with many newspaper jobs, and closed down that first newspaper where I worked.

In the biological world, new life forms can take over the landscape from the older forms of life less suited to a changing environment.

You are darn right creativity is scary. So is the call of inspiration.

In fact, one of my favorite stories about how inspiration can be terrifying comes from the Bible. As the story goes, a burning bush appeared to Moses.

"And Moses said: "I will now turn aside,'" the King James Bible reads.

If you like a metaphor as much as I do, the bush can appear as the mighty flame of inspiration. The bush was like the modern idea of a lightbulb. Idea! Free the slaves. But "Moses said unto God: "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of bondage?'"

Moses turned away (though eventually he would relent, and slaves would be freed).

Was his initial resistance an act of denial? Or self-preservation?

Given the finding that people harbor subconscious bias against creativity, Goncalo and his peer researchers then asked a second question: Does that mean people might have trouble recognizing creativity when they see it?

This is precisely what the researchers found when they showed a new running shoe to two different groups: people who identified as having considerable tolerance of uncertainty, and those with less tolerance.

This new running shoe, the researchers told the study subjects, uses nanotechnology to "adjust fabric thickness to cool the foot and reduce blisters."

Related: Overwhelmed? These 10 Techniques Can Help You Cope With Uncomfortable Feelings.

The people in the higher-tolerance group were more likely to see it as creative, the others less so. This finding, while not startling, reinforces the kinds of conditions and people that are more conducive to creativity. Uncertainty and instability yield infertile ground for new ideas.

In my conversations, I also discovered that even people I consider highly creative do not think of themselves as such and dismiss the idea that they could undertake pursuits they deem to be creative.

Several memorable exchanges I had on this subject took place with a terrific journalist and writer, a veteran New York Times business feature reporter named David Streitfeld. We started talking about writing books and I asked him if he ever thought about doing it. He seemed nearly aghast.

"Why would I write something when everything great has already been written?" Streitfeld said. He's tall and curly-headed, self-effacing, funny and wise. We had that initial conversation several years ago. I never forgot it. When I began writing a book about inspiration, I wanted to ask him about his earlier comments.

"I'm already getting a dark feeling about you interviewing me for this book, unless it's an example of me being one of the least creative people you know and, even so, I'm not sure why anybody would care."

I burst out laughing at his visceral shock at the very idea. This is a guy who had been part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize.

Streitfeld also said to me: "In essence, this is a subject I'm interested in because I do not have, for whatever reason, that ability — that trait — that you have and have cultivated in yourself and without which nothing writing-wise is possible, and with it, everything is possible."

I think it's fair to look at Streitfeld's thoughtful perspective in two ways. The first can be summed up with a question: Why bother? If a person doesn't feel inspired, why bother to create? I see this as very reasonable. An uninspired person shouldn't be forced to feel otherwise.

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The second way is slightly more scientific. It suggests that the resistance a person feels comes from a state of mind that isn't set in stone. Inspiration can be learned.

Streitfeld used a key word: He said he hadn't "cultivated" the trait that encourages free-flowing creativity. It's a good word. Creativity can be cultivated, and the first step involves addressing the doubts — both self-doubt and outside expectations — that often hamper the creative impulse.

To put a fine point on it: Doubt is inherent to the creative journey. It must be grappled with before anything new can blossom.