Creators Mispredict Idea Thieves' Preference for Stealing Early-Stage Versus Late-Stage Ideas

In a series of experimental studies, we explore the perceptions of the stages at which ideas are stolen, from creators' and observers' perspectives, and contrast them with the stealing intentions and preferences of thieves. We find that creators and observers mispredict when ideas will be stolen, expecting ideas to be taken in their later stages of development, while thieves show a clear preference for ideas in their nascent stage. We show this is because creators and observers overvalue the strategic motivations of thieves and undervalue moral identity concerns. We further show that this misprediction has significant downstream consequences for creators, such that they choose to present ideas much earlier in the developmental process, thus exposing their ideas to an increased risk of being stolen.