Does Group Participation When Using Brainstorming Facilitate or Inhibit Creative Thinking?

Two hypotheses relating to using the ideation principle of extended effort in idea generation to solve real world technical and managerial problems are tested in field research. In two studies involving training and application of a "complete process of creative problem solving" emphasizing the ideation-evaluation process, the "most preferred ideas" were well dispersed and furthermore were more likely to be found among the latter two thirds of the ideas listed serially than in the first third. This provides support for the usefulness of the extended effort principle.One study (n=lOl) involved individual creative problem solving, while the other (n=264) involved small groups. The data give rise to speculation that perhaps the more effort devoted to fact finding and problem definition prior to idea generation, the earlier in the list of ideas will the most preferred idea occur.The technique or principle of extended effort in idea generation in creative problem solving has been of interest to researchers for sometime.Extended effort is defined as striving to obtain as many ideas_as possible (rather than stopping with the early ideas that come to mind) during idea generation. One statement attibuted to Linus Pauling that relates to extended effort is "the best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas" (Parnes, Noller, and Biondi 1977). Another saying, "quantity breeds quality", represents one of the four operational rules of the well known brainstorming technique (Osl:x>rn, 1963):

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“…See Taylor, Berry, and Block, 1958) 2) For the authors, possibility #4 above is perhaps the most intriguing.…”

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Usefulness of the Ideation Principle of Extended Effort in Real World Professional and Managerial Creative Problem Solving*

Basadur

Thompson

1986

Journal of Creative Behavior

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“…Most people believe they can contribute more creative ideas Relational Affirmation in Teams 7 when they work in teams than when they work alone (Stroebe, Diehl, and Abakoumkin, 1992;Pauhus et al, 1993). Despite this prevalent belief that team interactions will stimulate creative thinking, research on brainstorming shows that pooling ideas from people working alone leads to more creative ideas than having the same people generate ideas in a team setting (Taylor, Berry, and Block, 1958;Lamm and Trommsdorff, 1973;Diehl and Stroebe, 1987;Mullen, Johnson, and Salas, 1991;Brown and Paulus, 2002). In this section, we first review research that points to team members' concerns about social acceptance as a key reason for team productivity loss, and we identify feelings of social worth as a psychological mechanism that can override such concerns.…”

Section: Theoretical Model and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preparing the Self for Team Entry: How Relational Affirmation Improves Team Performance

Lee

Gino²,

Cable

et al. 2016

SSRN Journal

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Working in teams often leads to productivity loss because the need to feel accepted prevents individual members from making a unique contribution to the team in terms of the information or perspective they can offer. Drawing on self-affirmation theory, we propose that pre-team relational self-affirmation can prepare individuals to contribute to team creative performance more effectively. We theorize that relationally-affirming one's self-views increases general feelings of being socially valued by others, leading to better information exchange and creative performance. In a first study, we found that teams in which members affirmed their best selves prior to team formation (i.e., by soliciting and receiving narratives that highlight one's positive impact on close others) outperformed teams that did not do so on a creative problem-solving task. In the second experiment, conducted using virtual teams, we show that pre-team relational self-affirmation leads to heightened feelings of social worth, which in turn explains the effect of the treatment on the team's ability to exchange information.Keywords: relational self-affirmation; team entry; team creative performance; information exchange; social worth. Relational Affirmation in Teams 3Preparing the Self for Team Entry: How Relational Affirmation Improves Team PerformanceEffective communication is a key feature of a team's capabilities (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000;Gardner, Gino, and Staats, 2012). Unfortunately, as members are introduced to a team, one critical issue that may impede effective team communication is each member's need to feel accepted by the others (Wittenbaum and Stasser, 1996;Gruenfeld et al., 1996). The need to feel accepted can lead individual members to prioritize fitting in over contributing unique information and adding maximum value to the team. For example, teams are biased toward repeating previously-mentioned shared information, as opposed to sharing unique information, because repetition helps members appear "cognitively central and thus task competent" (Wittenbaum, Hubbell, and Zuckerman, 1999; p. 968). In addition, team members are more likely to share socially-endorsed information within the team if they believe the information to be useful to the team as compared to information that has not been socially-validated (Littlepage, Perdue, and Fuller, 2012). Thus, individual team members' need for social acceptance may hinder the team's ability to share and integrate information in order to accomplish their task.One remedy to this problem is for members to invest time after team formation, to highlight their differences in ideas, background and perspectives. As evidenced in a qualitative study of diverse teams by Ely and Thomas (2001), openly discussing the unique qualities of different team members and integrating diverse perspectives allowed individuals to feel valued and respected. The team members were able to apply their differences in knowledge, and the perspectives associated with their unique identities, to the task at hand...

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“…Ils résol-vent le problème plus vite que les individus, mais peu de groupes y arrivent. Dans la même veine, Taylor, Berry et Block (1958) s'attaquent à la créativité par la mé-thode bien connue du brain-storming. Celui-ci permet un échange sans entraves et sans critique entre les membres du groupe, il encourage l'association débridée des idées.…”

Section: Les Individus Et Les Groupes Iunclassified

Dissensions et consensus

Moscovici¹,

Doise²

2010

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Does Group Participation When Using Brainstorming Facilitate or Inhibit Creative Thinking?

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Usefulness of the Ideation Principle of Extended Effort in Real World Professional and Managerial Creative Problem Solving*

Usefulness of the Ideation Principle of Extended Effort in Real World Professional and Managerial Creative Problem Solving*

Preparing the Self for Team Entry: How Relational Affirmation Improves Team Performance

Dissensions et consensus

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