Group Creativity and Technology

Despite the popularity of brainstorming, research has shown that verbal brainstorming is not always effective in increasing group creativity. On the other hand, its electronic counterpart, electronic brainstorming, appears to produce much better results. Is technology the panacea for group idea generation? This paper first reviews the theory of group creativity and then examines the characteristics of electronic brainstorming that makes it more effective than verbal brainstorming. From the success of electronic brainstorming, it then argues that the use of technology might be the key to overcome the space and time constraints that are commonly faced by creativity groups.     

A Visual Representation to Quantitate,Diagnose, and Improve Creativity in Insight Problem Solving

A new visual representation for insight problems permits 22 new quantitative measures; which leads to a detailed diagnosis of a person's (or team's) creative weaknesses; which then leads to prescribing targeted, effective counter‐techniques for each weakness. Currently, only two measures are consistently used for insight problem solving: the number of problems solved and the time to solve the problems. These coarse measurements do not reveal the intricate dynamics of solving insight problems. Furthermore, four commonly used creativity measures (i.e., fluency, originality, flexibility, and elaboration) are often not applied to insight problems. This new visualization permits the easy application of all four creativity measures. I challenge creativity researchers to help determine which of the 22 proposed quantitative measures are the most diagnostic for insight problem solving in isolation and, in a weighted linear combination, which might yield an effective quotient (i.e., overall measure) of insight problem solving ability.     

Mild Affective Shifts and Creativity: Effects on Idea Generation,Evaluation, and Implementation Planning

This study investigated the impact of mild shifts in affective tone (i.e., pleasant vs. unpleasant) and arousal (i.e., high vs. low) on three creative processes. Undergraduates read short stories designed to induce affective shifts and then were asked to generate solutions to a complex business problem. Shifts in affective tone and arousal interacted to influence idea generation and implementation planning, but not idea evaluation. The strongest creative performance was exhibited by participants who experienced a stable and pleasantly toned, low-arousal (i.e., relaxed) state and by those who shifted to an unpleasantly toned, high-arousal (i.e., angry) state. In contrast, those who shifted to an unpleasantly toned, low-arousal (i.e., sad) state or a pleasantly toned, high-arousal (i.e., happy) state tended to exhibit poorer creative performance. These results demonstrate the need to revisit the popular conception that organizations should promote intense levels of pleasant affect to enhance employee creativity.     

Industrial and Biological Analogies Used Creatively by Business Professionals

The objective of this study was to test the effect of far-field industrial (i.e., man-made) versus biological analogies on creativity of business professionals from two organizations engaged in the idea generation phase of new product development. Psychological effects, as reflected in language use, were measured via computerized text analysis of transcribed audio recordings of ideation sessions. Effects on quality of product concepts generated by participants were measured via analysis of 15 judges’ multidimensional creativity ratings. Though psychological effects were undetectable, results suggest presenting new product development professionals with biological analogies as ideation stimulus increases novelty and may increase elegance of solutions generated. Presenting far-field industrial analogies increases relevance and effectiveness of solutions generated. This study serves as a source of evidence that biomimicry (design by analogy to biology) is an effective approach to product innovation. It also shows that there is an important role for far-field industrial analogies in stimulating ideas during new product development. A strategically designed brainstorming session should prime innovators with both far-field industrial and biological analogies to generate maximally creative ideas.     

Toward More Creative and Innovative Group Idea Generation: A Cognitive-Social-Motivational Perspective of Brainstorming

In many meetings and work sessions, group members exchange ideas in order to come up with novel, creative solutions for problems and to generate ideas for future innovations. This type of group idea generation or brainstorming process has been studied in detail, and we have discovered much about the cognitive and social processes that underlie group idea generation. It appears that the brainstorming performance of groups is often hindered by various social and cognitive influences, but under the appropriate conditions, group idea exchange can be quite effective. In this article, we summarize the present state of knowledge, point out some significant gaps in our knowledge, and suggest a cognitive-social-motivational perspective to integrate the major findings and to guide future research in the area of group creativity and group idea generation.     

Openness to Experience and Team Creativity: Effects of Knowledge Sharing and Transformational Leadership

This study extends the research on the creative work process in teams by integrating personality traits, knowledge-sharing behavior, and transformational leadership. Analyses of multisource data from 347 members of 53 creative teams in 26 firms reveal the associations between heterogeneity of openness to experience in teams and team creativity (i.e., idea generation and idea development). Further, knowledge sharing mediated the relationships between personality heterogeneity and team creativity. Transformational leadership amplified the relationship between personality heterogeneity and idea development. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Directing idea generation using brainstorming with specific novelty goals

In a field experiment with students, we show that a specific, difficult novelty goal, whether presented alone or in conjunction with brainstorming rules, improves novelty and creativity in individuals’ idea generation relative to brainstorming rules alone when goal commitment is high. Because creativity is often correlated with idea quantity in brainstorming studies, we controlled for idea quantity in order to demonstrate that the improvement is not due to changes in the number of ideas generated. These findings suggest that specific, difficult goals beyond quantity can improve idea generation. We also separately measured practicality and effectiveness of participants’ ideas. The results of these analyses suggest that goal commitment might be an important determinant of usefulness, and deserves additional attention in studies of idea generation.     

Electronic Creativity Techniques for Organizational Innovation

Innovation is the key to survival. Domestic and international competitions, changing government regulations, and rapidly evolving global market conditions demand constant and visionary innovation. The aim of this paper is to explore ways of using advance electronic and communication technology to improve innovation in organizations. This paper proposes that two group creativity techniques, PMI and synectics, should be implemented electronically in Group Support Systems to complement electronic brainstorming and support group idea generation. Not only are these two group creativity techniques well-developed and popular in the industry, their electronic counterparts have the added capability of transcending space and time constraints. A comparison of electronic brainstorming, PMI, synectics, and their verbal counterparts is discussed in the paper.     

Nurturing and Enhancing Creativity of Nursing Students in Taiwan: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Creativity and innovation are considered important measures of core competence in Taiwan for students of all levels, including nursing students. Integrating creativity with interdisciplinary teaching modules could increase creativity for nursing students; however, this has not been empirically determined. The purpose of this study was to determine if incorporating interdisciplinary teaching into a teaching for creativity module (TCM) could enhance creative thinking and creative abilities of nursing students. Students enrolled in a capstone nursing course for the development of healthcare-related products were divided into 2 groups. Both groups participated in the 18-week course; however, one group received creativity training with interdisciplinary teaching during the course, which was taught by nursing faculty who completed a TCM workshop. Students who received the interdisciplinary TCM intervention scored significantly higher than controls on measures of creative thinking. Our findings suggest a TCM program, which incorporates interdisciplinary teaching, and instruction in techniques for creativity, such as brainstorming, attribute listing, assessment matrix, and paired comparison, can stimulate divergent thinking abilities of nursing students.     

The Influence of Goal Orientation and Risk on Creativity

Employees' creative performance has been found to play a vital role in the continued existence and growth of organizations. Many individual differences (e.g., openness to experience) are significantly related to creative output, but the importance of individuals' goal orientation on creative performance under high or low risk situations has been overlooked. To address this gap in the literature, we studied the relationship between risk and creativity, and investigated whether an individual's goal orientation enhances (i.e., learning orientation) or diminishes (i.e., avoid or prove orientation) the relationship between risk and creative performance. The hypotheses were tested in a laboratory environment using undergraduate subjects. Results showed a positive relationship between risk and creativity. The findings also supported the idea that individuals low in avoid orientation cultivate more creative outputs under high rather than low risk conditions. Limitations, future research, and implications are addressed.     

Boundless Creativity: Evidence for the Domain Generality of Individual Differences in Creativity

This study investigated correlates of domain‐general and domain‐specific components of creativity. 158 college students completed a questionnaire that assessed their motivational and personality traits (i.e., intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, creative personality, and originality in word association) as well as intellectual abilities (SAT verbal and quantitative scores). Under two different instruction conditions (standard instruction or explicit “be creative” instruction), students also took a battery of multi‐item, product‐based tests of creativity in three domains (artistic, verbal, and mathematical creativity). Factor analyses showed evidence of domain‐generality of creativity. Furthermore, results from structural equation models showed that motivational and personality traits and intellectual abilities were associated with the domain‐general component of creativity. Only one variable (SAT quantitative score) was found to be associated with the domain‐specific component of mathematical creativity under the explicit “be creative” instruction condition. These results affirm the domain‐generality of creativity and challenge researchers to identify correlates of domain‐specific components of creativity.     

青少年创造性发展及其脑机制研究进展

青少年时期是创造性发展的关键阶段,探明青少年创造性发展规律及其神经机制对于培养和激发个体的创新潜能具有重要意义。本文综述了青少年创造性发展及其脑机制的研究进展,分别对青少年创造性思维发展趋势、影响因素及其相应的脑机制展开综述,并在此基础上进行了展望。总体而言,青少年时期创造性思维发展呈现出两个波峰(11~13岁,15~16岁)的发展趋势;青少年创造性发展受外部原生家庭教养方式和学校教师激励以及内部情绪动机和自我管理能力的影响较大;前额叶对青少年创造性发展具有重要作用,这可能与该脑区涉及执行控制功能有关。针对青少年创造性发展的教育干预以及大脑可塑性可能成为该领域的研究热点;而大样本纵向跟踪多模态脑影像数据库的建立可为相关研究提供重要支持。     

The Personality Composition of Teams and Creativity: The Moderating Role of Team Creative Confidence

We examined the possibility that teams composed primarily of individuals with personality characteristics conducive to team creativity (e.g., high extraversion, high openness to experience, low conscientiousness, high neuroticism, low agree‐ableness) would show synergistic increases in creativity when they experienced high levels of “team creative confidence”, a shared understanding that the team is more creative than each team member individually. We tested these hypotheses using a sample of 145 three‐student teams that worked on a set of idea generation tasks at Time 1 (T1) and a second set two weeks later at Time 2 (T2). As expected, results of cross‐lagged regression analysis indicated that when team creative confidence at T1 was high, team creativity at T2 increased quadratically as the number of team members who scored high on extraversion, high on openness, or low on conscientiousness increased. However, the number of individuals composing a team who scored high on neuroticism or low on agree‐ableness had no relation to team creativity under conditions of high or low team creative confidence. Implications of these results for the design of creative teams are discussed.     

Evaluating Creativity Through the Degrees of Solidity of Its Assessment: A Relational Approach

In this paper, we introduce a new approach to creativity assessment. Arguably, one of the main obstacles to creativity assessment is that creativity criteria are likely to change depending on what is assessed and who is making the assessment. We argue that we might be able to solve this problem by adopting a relational ontology, i.e., an ontology according to which beings of the world acquire their properties by relating to other beings. First, we present the main consequences of this ontological approach for creativity assessment: (a) Accounting for the creativity of a given object involves retracing the beings (including criteria) that relate it to its alleged creativity; (b) One can assess the creativity of this object by looking at the number of beings that substantiate this relation, i.e., by looking at what we call the “degree of solidity” of the relation; (c) One can thus account for the specificity of various forms of creativity and, at the same time, compare them in terms of solidity. Building on these ontological assumptions, we then present a new assessment technique, the Objection Counting Technique, before putting it to the test using an excerpt taken from a naturally occurring brainstorming session.     

Close Associations and Memory in Brainwriting Groups

The present experiment examined whether or not the type of associations (close (e.g. apple‐pear) and distant (e.g. apple‐fish) word associations) and memory instruction (paying attention to the ideas of others) had effects on the idea generation performances in the brainwriting paradigm in which all participants shared their ideas by using paper slips (Paulus & Yang, 2000). All participants were randomly subjected to exercising on either close or distant word associations ten minutes before the brainstorming session started. The findings showed that exercising on the close associations prior to the brainstorming session led to the generation of more unique ideas, category scanning, and depth of ideas than exercising on the distant ones in a subsequent brainstorming task. Memory instruction led to the generation of fewer ideas than no memory instruction. These findings were discussed from the aspect of the associative memory approach and cognitive stimulation approaches.     

Old wine in a new bottle: Impact of membership change on group creativity

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of membership change on group creativity. Based on the literature suggesting stimulating effects of membership change in groups, we hypothesized that membership change would enhance the creativity of groups. Membership change involved randomly rotating a subset of group members among groups during a series of creative tasks. Using an idea generation paradigm, we compared the creativity of open groups (i.e., groups that experienced a change in their membership across tasks) with that of closed groups (i.e., groups whose membership was invariant across tasks) in two experiments. In both experiments, we found that open groups generated more ideas and more different kinds of ideas than did closed groups. Moreover, Experiment 2 revealed that it was the productivity of “newcomers” (measured in terms of their creative idea generation in a previous task) that exerted a positive impact on groups. We also found that the entry of more productive newcomers increased the creativity of “oldtimers” (i.e., people who remained in one group across tasks). Implications for the role of membership change in groups are discussed.     

Personality and Creativity: The Dual Pathway to Creativity Model and a Research Agenda

To better understand the relation between personality traits and creativity, we invoke the Dual‐Pathway to Creativity model (DPCM) that identifies two pathways to creative outcomes: (1) flexible processing of information (cognitive flexibility) and (2) persistent probing, and systematically and incrementally combining elements and possibilities (cognitive persistence). DPCM further proposes that dispositional or situational variables may influence creativity through either their effects on flexibility or persistence. Here, we propose the idea that approach‐related traits (e.g., openness to experience, extraversion, positive affectivity, and power‐motivation) may lead to greater creativity because they link to enhanced cognitive flexibility, whereas avoidance‐related traits (e.g., negative affectivity and neuroticism) under the right circumstances may lead to greater creativity because they link to enhanced cognitive persistence. Empirical support for this proposition is discussed, and a research agenda for future work on personality and creativity is set.     

Creativity,Problem Solving,and Solution Set Sightedness: Radically Reformulating BVSR

Too often, psychological debates become polarized into dichotomous positions. Such polarization may have occurred with respect to Campbell's (1960) blind variation and selective retention (BVSR) theory of creativity. To resolve this unnecessary controversy, BVSR was radically reformulated with respect to creative problem solving. The reformulation began by defining (a) potential solution sets consisting of k possible solutions each described by their respective probability and utility values, (b) a set sightedness metric that gauges the extent to which the probabilities correspond to the utilities, and (c) a solution creativity index based on the joint improbability and utility of each solution. These definitions are then applied to representative cases in which simultaneous or sequential generate‐and‐test procedures scrutinize solution sets of variable size and with representative patterns of probabilities and utilities. The principal features of BVSR theory were then derived, including the implications of superfluity and backtracking. Critically, it was formally demonstrated that the most creative solutions must emerge from solution sets that score extremely low in sightedness. Although this preliminary revision has ample room for further development, the demonstration proves that BVSR's explanatory value does not depend on any specious association with Darwin's theory of evolution.     

The Relationship between Creativity and Interpersonal Problem-Solving Skills in Adults

The present study evaluated whether creativity training and interpersonal problem-solving training reflect equivalent or complementary skills in adults. A sample of 74 undergraduates received interpersonal problem-solving training, creativity training, neither, or both. Dependent variables included measures of problem-solving and creative performance, and problem-solving and creative style. The results suggested that creativity and interpersonal problem-solving represent complementary skills, in that each training program specifically affected performance only on related measures of performance. A combination of programs affected both abilities. Creativity training and interpersonal problem-solving training are popular psychoeducational interventions that developed in isolation from each other. Originally thought of as a mysterious process, the empirical analysis of the creative act can be traced to the work of Wallas (1926). Under the assumption that creativity is a desirable trait, a number of scales and training programs have been developed to measure and enhance creative skills. Creativity training has been used primarily in educational and industrial settings (e.g., Basadur, 1981). The principles of interpersonal problem-solving training have emerged more recently, in the work of Spivack and Shure (1974; Spivack, Platt, & Shure, 1976) and D'Zurilla (D'Zurilla & Goldfried, 1971; D'Zurilla & Nezu, 1982). These authors conceptualized interpersonal problem-solving training in the context of behavior therapy, and for this reason the literature on interpersonal problem-solving is more closely associated with therapeutic settings. Creativity and interpersonal problem-solving skills can be conceptually distinguished on the basis of their goals. Interpersonal problem-solving refers to one's skill in determining the means by which to achieve a specific end or overcome a specific problem. Creativity, on the other hand, need not be oriented towards achieving specific ends; it is associated with the capacity for thinking in new and different ways. Koestler (1964) has even argued that these two goals can be inimical, at least in adults, in that the ability to combine information in unique ways may be. hindered when the individual focuses his or her thinking on a specific problem. At the same time, there are clear similarities between the two domains of skills. Guilford (1977) noted that “creative thinking produces novel outcomes, and problem-solving involves producing a new response to a new situation, which is a novel outcome” (p. 161). Edwards and Sproull (1984) saw creativity training as a method for improving the quality of solutions to problems and increasing personal effectiveness. They considered problem-solving synonymous with creativity, since both training programs offer a variety of techniques to help identify useful solutions to problems. Similarly, Noller (1979) and others (e.g., Isaksen, Dorval, & Treffinger, 1994) have discussed the concept of creative problem solving, which attempts to integrate principles in the literature on creativity and on problem solving. Isaksen et al. conceptualized the process of creative problem solving as consisting of six steps which fall within three stages. The first stage involves understanding the problem, consisting of three steps: mess-finding, data-finding, and problem-finding. This is followed by the stage of generating ideas, involving the idea- finding step. Finally, there is planning for action, which involves solution-finding and acceptance-finding. The most important difference between the various creativity training models and the interpersonal problem-solving model lies in their emphasis. Creativity training models focus primarily on enhancing skill at generating solutions. The interpersonal problem-solving model places equal emphasis on the implementation and evaluation of potential solutions. Although many authors have suggested that participation in creativity training will have positive effects on social and interpersonal functioning (e.g., Parnes, 1987), only two studies have been conducted examining the relationship between the interpersonal problem-solving training model and creativity skills. Miller, Serafica, and Clark (1989) and Shondrick, Serafica, Clark, and Miller (1992) found that interpersonal problem-solving training for children also enhanced creativity skills, and that children's creative abilities appear to be predictive of their interpersonal problem-solving skills. The question of whether creativity and interpersonal problem-solving are equivalent, complementary, or even inimical has not been adequately addressed in the existing literature. For one thing, there are no studies examining the relationship between the two constructs in adults. This is an important question, given Koestler's (1964) conclusion that they are potentially inconsistent among adults. Second, there are no studies at all regarding the impact of creativity training on problem-solving skills in adults. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether creativity and interpersonal problem-solving skills can be distinguished in an adult sample.