The liberating role of conflict in group creativity: A cross cultural study

Charlan Jeanne Nemeth, Marie Personnaz, Bernard Personnaz and Jack A. Goncalo

Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series from Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley

Abstract: Researchers of group creativity have noted problems such as social loafing, “production blocking,” and especially, evaluation apprehension (Paulus, 2000). Thus, brainstorming techniques have specifically admonished people “not to criticize” their own and others’ ideas, a tenet that has gone unexamined. In contrast, there is research showing that dissent, debate and competing views have positive value, stimulating divergent and creative thought (Nemeth, 2002, in press). In this experimental study, traditional brainstorming instructions admonishing people not to criticize were compared with instructions encouraging people to debate and even criticize. A third condition offered no specific instructions. This study was conducted both in the United States and in France. Results show the value of both types of instructions, but, in general, debate instructions were superior to traditional brainstorming instructions. Further, these findings hold across both cultures. Results are discussed in terms of the positive value of encouraging debate and controversy for idea generation.

Keywords: Cross Cultural Studies; Group Dynamics; Organizational Behavior; : creativity; brainstorming; culture; dissent; conflict; cohesiveness; divergent thought (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-04-15
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/4k70n7v8.pdf;origin=repeccitec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:indrel:qt4k70n7v8

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series from Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lisa Schiff ().