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When it comes to behaviors in a brainstorming task, individuals from individualistic societies (e.g., Canada or the United States) perform quite differently from their collectivist counterparts (e.g., Taiwan or Japan). Specifically, individualists produce a greater number of ideas; they display a greater amount of open hostility; and they are more overconfident about their performance. On the other hand, collectivists generate ideas of greater quality (marginally so). Hence, it does appear that specific cultural traits can affect one's creative juices. Read More
Questions
I'd like to know a) Who were the "independent raters," and b) What were the groups supposed to be brainstorming about. Secondarily, what about creativity when brainstorming on an individual basis (not in a group setting)? Lastly, I'm not entirely convinced that the results of brainstorming are truly indicative of creativity (and what is the definition of creativity in this study, anyway, and does the word mean the same thing to all people?).
Comments
Just the fact that brainstorming is a much more familiar form of thinking to the Canadians than to the Taiwanese may explain the number of ideas generated. Brainstorming, according to my personal experience, is not a familiar way of thinking to the East. I am Asian, now living in the States. I have never even heard of this form of thinking/creativity task until I came to the States. This is an interesting study, and I think to certain extent it is true that the collectivist cultures are not encouraging individualistic creativity. The research method may needs some refinement. Just 2 cents from a very interested reader of your column. Love the topics you talked about!
Thank you for reading.
Many thanks for the kind words. Have a good day.
GS
Have you seen this published
Have you seen this published paper?
Goncalo, J.A. & Staw, B.M. (2006). Individualism-collectivism and group creativity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 100, 96-109.
Basically they find the same effect in a laboratory experiment. I think it may be helpful to refer to that paper.
Yes, I am familiar with the paper in question. We cite it!
Thank you for your suggestion.
GS
Published?
I'm working on a course directed toward teaching creativity to graduate and doctoral students, which is being developed by the University of Texas at Houston Health Sciences Center. It sounds like this article could be useful to cite within that course. Could you tell me if it ever got published anywhere?
Thank you!
The paper is currently under review.
Thank you for your interest. It might be helpful if you were to identify yourself when making such a request!
GS
I'm sorry. I'm an
I'm sorry. I'm an undergraduate student at UT Austin. I hope that the paper gets accepted; it sounds very interesting!
Thank you.
I was only asking that you identify yourself in case you wanted me to contact you directly regarding the paper (as it makes its way through the review process).
You may wish to email me directly in a couple of months. Hopefully, the paper will have been accepted by then!
GS
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