Brainstorming

Social and Personality Psychology Compass 1/1 (2007): 248–265, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00006.
Toward More Creative and Innovative

Group Idea Generation: A Cognitive-Social-
Motivational Perspective of Brainstorming
Paul B. Paulus1* and Vincent R. Brown2
1
University of Texas at Arlington
2
Hofstra University
Abstract
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 brain-
storming 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.
It is hard to go through a day without someone mentioning brainstorm-

ing. Any group or organization that is confronting problems or is in need
of some new ideas is likely to use brainstorming. For example, one of the
top product development companies in the world, IDEO corporation, has
regular brainstorming sessions as part of the process of coming up with
new product ideas. These idea-generating sessions involve a diverse group
of employees who are supposedly highly skilled in the process of sharing ideas
and then building on this shared information (Sutton & Hargadon, 1996).
Even though brainstorming appears to be a popular technique, we
know of no systematic, controlled study of the brainstorming process in
organizations that involves work teams solving real problems. However,
there is an extensive literature on brainstorming in laboratory settings.
This research has provided a basis for a theoretical understanding of the
ideation process in groups by identifying factors that inhibit and enhance
the brainstorming process. Yet, there is still much to learn about the
complex process of creative idea generation in individuals and groups.
Throughout the article, we will highlight gaps in our knowledge that we
believe are important and fruitful areas for future research. One observation
© 2007 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Cognitive-Social-Motivational View of Brainstorming 249
Figure 1 A cognitive-social-motivational model of group ideation. This diagram represents

how social-motivational factors might influence the cognitive process of individual idea gen-
eration by influencing the amount of attention paid to group members’ ideas. Solid lines
represent the flow of information. Dashed lines represent processes that control the flow of
information. Individual idea generation is assumed to involve the integration and combination
of information retrieved from memory and is assumed to be strongly affected by both the
degree to which an individual focuses on their own idea generation process and the degree
to which they attend to the ideas of others. Group diversity is assumed to increase cognitive
stimulation by leading to a more diverse set of ideas from which the group can draw. Group
cohesion should increase the degree to which group members feel comfortable sharing their
ideas and are interested in listening to the ideas of other group members. Motivational factors
will affect group members’ effort to share their own ideas and to attend to the ideas of other
group members. In turn, the rate at which ideas are shared will affect group members’
motivation to engage in the brainstorming task (e.g., through social matching) and motivation
to continue as the brainstorming session progresses (persistence).
we will emphasize is that brainstorming involves the interconnected influ-

ences of cognitive, social, and motivational processes. We have provided a
summary diagram of our integrated cognitive-social-motivational perspec-
tive in Figure 1. It represents how social-motivational factors might
influence the cognitive process of individual idea generation by influenc-
ing the amount of attention paid to group members’ ideas. This diagram will
be referred to throughout the article as the component processes are discussed.
Part of the problem of determining the relative frequency of brain-
storming is the fact that the label is not used consistently. Brainstorming
is a term that is now commonly used for group sessions in which people
share ideas on some issue or problem. Formal brainstorming involves the
© 2007 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 1/1 (2007): 248–265, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00006.x
250 Cognitive-Social-Motivational View of Brainstorming
use of certain rules developed by Osborn (1957) who first coined ‘brain-
storming’ as a term for the free-flowing burst of ideas that he and his
colleagues were trying to encourage. Their formal brainstorming proce-
dures were implemented as of a set of rules for groups to follow. Osborn
believed that one of the key problems in groups is that people may feel
inhibited in expressing their ideas because of their concern about the
judgment of others. For most of us in group meetings, there is often
the concern about looking stupid or silly in front of our colleagues or
coworkers. This ‘evaluation apprehension’ can be a real creativity killer.
Thus, one rule Osborn proposed is that groups should make no positive
or negative comments until the group has finished generating ideas and
has arrived at a selection stage (‘criticism is ruled out’). Osborn felt that
if group members were secure about the fact that they would not be
judged, they should feel free to generate a lot of ideas without self-
censoring them on the basis of potential acceptability. Hence, two
additional rules encouraged groups to say whatever came to their mind
(‘quantity is wanted’ and ‘freewheeling is welcome’). These two rules
should increase the diversity of ideas groups generate, which group mem-
bers could then build on by combining and improving them. Hence, in
addition to generating their own ideas, group members should attend to
the ideas of others and use those as fuel for additional ideas.
In his earlier writings, Osborn (1957) suggested that groups that
followed his guidelines should be twice as productive as similar numbers
of individuals. Unfortunately, controlled experiments have not supported
this prediction. Although the rules that Osborn developed for brainstorm-
ing have been shown to enhance the number of ideas groups generate
(Parnes & Meadow, 1959), individuals in groups do not generate more ideas
than individuals brainstorming alone. In general, groups appear to gener-
ate only about half as many ideas as the combined total of ideas generated by the
same number of individuals brainstorming alone (called nominal groups) (Diehl
& Stroebe, 1987; Mullen, Johnson, & Salas, 1991; Paulus & Dzindolet, 1993).
To illustrate a typical brainstorming experiment, we describe Study 3
of Paulus and Dzindolet (1993) in more detail. The main goal of this
experiment was to compare the brainstorming performance of four
people working together to four individuals working alone. It was hypoth-
esized that interactive groups would be more likely than individuals brain-
storming alone to feel the effects of evaluation apprehension and
free-riding (letting others in the group do more of the work), and would
be subject to the interfering effects of the presence of multiple speakers
in a group setting (called ‘production blocking’). In university laboratory
settings, where students with a variety of backgrounds volunteer or
receive course credit for participating, it is desirable to use brainstorming
problems that do not require any unusual or specialized knowledge. In
this experiment, participants were asked to generate ideas on ways to
improve their university (e.g., ‘We need more parking spaces!’) or in
response to the question, ‘What would be the advantages and disadvan-

tages of having an extra thumb on each hand?’ (e.g., ‘Gloves would have
to be redesigned.’). Eighty participants were assigned to groups of four.
Each group of four generated ideas for 25 minutes on their assigned
problem either by interacting while sitting together around a table or
alone while sitting in separate rooms. An important point needs to be
made about how the performance of interactive groups and individuals is
compared. It doesn’t work simply to compute the average number of ideas
generated in a group, compute the average number of ideas an individual
generates, and then compare them. Four people will almost always come up
with more ideas than one person. Because different people produce dif-
ferent ideas, the more people working on a problem, the larger the ‘idea
pool’ to draw from. Hence, comparing four people to one person isn’t
‘fair’. What is needed is a comparison between interactive groups of four
and the same number of individuals working alone. This is why Paulus
and Dzindolet assigned four people either to work together around a table
or to work alone in separate rooms. The set of four people working alone
is what is called a nominal group. This procedure does introduce another
complication that, fortunately, is easily solved. Because the individuals
constituting a nominal group are not aware of what ideas the individuals
in the other rooms are generating, they will independently come up with
a number of the same ideas. This means that simply adding the number
of ideas generated by the four individuals would lead us to overestimate
the performance of nominal groups, which would be ‘unfair’ to the inter-
active groups. Hence, repeated ideas need to be eliminated from the count
of the nominal groups and the interactive groups in order to make a fair
comparison. When this procedure is followed, Paulus and Dzindolet found
that on average, in three experiments (Studies 3, 4, and 5), nominal groups
of four generated about 65% more ideas than interactive groups of four.
Brainstorming: A Broad Perspective

So is brainstorming just a fad and a waste of time or is there some merit
to this process? Ironically, the answer to this question is yes! It is a fad,
and it is often a waste of time, but there is some merit to this process.
How can this be? As with most psychological phenomena, the effective-
ness of brainstorming depends on a number of factors. If brainstorming is
done without attention to the various processes that hinder its effective-
ness, it can be counterproductive. If it is done in a way that allows the
group to effectively tap its intellectual potential, it can be a very useful
technique. Moreover, the findings and ideas from the research reviewed
here should be relevant to any group situation that involves the generation
or sharing of ideas. This of course is the case for most meetings and
problem-solving sessions and for teamwork that involves the exchange of
knowledge or information (Paulus, Nakui, & Putman, 2005).
As discussed in the next section, idea generation itself is a cognitive

process involving the retrieval of relevant knowledge from long-term
memory and the integration of knowledge in working memory. (This is
illustrated in the large box labeled ‘Individual Idea Generation’ in Figure 1.)
There are many additional factors that affect an individual’s ability and
motivation to perform the task. Imagine two individuals, one who knows
nothing at all about a topic but is extremely motivated to come up with
a creative idea and another who is extremely knowledgeable about a
specific area but has no motivation to make use of that knowledge. Try
as they might, the individual with no knowledge of an area will simply not
be able to generate any relevant ideas. On the other hand, the unmotivated
but knowledgeable individual could conceivably generate a useful idea
without much effort, although the frequency with which that would happen
would be quite low. This would seem to suggest that idea generation is a
cognitive process which is strongly moderated by social and motivational
factors (and indeed cannot take place without them). (The social and
motivational factors are represented by the ‘Group Composition’ and
‘Motivational Factors’ boxes in Figure 1.) We will summarize the cogni-
tive and social-motivational processes involved in group ideation and then
suggest a comprehensive perspective that integrates these processes.
Idea Generation Is a Cognitive Process

The basic process of ‘coming up with’ an idea falls under the domain of
cognitive psychology. Idea generation involves both the retrieval of exist-
ing knowledge from memory and the combination of various aspects of
existing knowledge into novel ideas (Mumford, Mobley, Uhlman, Reiter-
Palmon, & Doares, 1991; Nijstad & Stroebe, 2006; Ward, Smith, & Vaid,
1997). For example, when thinking about how to improve one’s univer-
sity, a student may retrieve from memory the idea that they find Web-
based classroom resources quite useful. In particular, they may be thinking
about how reviewing outlines or lecture slides before class makes the class
easier to understand. If they move on to remember how they can never
find a parking space on campus while still keeping the recent idea about
Web-based resources in mind, the two thoughts could be combined
to generate the new idea of maintaining a parking website listing the
currently least-occupied parking areas that students could access from their
personal digital assistants or cell phones as they approach campus. (The
process described here is represented by the ‘Individual Idea Generation’
box in Figure 1.)
In the last several years, two independently developed cognitive models
of group idea generation have been described (Brown, Tumeo, Larey, &
Paulus, 1998; Coskun, Paulus, Brown, & Sherwood, 2000; Nijstad, Stro-
ebe, & Diehl, 2003; Nijstad & Stroebe, 2006; Paulus & Brown, 2003).
Although there are some important technical differences between the two
models, they have much in common, and their common elements are
what are most relevant for the points made in this article (see Paulus &
Brown, 2003, and Nijstad & Stroebe, 2006, for discussions of the simi-
larities and differences between the two models). Both models assume that
idea generation involves the retrieval of existing knowledge from long-
term memory. Because memory is associative – ideas tend to facilitate the
retrieval of related ideas – brainstormers will generally proceed with ideas
first being generated from the most common categories of a given topic
and later switch to less common ideas. However, individuals and groups
will tend to generate clusters of ideas from common categories with the
potential to get stuck in a rut and miss useful but less related and less
common ideas (what cognitive psychologists call less ‘accessible’ ideas; cf.
Tulving & Pearlstone, 1966).
Because of the associative nature of memory, working in a group and
attending to the ideas of the others has potentially stimulating effects. An
idea from another group member might spark a good idea from an indi-
vidual’s less accessible area of knowledge. The same process could poten-
tially lead to novel combinations of existing ideas (Nijstad & Stroebe, 2006).
There is evidence that exposure to the ideas of others can be stimulating
(Dugosh, Paulus, Roland, & Yang, 2000; Nijstad, Stroebe, & Lodewijkx,
2002) and in fact lead to the retrieval of less common ideas (Dugosh
& Paulus, 2005; Leggett, 1997). As of yet the effect of such exposure
on creative combinations of ideas has not been studied in groups (i.e.,
Osborn’s ‘combine and improve’ rule has not been directly tested).
Furthermore, high rates of idea generation could lead to greater per-
sistence so that groups may continue to generate ideas for longer periods
of time than a single individual since they generate a greater total number
of ideas. Nijstad and Stroebe (2006) have emphasized the importance of
persistence as a factor in group brainstorming and have provided
evidence for a cognitive mechanism underlying it. Group members appar-
ently use the rate of idea production as a brainstorming session progresses
as a signal for whether to continue generating ideas (if idea production is
still reasonably high) or to stop (if idea production has declined to a low
level). (Note the link from ‘Output/shared ideas’ to ‘Persistence’ in
Figure 1.) Persistence and high rates of productivity have also been related
to scientific achievement (Ochse, 1990).
Exposure to other ideas can also have distracting or inhibiting effects
on idea generation. Nijstad and Stroebe (2006) emphasize the potential
for the ideas of others to interfere with an individual’s current train of
thought. This could occur when one is exposed to an idea that has few
connections to other ideas in an individual’s semantic network, as would
happen if one group member begins discussing ideas in a domain or
category that another person knows little about. For example, when
brainstorming on ways to improve their university, a humanities major
might be distracted by a science major’s suggestions about how to improve
laboratory courses since humanities majors would in general have less

experience with, and therefore less knowledge of, laboratory science
courses. Also Smith (2003) has shown that when people are shown prior
examples of possible alternatives, these examples constrain the types of
ideas generated subsequently. For example, engineering students tended
to come up with design ideas similar to the presented examples even
when explicitly directed not to ( Jansson & Smith, 1991). Verbal discussion
unrelated to the task (e.g., ‘what are you doing tonight?’) has a detrimen-
tal effect on group productivity (Dugosh et al., 2000), not only by wasting
time but also perhaps by occupying attention or working memory
resources that could otherwise be used for idea generation (Nijstad &
Stroebe, 2006; Paulus & Brown, 2003).
A Cognitive Basis for Enhancing Ideation in Groups

The above analysis highlights the difficulties inherent in group ideation.
There is a strong theoretical basis and some evidence that idea sharing can
cognitively stimulate the generation of additional ideas. However, it
should be noted that we are interested in situations in which individuals
are engaged in the multiple tasks of generating creative ideas, listening to
those ideas, and processing shared ideas. It is clear that under such con-
ditions exposure to ideas from others will not always have positive effects.
In the context of social interaction with a number of individuals, brain-
storming becomes a divided attention task in which group members must
allocate limited cognitive capacity or working memory resources to a
number of factors. In addition to attending to both the ideas of others
and their own internal idea generation process, group brainstormers must
pay attention to social conventions such as conversational turn-taking and
phrasing ideas in ways that are consistent with conversational etiquette. If
we only attend to others, we will not generate any ideas. If we do not
attend to others, we can generate ideas at will but will not benefit from
exposure to other perspectives. How attention is allocated in group brain-
storming is an important issue for further research since paying attention
to the ideas of others is the primary means by which an individual group
member can use the ideas of others to facilitate his or her own idea
generation. (The central role of attention to other’s ideas is represented by
the prominently outlined box in Figure 1. Attention to the internal idea
generation process – internal attentional focus – is represented within the
‘Individual Idea Generation’ box in Figure 1.)
Since listening to others’ ideas can be both stimulating and distracting,
it is important to consider the nature of the ideas being shared. Variation
in group members’ knowledge or expertise or social characteristics such as
ethnicity is likely to lead to the sharing of a greater variety of information
or ideas. There is some evidence that groups made up of members with
more heterogeneous knowledge are more productive than groups whose
members are more homogenous (Stroebe & Diehl, 1994). (This is repre-
sented as ‘Cognitive diversity’ under ‘Group Composition’ in Figure 1.
‘Cognitive diversity’ is one of the factors leading to the ‘Diverse idea pool’
represented by the oval in Figure 1.) Individuals exposed to more diverse
examples produce more original conceptual combinations, although not
necessarily higher quality ideas (Finke, Ward, & Smith, 1992; Mobley,
Doares, & Mumford, 1992). Another important factor should be the
degree of cognitive overlap among the group members. Although there is
not a lot of evidence for this hypothesis, we assume that the most effective
diverse task groups are those that have complementary task relevant
knowledge or skills sets but also have enough conceptual overlap to effec-
tively exchange ideas and information (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). How-
ever, to insure that the group shares their unique information it is
important that group members know who knows what and feel respon-
sible to share their unique knowledge (Stasser & Birchmeier, 2003).
One key discovery we have made is that it is important to allow
individuals time to process the shared ideas. After group brainstorming or
exposure to ideas from others, additional private ideation time seems to
be quite beneficial (Dugosh et al., 2000; Paulus & Yang, 2000). This
incubation time enables a person to retrieve shared ideas from memory,
integrate these with their own knowledge base and the ideas they have
already generated. This integration process should yield a considerable
number of new ideas or conceptual combinations. Creative idea genera-
tion could be facilitated by multiple brainstorming sessions alternating
between group and solitary brainstorming. If a group session precedes an
individual session, the group session could spark creativity by priming low
accessible categories of ideas, and then the solitary session could allow for
these creative ideas to be followed up in the absence of group-related
social and cognitive disruptions. Several studies have varied the sequence
of individual and group sessions. One study suggests that going from a
group session to an individual session helps groups to be productive (Dun-
nette, Campbell, & Jaastad, 1963), while another study has found no effect
of sequence (Paulus, Larey, & Ortega, 1995). Hence, this question needs
further study. The impact of the alone and group sequence may depend
on how well-trained group members are to take advantage of the alternation
between these two different sessions. In particular, it may be important
that the participants be highly motivated to take advantage of the subse-
quent sessions to effectively build on the ideas generated in the prior session.
Brief breaks in the idea generation process that involve a brief cessation
of ideation and subsequent return to that process may have a similar
benefit (Paulus, Nakui, Putman, & Brown, 2006). Possibly the breaks
allow individuals time to process the ideas already generated or shared,
resulting in renewed cognitive stimulation. Alternatively, such breaks may
allow a person to overcome a possible fixation on a limited range of topics
or categories (Smith, 2003). Another strategy for improving group idea
generation is to instruct the group to generate ideas from one category at

a time (Coskun et al., 2000). This may reduce the potential distraction of
hearing another’s idea by helping to insure that everyone is ‘on the same
page’ (focusing their attention on the same category).
Diversity and Group Productivity

There are a number of factors required to tap the benefit of diverse
groups. First of all, it is presumed that the diversity represented in the
group is relevant to the group task. That is, if a group has the range of
skills and knowledge required for a particular problem area, it is likely they
can tap this diversity to come up with a broader range of ideas than those
with a more limited diversity in knowledge. (In Figure 1, ‘Cognitive
diversity’ is one of the ‘Group Composition’ factors leading to the
‘Diverse idea pool’.) Diversity on dimensions that are not related to the
task or problem should not be particularly helpful. Hence, we would
expect that knowledge diversity would be most helpful for groups doing
intellectual tasks whereas social diversity (ethnicity, age, etc.) would not
be that relevant (Mannix & Neale, 2005). However, if social diversity is
related to different life experiences or perspectives that are potentially
relevant to a task or problem (e.g., developing procedures to enhance the
attractiveness of a campus to diverse populations), then social diversity is
potentially beneficial. However, it is important that group members are
motivated to share and elaborate task relevant information (van Knippen-
berg & Schippers, 2007). The issue of diversity in group composition
clearly needs further study and is a good example of how the understand-
ing of group idea generation is an interdisciplinary problem.
Another important factor in group productivity appears to be that
group members need to have positive feelings toward one another. This
will motivate them to take a genuine interest in one another and create a
desire to share and listen carefully to their diverse perspectives (Paulus &
van der Zee, 2004; see the connections between ‘Group Composition/
Group cohesion’ and ‘Output/shared ideas’ and ‘Attention to other’s
ideas’ in Figure 1). One way this can be accomplished is to provide some
type of ‘bridge’ that binds the group members together. This could
involve finding some common bond that ties the group together (shared
values, identity, etc.) (Mannix & Neale, 2005). However, a certain level
of cohesion or common bonding may take time to develop, so the
negative effects of diversity may dissipate as group members become
more familiar with one another (Harrison, Price, Gavin, & Florey, 2002;
Watson, Kumar, & Michaelson, 1993). Also, group members who have a
positive attitude toward diversity show more benefits of being in diverse
groups on their creativity (Nakui & Paulus, 2007), possibly because this
positive attitude makes them more comfortable in such groups and more
motivated to interact.
Electronic Brainstorming: Cognitive Stimulation Without

Social Inhibition?
A major impediment to effective face to face brainstorming is production
blocking (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987), which is interference resulting from
having to wait one’s turn to express one’s ideas. This suggests there should
be an advantage if groups were to exchange ideas in written form (by
means of computer, called ‘electronic brainstorming’, or slips of paper,
called ‘brainwriting’). Hence, these approaches allow one to be exposed
to ideas without having to pay the price of sharing the idea generation
stage with others. In electronic brainstorming on computers, the ideas
remain available on the screen and can be reread any number of times.
Therefore, the cognitive load associated with being exposed to a large
number of ideas is reduced. In addition, individuals can choose when to
look at the ideas on the screen in front of them, perhaps postponing
processing an idea from someone else if they are currently working on
generating one of their own ideas. (That is, in the electronic brainstorming
format, individuals would seem to have more control over when to switch
attention between the two sources represented in Figure 1: their own
ideas and the ideas of others.) Thus, later in a brainstorming session, as one
begins to run out of ideas, spending more time reading others’ ideas should
be beneficial. We may be reminded of areas or categories we had not
considered or be stimulated to make a connection to some of our own
ideas. In large electronic brainstorming groups, one is exposed to a larger
number of ideas increasing the likelihood that the available pool of ideas
will include ones that stimulate additional ideas for participants. (Note that
Group composition/Group size leads to a Diverse idea pool in Figure 1.)
As noted earlier, for small face-to-face groups, nominal groups outper-
form interactive groups by a large margin (Bouchard & Hare, 1970).
Reviews of electronic brainstorming have shown that small groups inter-
acting on computers may show poorer performance in comparison to
the summed performance of the same number of individual electronic
brainstormers. However, there is converging evidence that in electronic
brainstorming, interactive groups of greater than size eight generate more
ideas than an equal number of individual brainstormers (Dennis & Wil-
liams, 2003; Derosa, Smith, & Hantula, 2007). It is possible that in smaller
groups each participant’s idea generation is dominated by social and
cognitive interference from others, but once the group becomes large
enough, the large number of ideas generated by such groups may coun-
teract some of the negative effects of idea sharing. Hence, there seems to
be evidence for cognitive stimulation benefits in electronic brainstorming.
However, such stimulation is not inevitable. Unless participants are
encouraged or ‘forced’ to attend to the shared ideas in some way, no
cognitive stimulation benefits may accrue (Dugosh et al., 2000). For example,
electronic brainstormers perform better when they are asked to remember
the ideas generated by their group and are told that they will be tested at
the end of the session to see how many ideas they remember. This is not
unlike the case of students who attend more carefully to their textbooks
and lectures when they know they will be tested on the material.
Alternatively, the positive effect of larger electronic brainstorming
groups may simply be due to social facilitation. That is, these groups are
typically present in the same room and their presence may have motivat-
ing effects on their coworkers. That is, the sight of all of these fellow
brainstormers working hard on the task or simply seeing a large number
of ideas on the screen may have positive motivational effects (Geen, 1989).
(Note the links in Figure 1 from ‘Motivational Factors’ to ‘Output/shared
ideas’, ‘Persistence’, and ‘Attention to other’s ideas’.)
Social-Motivational Factors Affecting Idea Generation

Although idea generation as such is a cognitive process, any time someone
is in a group situation, there is inevitably some sort of social influence.
There may be social facilitation due to the physical presence of others that
can enhance performance of simple tasks (Zajonc, 1980), there can be
loafing due to the feeling of reduced accountability for one’s individual
performance (Karau & Williams, 1993), or there may be some inhibitory
anxiety about what others may think of one’s ideas (Camacho & Paulus, 1995).
Most of the social factors are highlighted for their negative role in
group brainstorming. However, there are social comparison processes
inherent in any performance situation whose influence can be either
positive or negative. Social comparison theory suggests that individuals
tend to compare their own performance with that of others in the group
(Festinger, 1954). This is one way we can determine how well we are
doing and whether we need to adjust our performance level. Paulus and
Dzindolet (1993) found that members of brainstorming groups tended to
converge to a similar level of performance (a process called ‘matching’,
see the ‘Motivational Factors’ box in Figure 1) and that this performance
tended to move in the direction of the low performers in the group (note
the connections in Figure 1 from ‘Output/shared ideas’ to ‘Motivational
Factors’ and back to ‘Output/shared ideas’). However, comparisons can
also induce a sense of competition and lead to upward movement of
performance when brainstormers are provided periodic feedback about
their individual performance or group performance (Coskun, 2000;
Paulus, Larey, Putman, Leggett, & Roland, 1996). In a similar vein, when
individuals are provided with information that others typically generate a
high number of ideas, they greatly increase the number of ideas generated
(Paulus & Dzindolet, 1993). Furthermore, when individuals are exposed
to a high number of ideas while they are brainstorming on computers,
they increase their performance more when these ideas are presumed to
come from another student instead of being generated by a computer
program (Dugosh & Paulus, 2005). These findings on social comparison

processes indicate that motivational factors do play a role in the ideation
process. (In Figure 1, ‘Norms/expectations’ are ‘Motivational Factors’
that affect ‘Output/shared ideas’, ‘Persistence’, and ‘Attention to others’
ideas’.)
A Cognitive-Social-Motivational Model of Group Creativity

It now seems clear that understanding the generating, processing, and
sharing of ideas requires knowledge of the cognitive, social, and motiva-
tional factors involved in group and individual brainstorming. In the past,
researchers have treated social factors and cognitive factors as essentially
distinct from each other, and the two perspectives often served as alterna-
tive explanations for results of brainstorming experiments (e.g., see the
competing explanations for group size effects in the section on electronic
brainstorming). However, we believe a full understanding of the group
creativity process requires an understanding of the subtle interplay of
social and cognitive factors that affect the ability and motivation of groups
and group members to perform their tasks.
A couple of examples may clarify this point. Exposure to a large
number of ideas from another person may provide both cognitive stimu-
lation and normative pressure to match this high performance. The larger
the available pool of ideas, the greater the potential for creative stimula-
tion. But the ideas need to be attended to and ultimately integrated with
the existing knowledge of individual group members. (In Figure 1 follow
the path from ‘Diverse idea pool’ to ‘Output/shared ideas’ to ‘Attention
to others’ ideas’ to ‘Individual Idea Generation’.) High motivation and
a high group comfort level should lead to open communication and
high levels of attention. This, in turn, should lead to a high level of idea
generation and greater exploration of less common categories of ideas
and greater potential for novel creative combinations of ideas. This higher
rate of productivity feeds back to influence the group idea generation
process: more ideas have the potential to lead to greater cognitive stimu-
lation, and high rates of output can be motivating through social matching
processes. (Again note that in Figure 1, ‘Output/shared ideas’ is con-
nected to ‘Motivational Factors’, which, in turn, are connected to
‘Attention to others’ ideas’, ‘Persistence’, and also back to ‘Output/shared
ideas’.)
One may be motivated to attend to the performance of someone of
like abilities or interests but this attention to other group members also
increases the degree of cognitive stimulation. There can be little cognitive
impact without motivation to attend, to process, and to persist in the
ideation process, but social factors will influence motivation to engage
in these processes. On the other hand, even if there is motivation for
ideation, there will be little impact unless there is an underlying capacity
for this in the individual or group. In other words, it is not enough to

want to come up with an idea (motivation), one must also have the
requisite background knowledge to do so (cognition). Similarly, Mannix
and Neale (2005) in their examination of the effects of diversity on team
productivity point out that demographic variables (essentially social) are
mediated through process variables (essentially information processing).
One important process variable that Mannix and Neale identify is the
degree of communication between team members, an observation
consistent with the finding that sharing unique information is important
(Nemeth, 1986; Stasser & Birchmeier, 2003).
What is the psychological mechanism by which social-motivational
factors can affect the cognitive process of generating ideas? We believe that
a key insight from the cognitive perspective can serve as a starting point
for answering this question. When individuals work together in a group
to come up with creative ideas, a major factor determining the effective-
ness of the group interaction is likely to be the degree to which individual
group members pay attention to each other’s ideas (Brown et al., 1998).
In a sense, it is attention that serves to link the individuals into a group
(see Hintz, Tindale, & Vollrath, 1997, for a discussion of the important
role of attention in group cognition). We propose that attention will be
one of the central links between social-motivational processes and the
cognitive process of idea generation. This seems to us to be a reasonable
hypothesis for the linking of social-motivational and cognitive factors, but
it would need to be tested. (The central role assumed for attention is
indicated by its prominence in Figure 1.)
Putting It All Together: Groups, Teams, and Innovation

Our social-cognitive-motivational model of group creativity assumes that
both cognitive and social factors influence task motivation and/or task
capability, which in turn influence the creative process. Motivation has
been pointed to as a key factor in understanding significant creative
achievements of individuals. Eminent achievements are seldom attained
without a lot of effort and persistence, but creative achievements also
require significant mental capacities or a solid knowledge or experiential
base (Ericcson & Charness, 1994; Ochse, 1990; Simonton, 1999). Others
have emphasized the role of intrinsic motivation independent of external
recognition as a key to creativity (Amabile, 1996). Groups are no different.
Creative achievements in groups require a high degree of motivation and
cognitive capacity for ideation. Research on brainstorming groups
supports this perspective.
The research on group brainstorming provides a clear empirical and
theoretical basis for understanding everyday group interaction in any
situation that involves exchange of ideas. This can range from face-to-face
meetings, to electronic meetings, and to idea generating sessions in such
domains as science, business, and government. Although we have data

mostly from controlled laboratory groups, it seems likely that any group
idea exchange session would be influenced by the factors we have
highlighted. These sessions may often be much less effective than the
participants presume, but under the right conditions such meetings could
be a valuable source of novel ideas.
But what about real-world teams such as management teams or scien-
tific teams? In contrast to the types of ad hoc groups studied in laborato-
ries that come together only one time, work teams in organizations
consist of specially selected individuals who maintain an ongoing working
relationship. Are the principles we have discussed relevant to such
long-term groups that have very realistic challenges and do not restrict
their work to short group interaction sessions? There indeed is much
literature that has examined such work teams and their effectiveness.
We have noted that many of the same factors that influence short term
laboratory groups also influence long-term workgroups (e.g., Paulus
et al., 2005). So our research would suggest that work teams may often
not function optimally, but that under the right motivational conditions
and with procedures that optimize the exchange of ideas they can be quite
effective. Scholars in the teams area have come to similar conclusions
(Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). Unfortunately, there do not exist carefully
controlled studies in field settings that compare the creative potential of
work teams with groups that do not work together as teams. Hence, this
is an area where further research is needed.
Some scholars suggest that the idea generating capacity of teams is not
the critical issue. They feel that generating ideas is relatively easy, but the
hard part may be implementing and promoting the best ideas (West,
2003). Many factors in organizations tend to make it difficult to innovate
or implement new ideas or processes (e.g., conformity to established
practices, procedures, and values) (West, 2002). Even though there is
much hype about the innovative potential of collaborative teams, it is clear
that there are many factors that inhibit both the generation of ideas and
their implementation in group and organizational settings. We believe
careful attention to effective procedures for group ideation will provide a
solid basis for team and organizational innovation. Moreover, some of the
contextual factors important for creativity (freedom or autonomy in one’s
work, an environment tolerant of risks or mistakes, open communication)
are also important for supporting innovation. Hence, it seems likely to us
that an organizational climate and structure that encourages effective intel-
lectual exchanges in groups would also motivate attempts at innovation.
Questions for Ongoing Research

In this section we list the research questions that have been highlighted in the
article and provide the page numbers on which the issues are disscussed.
How does working in a group affect the important process of creating novel
combinations of ideas? (p. 6)
What controls the allocation of attention during group idea generation? Is
there an optimal allocation of attention to the various cognitive and social
processes involved in group idea generation? (p. 7)
What is the optimal degree of common and unique knowledge (‘cognitive
overlap’) among members of brainstorming groups? (p. 8)
When and how should individuals alternate between generating ideas as part
of a group and solitary idea generation? (p. 8)
How do different types and degrees of diversity affect group idea generation?
(p. 9)
To what extent do factors that affect motivation also affect attention to the
task? Can attention serve as a link between social-motivational factors and
cognitive processes? (p. 13)
How do the principles discovered from laboratory research apply to short-term
groups and long-term teams working on real problems? Controlled field
research with the appropriate control conditions is needed to answer this
question. (p. 17)
Short Biography
Paul Paulus is Dean of the College of Science and Professor of Psychology
at the University of Texas at Arlington. He has researched the influence
of groups on task performance for over 40 years. He has focused on group
creativity process for the last 20 years. He and his colleagues have exam-
ined the various social and cognitive factors involved in this process and
have developed theoretical models to account for the major findings. He
has collaborated with Vincent Brown for over about 15 years on the
development of computational models of the group creative process and
the design of studies to test these models. He has also written extensively
about the implications of this work for innovation in work teams and in
organizations.
Vincent Brown (Hofstra University; PhD, University of California,
Irvine) is a cognitive psychologist whose recent work has focused on
understanding the cognitive processes involved in group idea generation,
the process of semantic ambiguity resolution, and semantic priming in
short-term memory. He has worked with Paul Paulus for a number of
years in developing a computational associative memory model of
group brainstorming. He has experience with statistical and dynamical
models of memory and attention and has contributed to research in the
area of visual selective attention. This article was written while Dr. Brown
was on leave at the University of Texas, at Arlington. Dr. Brown
wishes to thank the Office of the Provost of Hofstra University and
the College of Science of the University of Texas at Arlington for
support.
Endnote
* Correspondence address: Box 19047, Arlington, TX 76019-0047, USA.
Email: [email protected]; [email protected].
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Social and Personality Psychology Compass 1/1 (2007): 248–265, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00006.

Toward More Creative and Innovative

It is hard to go through a day without someone mentioning brainstorm-

Figure 1 A cognitive-social-motivational model of group ideation. This diagram represents

we will emphasize is that brainstorming involves the interconnected influ-

response to the question, ‘What would be the advantages and disadvan-

Brainstorming: A Broad Perspective

As discussed in the next section, idea generation itself is a cognitive

Idea Generation Is a Cognitive Process

laboratory courses since humanities majors would in general have less

A Cognitive Basis for Enhancing Ideation in Groups

generation is to instruct the group to generate ideas from one category at

Diversity and Group Productivity

Electronic Brainstorming: Cognitive Stimulation Without

Social-Motivational Factors Affecting Idea Generation

program (Dugosh & Paulus, 2005). These findings on social comparison

A Cognitive-Social-Motivational Model of Group Creativity

for this in the individual or group. In other words, it is not enough to

Putting It All Together: Groups, Teams, and Innovation

domains as science, business, and government. Although we have data

Questions for Ongoing Research

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