Creative Myth 1: Brainstorming In Groups Generates More Ideas Than If People Were Thinking Alone.
Known misconceptions about creativity cover all aspects including its definition, the creative process, characteristics of creative people, and how to foster creative performance. One prevalent myth is that group brainstorming is more effective than individual ideation.
photo credit @athena
Creativity is oftentimes associated with arts, ignoring the fact that creativity can be expressed in virtually any domain, such as in science, social relationships, engineering, or even crime. Another falsehood is that creativity happens only when you are inspired; research has proven the strategic and controllable aspects of creative cognition.
In 2021, Mattias Benedek of the University of Graz in Austria led a research group that looked into creative falsehoods in six different countries that included Austria, Germany, Poland, Georgia, China, and the USA.
His team selected the 15 most common myths about creativity and what they discovered was that out of the 15 false statements, the highest approval rating was for “Brainstorming in groups generates more ideas than if people were thinking alone” (80%). People also believed that “One is most creative when with total freedom in one’s action” (70%), a close third was “Children are more creative than adults” (68%), followed by “Most people would not be able to distinguish abstract art from abstract children’s drawings” (63%).
Additionally, participants agreed that “Creative ideas are naturally a good thing” (59%), “Creativity cannot be measured” (58%), “Creative accomplishments are usually the result of a sudden inspiration” (58%), and that “Creative thinking mostly happens in the right hemisphere of the brain” (54%). The remaining myths had approval ratings below 50%, meaning they acknowledged the myths or disagreed with these creative falsehoods. People disagreed most strongly with the notion that “People have a certain amount of creativity and cannot do much to change it” (20%).”
In this first piece I will address the first of three persistent myths about creativity.
Brainstorming in groups generates more ideas than if people were thinking alone (80%)
Children are more creative than adults (68%)
Creative thinking mostly happens in the right hemisphere of the brain (54%)
Defining creativity.
Let’s start with what the literature says about creativity because people often judge creativity based on personal taste or on how original something is. It is true that creativity requires originality, however there are three must-have elements that constitutes to creativity:
Novelty - First and foremost, it reflects the capacity to come up with ideas that are original, unusual or in some way novel
Usefulness - The second element is that these ideas also need to be satisfying, appropriate, useful or suited to the context in question
WOW! - Lastly, it reveals a surprising combination or association that tells us something fundamental about us and how the world works
What this definition tells us is that creativity isn’t just about novelty, exploration or originality. It needs to be of value, useful and reveals something crucial that we did not expect. Misinterpretations are more often than not the underpinning reason why there are so many myths about creativity because creativity is about the ability to come up with an original and an useful idea that is presented in such a way that it shifts our worldview. I call this third element the 'wow!' factor.
Brainstorming in groups generates more ideas than if people were thinking alone.
How did this myth begin? To understand the origin of this we need to go back to the late nineteen-forties when Alex Faickney Osborn, a partner in the American advertising agency BDO (Barton, Durstine & Osborn), published a book “Your creative power - How to use your imagination”. In this, Osborn shared his creative tips, industry secrets. In chapter 33 he explained “How to Organize a Squad to Create Ideas.”
Osborn says that when a group works together, members have to engage in a “brainstorm”, which means “using the brain to storm a creative problem and doing so in commando fashion, with each stormer attacking the same objective.” He described how brainstorming was central to BDO’s success and to illustrate the impact of this, Osborn recounts how his method inspired a group of ten admen to come up with eighty-seven ideas for a new drugstore in ninety minutes, or nearly an idea per minute.
Osborn’s original brainstorm
First published in 1940, Osborn recommended having between six and ten people in a brainstorm working together in the same room with the purpose to storm ideas to solve a prescribed problem or challenge. Osborn explains “Group brainstorming needs a few simple ground rules. In addition to outlining a single problem:
Judicial judgement is ruled out. Criticism of ideas will be withheld until the next day.
"Wildness" is welcomed. The crazier the idea, the better; it's easier to tone down than to think up.
Quantity is wanted. The more ideas we pile up, the more likelihood of winners.
Combination and improvement are sought. In addition to contributing ideas of our own, let's suggest how another's idea can be turned into a better idea; or how two or more ideas can be joined into yet another idea.”
When Osborn’s approach was published it was an instant hit because brainstorming provided companies with an easy and simple way to structure their group interactions. His method became the most widely used creativity technique in the world. Even today it is still popular in advertising offices and design firms, classrooms, workshops and boardrooms.
"Your Creative Power" has also had a profound impact on academic institutions including the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College, located near Osborn's residence. The influence of brainstorming reaches into pedagogical methods, such as the widely utilised Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process, frequently employed by business consultants.
The underlying idea of brainstorming is that if people are worried of saying the wrong thing, they’ll end up saying nothing at all. The appeal of this idea is clear: receiving positive input feels great! When the whiteboard has been filled with free associations, brainstorming appears like a wonder technique, a feel-good way to boost productivity. Participants leave a brainstorming session proud of their contributions.
Today, when individuals look to come up with the best ideas from a group, they follow Osborn's fundamental principle of withholding criticism and instead focus on fostering the most "freewheeling" associations. The legacy of Osborn's work continues to shape the way we approach collective ideation and problem-solving.
But there is a problem with Osborn’s brainstorming method.
It doesn’t work.
In 1958, Yale University (Taylor, Berry, and Block) conducted the first empirical test of Osborn's brainstorming technique. They divided forty-eight male undergraduates into twelve groups, instructing them to follow Osborn's guidelines while solving creative puzzles. Additionally, forty-eight students worked on the same puzzles individually as a control sample.
The results were a sobering rebuttal of Osborn’s method. The students who worked individually generated approximately twice as many solutions compared to the brainstorming groups. In addition, a panel of judges deemed their solutions more "feasible" and "effective." Contrary to expectations, brainstorming seemed to hinder individual creativity rather than unleash the group's potential.
Many others have confirmed the same result, including meta-analyses conducted by Diehl and Stroebe (1987) and Mullen, Johnson, and Salas (1991), consistently support the finding that individuals working independently generate more ideas compared to when they collaborate in a group, even when Osborn's guidelines are followed.
In 2003, Charlan Nemeth, a psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley, divided two hundred and sixty-five female undergraduates into teams of five. She gave all the teams the same problem “How can traffic congestion be reduced in the San Francisco Bay Area?” and assigned each team one of three conditions.
The first groups received the standard brainstorming instructions, emphasising the no-criticism rule. The other teams were given the debate condition, which included the notion that generating numerous solutions is valuable and encouraged, while also emphasising the importance of debating and critiquing each other's ideas. The remaining teams were given no specific instructions, granting them the freedom to collaborate in any way they saw fit. All teams were allotted twenty minutes to generate as many high-quality solutions as possible.
Once again, Nemeth's findings disproved the effectiveness of Osborn's approach. While brainstorming groups marginally outperformed the unguided groups, teams participating in debates achieved significantly greater creativity, generating nearly twenty percent more ideas on average. Interestingly, even after the teams separated, debaters continued to excel, with individuals producing an average of seven additional ideas about traffic compared to three from brainstormers and those given no guidelines.
Despite decades of empirical research consistently demonstrating groups produce fewer ideas compared to the same number of individuals working alone, who later pool their ideas and yet despite all the empirical evidence, Osborn's brainstorming method continues to enjoy unwavering popularity.
Even though the original intention of brainstorming was to foster unconventional thinking, the persistence highlights the paradox of clinging to an outdated and ineffective approach. More than eight decades later it seems that the allure of familiarity can sometimes undermine the overwhelming evidence for more effective and productive methods of ideation.
