Toward More Creative and Innovative Group Idea Generation: A Cognitive‐Social‐Motivational Perspective of Brainstorming
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 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.
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Factors such as diversity of perspectives, psychological safety, and enabling meaningful participation have been shown to improve team creativity.
“Factors such as the diversity of perspectives brought by different team members [81], psychological safety to contribute nonsense ideas or make mistakes [137], and enabling everyone to meaningful participate [101] are just a few factors that have been shown to play an important role in improving the creativity of teams.”
From The Impact of Generative AI on Creativity in Software Development: A Research Agenda (2025) · cites this paper as [101]
Different variants of brainstorming techniques have shown positive effects.
“To overcome these cognitive and social biases, different variants of brainstorming techniques have shown positive effects (for reviews of methods, see Al-Samarraie and Hurmuzan 2018; Paulus and Brown 2007).”
From Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration: Assessment, Certification, and Promotion of 21st Century Skills for the Future of Work and Education (2023) · cites this paper as Paulus and Brown 2007
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- Authors
- Paulus, P. B., & Brown, V. R.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at Arlington (US)
- Hofstra University (US)
- Venue
- Social and Personality Psychology Compass
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2007-09-05
- Volume
- 1
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 248-265
- ISSN
- 1751-9004 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2132589172
- Cited by
- 364
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 22 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 43 · 2022: 28 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 5.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Social and Personality Psychology Compass (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Creativity in Education and Neuroscience
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Team Dynamics and Performance
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Keywords
- group idea generation, brainstorming, team creativity, cognitive processes, social processes, motivation, group innovation, idea sharing
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