Group Creativity Research Articles

Competing within and beyond the boundary: Joint effect of intergroup and intragroup competitions on group creativity

Group creativity is affected by both intergroup competition and intragroup competition, but few studies have examined their joint effect. Based on the Motivated Information Processing in Groups (MIP-G) model, the current study aims to explore such joint effects on group idea generation and idea selection. Both intergroup competition (high vs. low) and intragroup competition (competition vs. cooperation) were experimentally manipulated, and 66 three-person groups were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions to perform a brainstorming task. Consistent with our hypotheses, results showed that two types of competitions interacted to determine group idea generation in that groups under the high intergroup competition and intragroup cooperation condition were most creative in terms of fluency and flexibility. Regardless of the level of intergroup competition, groups demonstrated a higher level of idea elaboration under intragroup cooperation but not competition conditions. Moreover, intergroup and intragroup competitions complemented each other in terms of originality in idea generation and idea selection. Specifically, groups under intragroup competition (rather than intragroup cooperation) condition generated and selected ideas of higher originality when the intergroup competition was low; instead, when the intergroup competition was high, the originality of generated or selected ideas was higher for groups under intragroup cooperation condition. We concluded with a discussion of the implications and value of these findings for theoretical research and management practice in organizations.

Social Typologies of Creative Practices

In this article, the authors structure and significantly expand the theory of the typology of creative practices. The authors offer two groups of grounds for constructing a typology of creativity. The first group is socialization. Under the socialization foundations of creativity, the authors understand a set of social factors that contribute to or hinder the process of socialization of an individual as a subject of creative practices. The authors talk about socialization factors that contribute to and hinder the realization of creative potential and, accordingly, introduce new concepts, such as socialization harmonious (laminar, favorable) and socialization conflict (turbulent, unfavorable) creativity. The authors also distinguish the second group of grounds for the typology of creativity, namely, the factors of the social and political environment external to the creative subject. So, two types of realization of creative potential are distinguished, the authors designate them as societally favorable and societally unfavorable. As a result, the authors propose a three-dimensional typology of social trajectories of subjects of creative potential — creative social trajectories. The authors also propose a classification of creative potential according to the parameters of profile — non-core. The profile creative potential of an individual or group social subject is understood as the potential realized in the field of the main profile of his professional activity. Accordingly, non-core potential is realized either in leisure practices or in professional practices that are not related to the main profile of the subject’s professional activity. Based on the criterion of the nature of innovation contained in a creative product, the authors introduce a typological division into conformal and non-conformal/radical creativity. The concept of individual and group creativity is also introduced, the concepts of individual and group creative potential are described as well.

How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity, by La Marr Jurelle Bruce (Duke University Press, 2021)

How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity, by La Marr Jurelle Bruce (Duke University Press, 2021)

Enveloppes psychiques et destin des enveloppes psychiques dans la créativité groupale

ContextThe literature on group psychoanalysis–whether on a national or international scale -- contains few references to group creativity. This article is situated in this under-explore field; more specifically, we propose to question the interactions between the dynamics of the formation of individual and group psychic envelopes and the emergence of the creative process in a group. ObjectivesOur research work pursues the general objective of showing that the emergence of the creative process in a group comes after a modification of the texture of the individual and group psychic envelopes. MethodWe use a working method that is based on a theoretical and epistemological exploration of group creativity and psychic envelopes. It is also based on qualitative research, using the analysis of psychodrama sessions carried out in the context of a supervision of employees of a governmental agency in southwestern France. In this perspective, we carried out an analysis of the individual and group associative chains as well as transferential and countertransferential movements. ResultsThe results obtained confirm the close links between the creative process and the formation and organization of individual and group psychic envelopes. InterpretationsMore broadly, we propose to interpret the emergence of creativity in the supervision group as a modality of the working-through of a potential shared trauma, in this case the violence inflicted on the employees by the population they serve.

“You Can Do This”: Working with the Artistic Legacy of El Lissitzky

The collection of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven comprises works by some 800 modern and contemporary artists, and El Lissitzky is one of the most important among them. This special position for Lissitzky is not due simply to the number of his works in the collection. In addition, his oeuvre, ideas and artistic objectives correspond closely with the museum’s engagement with experimentation, radical creativity and public participation. As one of the most dynamic artists of his time, over the years Lissitzky has become more and more important to the museum. He was anything but a creator of static, self-contained works. His creativity was powerful and open to many, a mass of plans and projects bristling with life. Inspired by Lissitzky, the Van Abbemuseum was keen to make that verve and vitality tangible for today’s public. The primary way to do that was to research, show and discuss his original works, but in many cases it was possible to go one step further and reconstruct what was lost or finish what the artist had started. Also, Lissitzky’s works were a source of inspiration for a number of contemporary artists. In this article I will discuss how these works came to Eindhoven and give examples of how the Van Abbemuseum treated this artistic legacy in exhibitions, reconstructions, constructions and new artworks.

A Study on the Relationship between the Dynamic Behaviors of the Leader and Group Performance during Creativity.

The leader is considered to play key roles such as organization or management in promoting group creativity. Previous studies focused more on the psychological and behavioral characteristics rather than on the dynamic behaviors of leaders in group activity. In this study, two experiments were conducted to respectively explore the effects of emergent and elected leaders' problem-solving related utterances and turn-taking in conversation on group creativity. The results of Experiment 1 showed that, for emergent leaders, none of the utterances about problem solving of leaders was different from that of followers and leaders' utterances about retrospective summary were positively related to the appropriateness of group creativity; meanwhile, the frequency of turns of leaders was higher than that of followers and was positively related with the appropriateness of group creativity. The results of Experiment 2 showed that, for elected leaders, the utterances about problem analysis, strategy planning, control and reflection, and retrospective summary of leaders were more than that of followers and leaders' utterances about viewpoint generation were positively related to both novelty and appropriateness, while the frequency of turns of leaders was neither different from followers nor related to the novelty and appropriateness. This study focused on the dynamic behaviors of leaders in interpersonal interaction and revealed the role of leaders in group creativity.

Global mental health experiences of single mothers: A mixed methods research synthesis.

The aim of this research is to synthesize findings from primary studies (quantitative and qualitative) that investigated the global mental health experiences of single mothers to provide a deeper understanding to better care and respond to the support needs of single mothers. Hayvaert et al.'s mixed methods research synthesis approach. The search process in the following databases, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Scopus resulted in eight high-quality studies (5 qualitative and 3 quantitative) published between June 2016 and July 2021. Descriptive statistics and instrument scores were provided in summary form. Themes were analysed using Krippendorff's content analysis. A joint display was provided to reveal a complementary relationship between two different data sets. A total of 348 single mothers participated. Amongst the pooled sample, women identified as: Japanese (n=174), Israeli (n=147), Black African (n=18), African American (n=9), Native American (n=5), Burundian-Australian (n=8), UK British (n=12), Asian (n=3), South Korean (n=7), Indian (n=2), Malaysian (n=44), Hispanic/Latina (n=1) and Eastern European (n=3). Four themes were identified: (1) Learning to let go of the past, (2) It takes a whole village: Importance of social support, (3) Seeking a self-reliant life: Challenges with balancing career & childcare and (4) Finding strength within: Personal growth. Only one intervention utilizing creative group counselling was found to significantly decrease depression (p=.008), anxiety (p=.005), and stress (p=.012) whilst increasing self-compassion (p=.013). It is important for clinicians who care for single mothers, particularly if they recently immigrated, are multiparous, and an ethnic minority to encourage engagement in peer-initiated counselling and obtain mental health care as necessary. This study identified and addressed the mental health issues that single mothers face worldwide. This is also the first mixed methods research synthesis to report single mothers' ethnicity in nursing and midwifery literature. Thus, findings from this mixed methods research synthesis can help nurses worldwide build culturally-concordant programs in their respective community organizations and partners (e.g. community health centres, mother-child enrichment clubs), inform health policies, and promote safer spaces for many single mothers, particularly for those who will immigrate to the Global North (i.e. UK, US, Canada) and become an ethnic minority.

Retrieval flexibility links to creativity: evidence from computational linguistic measure.

Creativity, the ability to generate original and valuable products, has long been linked to semantic retrieval processes. The associative theory of creativity posits flexible retrieval ability as an important basis for creative idea generation. However, there is insufficient research on how flexible memory retrieval acts on creative activities. This study aimed to capture different dynamic aspects of retrieval processes and examine the behavioral and neural associations between retrieval flexibility and creativity. We developed 5 metrics to quantify retrieval flexibility based on previous studies, which confirmed the important role of creativity. Our findings showed that retrieval flexibility was positively correlated with multiple creativity-related behavior constructs and can promote distinct search patterns in different creative groups. Moreover, high flexibility was associated with the lifetime of a specific brain state during rest, characterized by interactions among large-scale cognitive brain systems. The flexible functional connectivity within and between default mode, executive control, and salience provides further evidence on brain dynamics of creativity. Retrieval flexibility mediated the links between the lifetime of the related brain state and creativity. This new approach is expected to enhance our knowledge of the role of retrieval flexibility in creativity from a dynamic perspective.

The relationship between empowering leadership and radical creativity.

Drawing on the conservation of resource theory, we theorized and tested a serial mediation model linking empowering leadership with employee radical creativity through job control and willingness to take risks. We tested our hypotheses using data collected from a time-lagged and multisource survey of 385 employees in 84 research and development teams from 20 different companies. The results demonstrated that empowering leadership had a positive indirect effect on employee radical creativity via job control and willingness to take risks, and the error management climate was found to strengthen this indirect effect. Theoretical and practical implications are also provided in the discussion section.

Group Creativity

AbstractGroup creativity is vital in overcoming the numerous challenges that the world faces. Yet group creativity is deeply puzzling. It seems plausible that only agents can be creative, so group creativity requires group agency. But how could groups possess the mental states required to be agents, let alone the rich range of them required to be creative? It appears more reasonable to hold that group creativity is not a real phenomenon, but is merely the summed creativity of the individuals forming the group. There is also much empirical evidence that groups are no more creative than their members. In this paper I examine the conceptual and empirical challenges to group creativity, defend its existence, and offer an explanation of how it is possible.

Embodiment and metaphorising in the learning of mathematics

In this paper we undertake a critical reading of the Ouroboric (circular) relationship between the guiding metaphors of artificial intelligence and those of natural human intelligence, which has evolved from a vicious circle, triggered by the metaphorising of cognition as information processing, to a virtuous one, fostered by the advent of the embodied and enactive turn in cognitive science. We describe then our own experimental and theoretical approach to mathematical thinking and learning, where metaphorization plays a key role, besides embodiment and enaction. We comment on some concrete examples of mathematical thinking with different types of learners, in combinatorics, arithmetic, geometry and probability, where idiosyncratic metaphorization emerges and enacting and embodiment make a dramatic difference. We outline finally some significant challenges to contemporary AI, cognitive sciences, and mathematics proper, suggested by our examples. These challenges involve metaphorising as the tip of the iceberg in human cognition, metaphorising in intelligent systems, Ouroboric circularity, mathematical collective improvisation as an analogue of musical improvisation, group creativity and human swarm intelligence.

Review of How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity by La Marr Jurelle Bruce (Duke University Press)

'How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind' offers a poignant study of what author La Marr Jurelle Bruce calls 'mad methodology,' extending care and consideration to Black artists historically, fictionally, and contemporaneously rendered mad by oppressive anti-Black capitalist discursive practices. Reflecting on the creative practices of Buddy Bolden, Nina Simone, Lauryn Hill, and Dave Chappelle, among others, Bruce provides a clear-cutting analysis of the ways normative cultural logics work to figure Black art and protest as inherently mad.

문화적 성향이 집단 창의성 변화에 미치는 차별적 효과

Recently, Asian countries, including Korea and China, are rapidly changing from a traditional collectivist culture to an individualistic culture. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate how individualism as an individual traits affects group creativity, which essentially requires social interaction. Under the background, we divided the cultural orientations of Chinese university students into the four types of Triandis (1995): vertical individualism, horizontal individualism, vertical collectivism, and horizontal collectivism. And then we constructed 4 homogeneous groups according to each types, and their group creativity was tested three times over an 8-week period. The results were first, in the last measurement, the groups with the highest group creativity were the horizontal collectivist team and the vertical individualistic team. Although the horizontal collectivist team had the lowest score among the four teams at the beginning, it continued to show a steep rise over time, showing the highest score in the last. The vertical individualist team started with a high score from the beginning and maintained a consistently high level. The vertical collectivist team seemed to maintain a high level of group creativity from the beginning to the middle, but showed a sharp decrease at the end. The horizontal individualism team showed low group creativity from the beginning and tended to keep it at a low level. This tendency was also supported by peer ratings and expert ratings. In the subsequent discussion, the causes of this tendency were analyzed, implications and limitations, and suggestions for future research were discussed.

From functional dissociation to creativity in groups: The effects of a pandemic on a dance company

This article explores group creativity following the lockdown in France from March to May 2020. Questioning its impact on established groups led us to formulate two hypotheses. First, the announcement of these measures provoked what Anzieu (1981) has referred to as a ‘state of creative shock’ in existing group structures. Second, the psychic envelope of these groups enabled a group creativity to emerge and be sustained. We support these remarks with an analysis of non-directive and semi-directive interviews (Lincoln, 1995) as well as recordings of sessions of a contemporary dance company, which were carried out via the Zoom platform throughout the lockdown period.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS TO RECEIVE NON-FORMAL ART EDUCATION AT POLTAVA V. G. KOROLENKO NATIONAL PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY

The article highlights the opportunities to provide international students with non-formal art education in the artistic groups at one of the best pedagogical universities in Ukraine, i.e., Poltava V. G. Korolenko National Pedagogical University. It is emphasized that the university has more than a century of traditions in training pedagogical and non-pedagogical staff and experience in teaching international students. It is pointed up that the university’s scientific and pedagogical staff is a driving force in the progressive development of pedagogical science and practice in Ukraine and provides quality educational services for more than 110 programs. It is noted that Poltava V. G. Korolenko National Pedagogical University has created a social and cultural environment, which traditionally converges different types of educational activities, in particular, formal and non-formal art. The expediency of combining these two educational activity types while studying at the university is substantiated. It allows international students to master the components of selected educational programs and successfully undergo sociocultural adaptation to the learning environment and Ukrainian society. It is highlighted that non-formal art education at Poltava V. G. Korolenko National Pedagogical University is provided to students in artistic and creative groups. These groups’ artistic level is highly recognized within Ukraine and abroad. It is emphasized that non-formal education is each student’s voluntary choice regarding the field of art, a particular group, and compositions to perform, etc. It is determined that international students’ artistic and educational activities, in particular, musical, choreographic, visual, literary, theatrical, etc., in artistic and creative groups, meet their needs to adapt to new conditions. It is a motivating factor for learning about Ukrainian culture. It activates the creative potential of each individual, has a positive effect on the harmonization of psycho-emotional and physical conditions, as well as contributes to the generalization of one’s own life experience, and helps to correlate it with the system of values that have historically developed in the Ukrainian state and modern youth environment, etc.

Plural creativity: Overview, challenges, and perspective for academic production in Management

Plural creativity is a growing interest in the management field of research. Academicproduction, however, remain dispersed, without consolidation and understanding of thisperspective. This article aims to review, integrate, and consolidate academic production onplural creativity in management. The research is based on a systematic review of nationaland international academic production in the field of management. The analysis of academicproduction generated four categories: group creativity, team creativity, collective creativity,and collaborative creativity. The analysis of the categories revealed two central approaches:creativity as a result and creativity as a process. Our results contribute to the consolidationof an integrated understanding of plural creativity.

Escaping Gentrification?

Abstract Contemporary carnivals represent rather banal spectacles, harnessed by institutional control and stripped of their meaning as disruptive processes of revelry, expressivity and defiance. However, when organised at grassroots level, carnivals may retain their subversive character, revealing intentions to cross the limits of urban normality. By drawing on ethnographic data, this article explores the carnival of Metaxourgio in Athens, performed in a multicultural neighbourhood at the heart of the metropolis by a small group of young artists and creatives. Based on the notions of liminality and threshold, it analyses how the carnival creates a temporal universe that challenges mainstream perceptions of public space and Otherness, contests gentrification and seeks to maintain a sense of community in a world of ever-shifting boundaries of precarity.

The effect of ambiguous and unambiguous stimuli on target processing in less creative and more creative groups

In the present study our aim was to examine how the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli changes with creativity and aging, and how this processing influences task-relevant responding. We hypothesized that the degree in which irrelevant stimuli attract attention and occupy cognitive capacity, thereby interfering with the motor task, depends not only on the stimuli's saliency, but also on the participants' creativity and age. We investigated event-related potentials (ERP) and behavioural data in four groups – more creative and less creative younger (18–30 years) and older (60–75 years) adults – by presenting unambiguous and ambiguous portrait paintings and photos of faces in equal proportions before and after the target stimuli. Our results showed that aging affected behavioural and ERP responses, but there were no interactions between age groups, creativity and the three types of stimuli. Older adults were not more exposed to the interference caused by distractor stimuli as they compensated with bilateral activity to reach a similar performance to the younger group. The reaction time was faster for targets when they followed the faces rather than the portrait paintings, so, faces may have been less salient to the participants than paintings. The three types of stimuli were differentiated in all the processing stages. Creativity had a measured effect in the earliest (P1) stage with more creative groups being able to distinguish between unambiguous and ambiguous stimuli; and also, in the last processing stage (CNV), in which task-irrelevant stimuli, particularly photos of faces, were less distracting for more creative participants in task preparation. The results show that creativity in general has an influence even at the earliest stage of visual perception.

How perceived overqualification affects radical creativity: the moderating role of supervisor-subordinate guanxi.

This study aims to investigate the effect of perceived overqualification on radical creativity. Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study examined the mediating role of job crafting and the moderating role of supervisor-subordinate guanxi. Through the two-wave pre-test of 312 employees, we found that the scale reliability and validity of all variables in this study were good. According to the pre-test results, we modified the expressions of some items to obtain a more concise and effective questionnaire for the formal survey, so as to ensure the conclusions more reliable. And using two-wave survey data from 1007 employees among Chinese local organizations in the formal test to examine the hypotheses. The results indicated that perceived overqualification negatively affects radical creativity, and job crafting mediates the relationship. In addition, supervisor-subordinate guanxi reduces the effect of perceived overqualification on job crafting and the indirect effect of perceived overqualification on radical creativity via job crafting. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Close spatial distance and direct gaze bring better communication outcomes and more intertwined neural networks

Non-verbal cues tone our communication. Previous studies found that non-verbal factors, such as spatial distance and gaze direction, significantly impact interpersonal communication. However, little is known about the behind multi-brain neural correlates and whether it could affect high-level creative group communication. Here, we provided a new, scalable, and neuro-based approach to explore the effects of non-verbal factors on different communication tasks, and revealed the underlying multi-brain neural correlates using fNIRS-based hyperscanning technique. Across two experiments, we found that closer spatial distance and more direct gaze angle could promote collaborative behaviors, improve both creative and non-creative communication outcomes, and enhance inter-brain neural synchronization. Moreover, compared to the non-creative communication task, participants’ inter-brain network was more intertwined when performing the creative communication task. These findings suggest that close spatial distance and direct gaze serve as positive social cues, bringing interacting brains into alignment and optimizing inter-brain information transfer, thus improving communication outcomes.