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208 VOLUME 11, NUMBER 6, DECEMBER 2002
Published by Blackwell Publishing Inc.
Notes
1. Address correspondence to G.
Daniel Lassiter, Department of Psy-
chology, Ohio University, Athens, OH
45701; e-mail: lassiter@ohio.edu.
2. Additional factors responsible for
miscarriages of justice identified by
Dwyer et al. (2000) include egregiously
incompetent defense lawyers, errone-
ous eyewitness accounts, scientifically
unreliable evidence, and prosecutorial
misconduct.
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from jury simulations. Law and Human Behav-
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Dwyer, J., Neufeld, P., & Scheck, B. (2000). Actual
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and Social Psychology, 32, 439–445.
Making Group Brainstorming More
Effective: Recommendations From an
Associative Memory Perspective
Vincent R. Brown and Paul B. Paulus1
Department of Psychology, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York (V.R.B.), and
Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas
(P.B.P.)
Abstract
Much literature on group
brainstorming has found it to
be less effective than individ-
ual brainstorming. However, a
cognitive perspective suggests
that group brainstorming could
be an effective technique for gen-
erating creative ideas. Computer
simulations of an associative
memory model of idea genera-
tion in groups suggest that
groups have the potential to
generate ideas that individuals
brainstorming alone are less
likely to generate. Exchanging
ideas by means of writing or
computers, alternating solitary
and group brainstorming, and
using heterogeneous groups ap-
pear to be useful approaches
for enhancing group brain-
storming.
Keywords
brainstorming; cognitive stimu-
lation; groups; group creativity
There is a general belief in the
efficacy of collaboration for
projects involving innovation or
problem solving (Bennis & Bieder-
man, 1997; Sutton & Hargadon,
1996). Although there is some evi-
dence for the effectiveness of col-
laborative science and teamwork
(Paulus, 2000), the enthusiasm for
collective work may not always be
justified. Controlled studies of idea
sharing in groups have shown that
groups often overestimate their ef-
fectiveness (Paulus, Larey, & Ortega,
1995). Experiments comparing in-
teractive brainstorming groups
with sets of individuals who do not
interact in performing the same
task have found that groups gener-
ate fewer ideas and that group
members exhibit reduced motiva-
tion and do not fully share unique
information (e.g., Mullen, Johnson,
& Salas, 1991). The strongest inhib-
itory effect of groups may be pro-
duction blocking, which is a reduc-
tion in productivity due to the fact
that group members must take
turns in describing their ideas
(Diehl & Stroebe, 1991).
One area in which these prob-
lems are most evident is the study
of group creativity. Most research
on creativity has examined indi-
vidual creativity because it is typi-
cally seen as a personal trait or
skill. However, today much creative
work requires collaboration of peo-
ple with diverse sets of knowledge
and skills. How can such groups
overcome the inevitable liabilities
of group interaction to reach their
creative potential? Is it possible to
demonstrate that group interaction
can lead to enhanced creativity?
Examining these questions has
been the aim of our program of re-
Copyright © 2002 American Psychological Society
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 209
search on the cognitive potential of
brainstorming groups (Brown,
Tumeo, Larey, & Paulus, 1998;
Paulus & Brown, in press; Paulus,
Dugosh, Dzindolet, Coskun, & Put-
man, 2002).
COGNITIVE BASES FOR
IDEATIONAL CREATIVITY:
A MODEL AND
SUPPORTING EVIDENCE
Intuitively, the cognitive benefits
of brainstorming in a group seem
clear: People believe that they
come up with ideas in a group that
they would not have thought of on
their own. The potential for mutual
stimulation of ideas is one of the
reasons for the popularity of group
brainstorming.
Semantic Networks and an
Associative Memory Model of
Group Brainstorming
Clearly, the retrieval of relevant
information from one’s long-term
conceptual memory is an important
part of the brainstorming process
because one cannot effectively
brainstorm on a topic one knows
nothing about. The concepts stored
in long-term memory can be
thought of as being associated in a
semantic network in such a way
that related concepts are more
strongly connected than unrelated
concepts and thus more likely to
activate each other (e.g., Collins &
Loftus, 1975). Thus, concepts that
are more closely connected to those
that are currently active should be
more accessible than concepts that
are less strongly connected to cur-
rently active ideas.
To use the semantic network
representation as a basis for explor-
ing group brainstorming, many de-
tails need to be specified. Rather
than explicitly representing four,
six, eight, or more semantic net-
works and the interactions among
them—which would be cumber-
some—our approach is to repre-
sent a brainstormer’s knowledge of
a given problem as a matrix of cate-
gory transition probabilities: Each
entry in this matrix represents the
probability of generating one’s
next idea from the same category
as the previous idea or from a dif-
ferent category (Brown et al., 1998).
A number of individual differ-
ences affecting brainstorming per-
formance are captured by this
framework. Fluency, or the amount
of knowledge one has about the
brainstorming problem, is repre-
sented by the probabilities in the
main body of the matrix relative to
the null category, which represents
the likelihood of coming up with
no idea in a given time interval.
Convergent and divergent think-
ing styles also fit nicely into the
framework. On the one hand, a
convergent thinker is likely to stick
with a category and explore it
deeply before moving on to gener-
ate ideas from other categories.
Thus, a convergent thinker is rep-
resented by a matrix with rela-
tively high within-category transi-
tion probabilities. On the other
hand, a divergent thinker is more
likely to jump around between cat-
egories, and so is represented by a
matrix with lower within-category
transition probabilities (and corre-
spondingly higher between-cate-
gory transition probabilities). Be-
cause individual differences can be
represented in this framework, the
effects of different group composi-
tions can be examined.
Accessibility
The property of the individual’s
semantic network that is crucial to
determining the effectiveness of
group brainstorming is category
accessibility. People are generally
unlikely to explore on their own
relevant categories of ideas that
have relatively weak connections
with other categories in their per-
sonal semantic networks. Genera-
tion of ideas from these categories
requires the spark of input from
other brainstormers. For example,
a student who lives on campus in a
dormitory may be unlikely to gen-
erate ideas about parking when
brainstorming on ways to improve
the university. But if a student who
commutes from off campus men-
tions parking, the dorm dweller may
be able to come up with a few
thoughts on the matter, perhaps re-
calling the parking difficulties his
or her parents had when they vis-
ited. Simulations of the associative
memory matrix model show that
presenting a brainstormer with
ideas from low-accessible catego-
ries not only increases the number
of ideas generated from those cate-
gories, but also increases the total
number of ideas generated overall,
thus making the individual a more
productive brainstormer. This pre-
diction is supported by Leggett
(1997), who studied individual
brainstormers to evaluate how in-
put of ideas in the absence of a
group context (i.e., without inhibi-
tory social influences) might provide
cognitive stimulation. Participants
listened to audiotapes containing
ideas generated by participants who
worked on the Thumbs Problem
(“What would be the advantages
and disadvantages of having an ex-
tra thumb on each hand?”) in pre-
vious studies. Although all brain-
stormers benefited from being
primed with relevant ideas, the
amount of benefit depended on
whether the ideas came from a cat-
egory that was frequently or infre-
quently represented in the re-
sponses in the previous studies.
Individuals who were primed with
ideas from common categories ob-
tained less benefit than those who
were primed with ideas from
unique categories. In other words,
priming categories that were al-
ready likely to be utilized did not
enhance performance as much as
210 VOLUME 11, NUMBER 6, DECEMBER 2002
Published by Blackwell Publishing Inc.
priming categories unlikely to be
utilized by someone brainstorm-
ing on his or her own.
Attention
Individuals will be influenced
by other group members to the ex-
tent that they pay attention to those
other members’ ideas. In the
framework of the model, attention
is represented as the probability
that an individual group member
uses the current speaker’s idea as
the basis for generating his or her
next idea (as opposed to simply
continuing his or her own internal
train of thought).
Simulations predict that, in gen-
eral, the more attention each indi-
vidual pays to fellow group mem-
bers, the better the performance of
the group. Conversely, the more
each individual’s attention is dis-
tracted from the ideas of others, per-
haps by concern for the social as-
pects of group brainstorming, the
more the performance of the group
declines. In particular, the more one
attends to fellow brainstormers, the
more one is likely to be primed to
consider ideas from one’s own low-
accessible categories. In fact, the
model predicts that, in general, if it
were not for production blocking,
the number of ideas generated by
each group member would increase
(at least up to a point) as group size
increases (Brown et al., 1998).
One way to enhance the effects
of attention on brainstorming per-
formance is to instruct brainstorm-
ers that at the end of the brain-
storming session they will be asked
to recall the ideas that were pre-
sented during the session. Without
memorization instructions, partici-
pants may be more likely to focus
on the generation of their own
ideas and to some extent ignore the
ideas being presented by others.
Interestingly, the effectiveness of
memory instructions appears to be
mixed. When participants are lis-
tening to audiotapes or exchanging
ideas by computer, instructions to
memorize facilitate idea generation
(Dugosh, Paulus, Roland, & Yang,
2000). However, when partici-
pants are asked to exchange writ-
ten ideas in a round-robin format
(Paulus & Yang, 2000), memory in-
structions inhibit performance. Be-
cause the instructions to read the
ideas as they are passed from per-
son to person may already ensure
that participants attend to the
ideas, instructions to memorize may
simply add an unnecessary addi-
tional processing demand and im-
pede the brainstorming effort.
ENHANCING GROUP
BRAINSTORMING
The goal of creating circum-
stances that optimize group perfor-
mance requires maximizing the ben-
efits of cognitive facilitation while
at the same time minimizing the in-
hibitory processes that reduce
group productivity. We have stud-
ied three brainstorming proce-
dures that appear promising for
theoretical reasons, and that have
garnered some empirical support.
These are combining group and sol-
itary brainstorming, having group
brainstormers interact by writing
instead of speaking (“brainwriting”),
and using networked computers on
which individuals type their ideas
and read the ideas of others (elec-
tronic brainstorming).
Individual and Group
Brainstorming
At face value, the goal of maxi-
mizing the benefits of group ex-
change while minimizing inhibi-
tory group processes suggests
literally combining group and indi-
vidual brainstorming. Of course, a
person cannot brainstorm alone
while at the same time brainstorm-
ing in a group. But one can alter-
nate group and solitary idea-gener-
ation sessions. Preliminary data from
our laboratory show that brain-
storming in a group before brain-
storming alone on the same topic
produces more ideas over the
course of the two sessions than
does brainstorming alone in the
first session and then brainstorm-
ing in a group the following ses-
sion (Leggett, Putman, Roland, &
Paulus, 1996).
Model simulations make clear the
mechanisms that produce this ad-
vantage for the group-solitary se-
quence. The cognitive facilitation that
occurs in the group session carries
over into the solitary session, during
which the brainstormer continues
generating ideas without being hin-
dered by production blocking. This
effect shows up as a large “produc-
tivity spike” for solitary brainstorm-
ers in the second session in both
model simulations and empirical
studies. This order effect should be
particularly strong when the initial
group consists of heterogeneous
members whose knowledge of the
task differs. Simulations also indi-
cate that a solitary brainstormer
whose idea generation takes place
following a group session is likely
to sample more categories from the
brainstorming topic than a similar
brainstormer working in two soli-
tary sessions. This suggests that the
group-solitary sequence has an ad-
vantage over and above possible
increases in overall productivity.
Brainwriting
Another way to take advantage
of group priming effects while re-
ducing production blocking would
be to have group members interact
by writing and reading rather than
speaking and listening. This does
not seem to be a technique that is
often attempted. Perhaps people are
so used to communicating orally
when they are face to face that re-
searchers do not consider the alter-
Copyright © 2002 American Psychological Society
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 211
natives. In a study of group brain-
writing (Paulus & Yang, 2000),
group members wrote their ideas
on a piece of paper and passed
them on to the next group member,
who read the ideas, added his or
her own ideas, and passed the pa-
per on. These interactive groups of
brainwriters outproduced sets of
equal numbers of writers who did
not interact in performing the task.
This result may be the first labora-
tory example of face-to-face inter-
active groups outperforming an
equal number of solitary brain-
stormers.
Although model simulations
support the observation that inter-
active brainwriters can outperform
an equal number of solitary brain-
writers (Paulus & Brown, in press),
the simulation results are complex
in some interesting ways. First,
simulations predict that interac-
tive brainwriting is not universally
superior to individual brainwrit-
ing, but is most effective for hetero-
geneous groups whose members
have differing knowledge of the
brainstorming problem. Second,
up to a point, performance of simu-
lated brainwriting groups im-
proves as the group members pay
increasing attention to the written
ideas, but performance decreases
when attention to the written ideas
becomes excessive. Obviously,
brainwriters who do not read any
of the ideas that are passed along
to them will not benefit from the
thoughts of their fellow brain-
writers. Brainwriters who attend
predominantly to the ideas of oth-
ers will benefit from them to some
extent, but not as greatly as those
who optimally balance the two
goals of attending to the ideas of
others and following their own in-
ternal train of thought.
Electronic Brainstorming
The effectiveness of brainwrit-
ing suggests that using computers
for exchanging ideas might be an-
other useful way of tapping the
creative potential of groups. Using
computers, individuals can be ex-
posed to a broad range of ideas
without the verbal “traffic jams”
that are problematic for face-to-face
groups. In fact, because production
blocking is greatly reduced, the larger
the group the better—larger groups
will increase one’s exposure to a
broad range of ideas. One of the
most consistent findings in the
electronic-brainstorming literature
is that the benefits are most evident
for groups of eight or more (Dennis
& Williams, in press).
Unfortunately, it is also easier to
ignore the inputs of others in the
electronic format than in face-to-
face situations. Instructing individ-
uals to attend carefully to ideas
shared electronically (e.g., because
of an impending memory test) in-
creases the impact of the shared in-
formation (Dugosh et al., 2000). Al-
though electronic brainstormers do
not have to apply extensive intel-
lectual resources to try to remem-
ber the shared ideas because they
are available on the computer, for
large groups the number of avail-
able ideas can become rather over-
whelming. It may be important to
provide an opportunity for indi-
viduals to continue processing the
ideas after the interactive session in
order to gain full associative ad-
vantage of the shared information.
The benefits of idea sharing in elec-
tronic groups are in fact most evi-
dent if individuals are provided
such a solitary session after group
interaction.
CONCLUSIONS
It is clear that unstructured groups
left to their own devices will not be
very effective in developing cre-
ative ideas. However, a cognitive
perspective points to methods that
can be used so that group exchange
of ideas enhances idea generation.
Groups of individuals with diverse
sets of knowledge are most likely
to benefit from the social exchange
of ideas. Although face-to-face in-
teraction is seen as a natural modal-
ity for group interaction, using writ-
ing or computers can enhance the
exchange of ideas. The interaction
should be structured to ensure
careful attention to the shared
ideas. Alternating between indi-
vidual and group ideation is help-
ful because it allows for careful re-
flection on and processing of
shared ideas.
There are still a number of sig-
nificant empirical gaps that need to
be addressed. Given that much
group exchange consists of verbal
interaction in face-to-face groups,
studies need to determine the spe-
cific extent to which the perfor-
mance of these groups can be en-
hanced by using insights from the
associative memory perspective. In
particular, it will be important to
demonstrate that groups that con-
tain members with diverse knowl-
edge bases can effectively use this
knowledge interactively for cre-
ative purposes. There are also no
controlled studies of creativity in
groups or teams in organizations
outside the laboratory, so that it is
not possible to draw definitive con-
clusions about the effectiveness of
groups in the real world. Because
group interaction can be a source
of social and cognitive interference
as well as social and cognitive
stimulation, one of the main theo-
retical challenges will be to inte-
grate the cognitive and social per-
spectives of group brainstorming.
A careful delineation of how these
processes interact will be of great
benefit to practitioners.
Recommended Reading
Brown, V., Tumeo, M., Larey, T.S., &
Paulus, P.B. (1998). (See References)
Osborn, A.F. (1957). Applied imagina-
tion (1st ed.). New York: Scribner.
212 VOLUME 11, NUMBER 6, DECEMBER 2002
Published by Blackwell Publishing Inc.
Paulus, P.B., & Nijstad, B.A. (Eds.).
(in press). Group creativity. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Note
1. Address correspondence to Paul B.
Paulus, Department of Psychology, Uni-
versity of Texas at Arlington, Arlington,
TX 76019; e-mail: paulus@uta. edu.
References
Bennis, W., & Biederman, P.W. (1997). Organizing
genius: The secrets of creative collaboration. Read-
ing, MA: Addison Wesley.
Brown, V., Tumeo, M., Larey, T.S., & Paulus, P.B.
(1998). Modeling cognitive interactions during
group brainstorming. Small Group Research, 29,
495–526.
Collins, A.M., & Loftus, E.F. (1975). A spreading-
activation theory of semantic processing. Psy-
chological Review, 82, 407–428.
Dennis, A.R., & Williams, M.L. (in press). Elec-
tronic brainstorming: Theory, research, and
future directions. In P.B. Paulus & B.A. Nijstad
(Eds.), Group creativity. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Diehl, M., & Stroebe, W. (1991). Productivity loss
in idea-generating groups: Tracking down the
blocking effect. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 61, 392–403.
Dugosh, K.L., Paulus, P.B., Roland, E.J., & Yang,
H.-C. (2000). Cognitive stimulation in brain-
storming. Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology, 79, 722–735.
Leggett, K.L. (1997). The effectiveness of categorical
priming in brainstorming. Unpublished master’s
thesis, University of Texas at Arlington.
Leggett, K.L., Putman, V.L., Roland, E.J., & Paulus,
P.B. (1996, April). The effects of training on per-
formance in group brainstorming. Paper presented
at the annual meeting of the Southwestern
Psychological Association, Houston, TX.
Mullen, B., Johnson, C., & Salas, E. (1991). Produc-
tivity loss in brainstorming groups: A meta-
analytic integration. Basic and Applied Social
Psychology, 12, 3–23.
Paulus, P.B. (2000). Groups, teams and creativity:
The creative potential of idea generating groups.
Applied Psychology: An International Review, 49,
237–262.
Paulus, P.B., & Brown, V. (in press). Ideational creativity
in groups: Lessons from research on brainstorming.
In P.B. Paulus & B.A. Nijstad (Eds.), Group creativity.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Paulus, P.B., Dugosh, K.L., Dzindolet, M.T.,
Coskun, H., & Putman, V.L. (2002). Social and
cognitive influences in group brainstorming:
Predicting production gains and losses. Euro-
pean Review of Social Psychology, 12, 299–325.
Paulus, P.B., Larey, T.S., & Ortega, A.H. (1995).
Performance and perceptions of brainstormers
in an organizational setting. Basic and Applied
Social Psychology, 18, 3–14.
Paulus, P.B., & Yang, H.-C. (2000). Idea generation
in groups: A basis for creativity in organiza-
tions. Organizational Behavior and Human Deci-
sion Processes, 82, 76–87.
Sutton, R.I., & Hargadon, A. (1996). Brainstorming
groups in context. Administrative Science Quar-
terly, 41, 685–718.
Regret in Decision Making
Terry Connolly1 and Marcel Zeelenberg
Department of Management and Policy, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
(T.C.), and Department of Economic and Social Psychology, Tilburg University,
Tilburg, the Netherlands (M.Z.)
Abstract
Decision research has only
recently started to take seri-
ously the role of emotions in
choices and decisions. Regret is
the emotion that has received
the most attention. In this arti-
cle, we sample a number of the
initial regret studies from psy-
chology and economics, and
trace some of the complexities
and contradictions to which
they led. We then sketch a new
theory, decision justification
theory (DJT), which synthe-
sizes several apparently con-
flicting findings. DJT postulates
two core components of deci-
sion-related regret, one associ-
ated with the (comparative)
evaluation of the outcome, the
other with the feeling of self-
blame for having made a poor
choice. We reinterpret several
existing studies in DJT terms.
We then report some new
studies that directly tested
(and support) DJT, and pro-
pose a number of research is-
sues that follow from this new
approach to regret.
Keywords
regret; decision making; emo-
tion; decision justification theory
Decision researchers have only
recently started to take seriously an
aspect of making choices that every
lay person already knows about:
Making a choice, whether of a va-
cation destination, a spouse, a med-
ical treatment, or a career, can be
an intensely emotional experience.
Of course, most people give such
decisions careful thought: What are
the options? What consequences
might each lead to? How likely are
they? How desirable are they? But,
in addition to these important cog-
nitive considerations, there are
strong emotional factors. At the time
of the decision, the person has feel-
ings about the decision itself (fear
of surgery, anxiety about a career
choice) and expectations about
feelings he or she may experience
later (relief at a good outcome, sad-
ness at a poor one). After the fact,
the individual experiences emotions,
which may or may not track with
the earlier expectations.
The emotion that has received
the most research attention from
decision theorists is regret. Most
people can readily recall or imag-
ine situations in which a poor deci-
sion led to painful regret. In the
early 1980s, researchers in both lab-
oratory and field settings started to
produce elegant theories and vivid
demonstrations of the antecedents
and consequences of regret. Contin-
ued research through the 1990s
overturned some of these early
