Journal of Management Information Systems / Spring 2013, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 195–215.
© 2013 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. Permissions: www.copyright.com
ISSN 0742–1222 (print) / ISSN 1557–928X (online)
DOI: 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290407
Sparking Creativity: Improving Electronic
Brainstorming with Individual Cognitive
Priming
Alan R. Dennis, Randa ll K. Minas , and
Akshay P. Bhagwatwar
Alan R. Dennis is a professor of information systems and holds the John T. Chambers
Chair of Internet Systems at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. His
research focuses on three main themes: the use of computer technologies to support
team creativity and decision making, neuro IS, and the use of the Internet to improve
business and education. He was a senior editor at MIS Quarterly and is currently the
publisher of MIS Quarterly Executive, a journal focusing on applied research designed
to improve practice. Dr. Dennis has written more than 100 research papers and has
won numerous awards for his theoretical and applied research. He has written four
books, two on data communications and networking and two on systems analysis
and design.
Randa ll K. Minas is a Ph.D. candidate in information systems at the Kelley School
of Business, Indiana University. He received an M.S. in business administration from
Indiana State University and B.S. in psychology with neuroscience from Vanderbilt
University. He is the current managing editor of MIS Quarterly Executive. His research
interests include individual cognitive responses to information systems, collaboration
and small group research, and neuro IS. His research has been published in the
Journal of Applied and Preventive Psychology as well as the proceedings of several
conferences, including the 45th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System
Sciences, 14th Annual Conference on Education, and Special Interest Group of Systems
Analysis and Design.
Akshay P. Bhagwatwar is a Ph.D. candidate in information systems at the Kelley School
of Business, Indiana University. He received his M.S. in information management
from the Information School at the University of Washington in 2010 and his B.E. in
information technology from the University of Mumbai, India, in 2008. His research
focuses on virtual collaboration, business process change, and policy informatics.
His research has been published in Communications of the Association for Information
Systems, Public Administration Review, Information Systems Management, and
other journals as well as conferences proceedings, including the Hawaii International
Conference on System Sciences, Australasian Conference on Information Systems,
and Americas Conference on Information Systems.
Abstra ct: Much of human behavior involves subconscious cognition that can be
manipulated through “priming”—the presentation of a stimulus designed to subconsciously
implant a concept in working memory that alters subsequent behavior.
Priming is a well-known phenomenon for individual behavior, but we do not know
196 Dennis, Minas , and Bhagwatwar
whether priming can be used to influence group behavior. We developed a Web-based
computer game that was designed to improve creativity through priming. Participants
were exposed to a priming game and then worked as members of a group using electronic
brainstorming (EBS) to generate ideas on a creativity task. Our results show that
when users played the game, designed to improve performance, their groups generated
significantly more ideas that were more creative than when they were exposed to neutral
priming. Our findings extend the literature by providing evidence that individual
priming substantially affects group idea generation performance. Avenues for future
research include designing EBS software that optimizes group ideation through priming,
examining the conditions under which priming has the most substantial impact on
ideation performance, and examining whether priming can be used to enhance other
group processes (e.g., convergence tasks).
Key word s and phra ses: collaboration, creativity, electronic brainstorming, idea
generation, individual cognition, priming, virtual groups.
Virtual groups ar e increasingly pr eva lent in toda y’s organizations [15, 73].
Research on the efficiency and effectiveness of virtual group interactions has become
an important component of the study of collaboration [24, 39]. Improving creativity
and idea generation is also important to organizations [20, 36, 44]. Many organizations
are turning to novel approaches to spark creativity, including gathering unique ideas
from people both internal and external to the organization [27]. When these groups
use various tools, such as e‑mail, Web chat, instant messenger, social media, and
videoconferencing, to brainstorm, the process is referred to as “electronic brainstorming”
(EBS). EBS can generate innovative ideas that can transform existing business
paradigms [20, 36, 69]. Research on collaboration has shown that virtual groups can
quickly use EBS to improve their performance [25, 44].
Most prior EBS research has focused on social psychology based factors (i.e., the
interaction among participants), such as anonymity, group size, and proximity [25].
Relatively few studies have examined how individual cognition affects virtual group
performance [37, 42, 72], even though prior research has established the importance
of individual differences in influencing information system usage and performance
(see [46]). Research on individual cognition during group collaboration has examined
the cognitive demands placed on groups by technologies [2, 42], and the role
of cognition in collaboration [31, 47, 67]. However, we are not aware of any studies
that have attempted to predispose individual cognition to enhance the performance
of virtual groups.
There is considerable research in psychology showing that much of human behavior
uses subconscious cognition [5, 8]. Research in information systems has established
that subconscious cognition influences constructs important to the study of information
systems, such as behavioral intention and perceptions of ease of use [52]. Our
research, however, shows the importance of subconscious cognition in shaping our
behavior when using information technology.
Improvin g Electronic Brainstorming with Individua l Cognitive Priming 197
One approach to influencing subconscious cognition is priming. Priming is the presentation
of a stimulus designed to activate in working memory certain mental representations
of concepts, attitudes, or beliefs that then influence the individual’s behavior on a
subsequent task [6]. The effects of priming on individual behavior have been extensively
studied in psychology [3, 6, 60, 65]. Individuals can be primed in a number of ways,
including exposure to words, pictures, sounds, or, as in this study, a computer game.
Priming has been used in the human–computer interaction literature to study the behavior
of individuals in a virtual setting [13, 51]. These studies have utilized a special type
of priming, known as “supraliminal” or “above threshold” priming. With supraliminal
priming, an individual is aware of the stimulus, but he or she is unaware of the intent of
that stimulus [6, 22]. A few studies have found that priming can influence group behavior.
Postmes et al. [56], for example, found that priming could influence group behavior in
computer-mediated communication. They found that anonymous groups primed with
prosocial norms produced solutions that were more socially influenced solutions than
those primed with efficiency norms. Priming can be designed to influence an individual’s
affect, attitudes, or behavior [6].
In this paper, we present a study examining the impact of priming the concept of
achievement on performance of EBS groups. We found that groups produced significantly
more unique ideas and more creative ideas following the achievement priming.
The effect sizes were large, with most Cohen’s d above 0.80. To put this into perspective,
these effect sizes are as large as the one observed in using EBS technology versus
verbal brainstorming [25].
Prior Theory
Creativity and Electronic Brainstorming
Idea genera tion is often perform ed by forma l or informa l groups [36]. A group’s
primary objective in idea generation is to produce creative ideas with an ultimate goal
of creating a set of possible ideas that can be further evaluated and, eventually, implemented
[28, 36]. Overall creativity and ideation performance can be measured using
either the quantity or creativity of ideas generated [26]. Quantity of ideas is usually
measured as the total number of unique ideas generated by a group. The creativity
of unique ideas can be conceptualized on a number of different dimensions, such as
novelty, workability, relevance, and specificity [21]. Each of these dimensions illustrate
a different aspect of the overall creativity of an idea [21]. In some situations, it
is desirable to generate a large quantity of ideas, whereas other situations require a
few highly creative ideas [18].
Verbal brainstorming has been used for more than half a century as a technique for
improving idea generation performance [23, 49]. Organizations use brainstorming
sessions as an important way to develop creative ideas [70]. Early research argued that
four practices improved the effectiveness of verbal brainstorming: (1) producing a large
quantity of ideas, (2) ruling out criticism, (3) freewheeling (wild/weird ideas) must be
accepted, and (4) combining and improvising ideas should be encouraged [53].
198 Dennis, Minas , and Bhagwatwar
EBS involves the use of technology such as e‑mail, browser-based systems, textbased
chat, group support systems, or vendor-specific tools to support the brainstorming
process [35]. It has been shown through multiple research studies that use of EBS
results in better idea generation performance than verbal interaction [25]. This result
is rob
Journal of Management Information Systems / Spring 2013, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 195–215.© 2013 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. Permissions: www.copyright.comISSN 0742–1222 (print) / ISSN 1557–928X (online)DOI: 10.2753/MIS0742-1222290407Sparking Creativity: Improving ElectronicBrainstorming with Individual CognitivePrimingAlan R. Dennis, Randa ll K. Minas , andAkshay P. BhagwatwarAlan R. Dennis is a professor of information systems and holds the John T. ChambersChair of Internet Systems at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Hisresearch focuses on three main themes: the use of computer technologies to supportteam creativity and decision making, neuro IS, and the use of the Internet to improvebusiness and education. He was a senior editor at MIS Quarterly and is currently thepublisher of MIS Quarterly Executive, a journal focusing on applied research designedto improve practice. Dr. Dennis has written more than 100 research papers and haswon numerous awards for his theoretical and applied research. He has written fourbooks, two on data communications and networking and two on systems analysisand design.Randa ll K. Minas is a Ph.D. candidate in information systems at the Kelley Schoolof Business, Indiana University. He received an M.S. in business administration fromIndiana State University and B.S. in psychology with neuroscience from VanderbiltUniversity. He is the current managing editor of MIS Quarterly Executive. His researchinterests include individual cognitive responses to information systems, collaborationand small group research, and neuro IS. His research has been published in theJournal of Applied and Preventive Psychology as well as the proceedings of severalconferences, including the 45th Annual Hawaii International Conference on SystemSciences, 14th Annual Conference on Education, and Special Interest Group of SystemsAnalysis and Design.Akshay P. Bhagwatwar is a Ph.D. candidate in information systems at the Kelley Schoolof Business, Indiana University. He received his M.S. in information managementfrom the Information School at the University of Washington in 2010 and his B.E. ininformation technology from the University of Mumbai, India, in 2008. His researchfocuses on virtual collaboration, business process change, and policy informatics.His research has been published in Communications of the Association for InformationSystems, Public Administration Review, Information Systems Management, andother journals as well as conferences proceedings, including the Hawaii InternationalConference on System Sciences, Australasian Conference on Information Systems,and Americas Conference on Information Systems.Abstra ct: Much of human behavior involves subconscious cognition that can bemanipulated through “priming”—the presentation of a stimulus designed to subconsciouslyimplant a concept in working memory that alters subsequent behavior.Priming is a well-known phenomenon for individual behavior, but we do not know196 Dennis, Minas , and Bhagwatwarwhether priming can be used to influence group behavior. We developed a Web-basedcomputer game that was designed to improve creativity through priming. Participantswere exposed to a priming game and then worked as members of a group using electronicbrainstorming (EBS) to generate ideas on a creativity task. Our results show thatwhen users played the game, designed to improve performance, their groups generatedsignificantly more ideas that were more creative than when they were exposed to neutralpriming. Our findings extend the literature by providing evidence that individualpriming substantially affects group idea generation performance. Avenues for futureresearch include designing EBS software that optimizes group ideation through priming,examining the conditions under which priming has the most substantial impact onideation performance, and examining whether priming can be used to enhance othergroup processes (e.g., convergence tasks).Key word s and phra ses: collaboration, creativity, electronic brainstorming, ideageneration, individual cognition, priming, virtual groups.Virtual groups ar e increasingly pr eva lent in toda y’s organizations [15, 73].Research on the efficiency and effectiveness of virtual group interactions has becomean important component of the study of collaboration [24, 39]. Improving creativityand idea generation is also important to organizations [20, 36, 44]. Many organizationsare turning to novel approaches to spark creativity, including gathering unique ideasfrom people both internal and external to the organization [27]. When these groupsuse various tools, such as e‑mail, Web chat, instant messenger, social media, andvideoconferencing, to brainstorm, the process is referred to as “electronic brainstorming”(EBS). EBS can generate innovative ideas that can transform existing businessparadigms [20, 36, 69]. Research on collaboration has shown that virtual groups canquickly use EBS to improve their performance [25, 44].Most prior EBS research has focused on social psychology based factors (i.e., theinteraction among participants), such as anonymity, group size, and proximity [25].Relatively few studies have examined how individual cognition affects virtual groupperformance [37, 42, 72], even though prior research has established the importanceof individual differences in influencing information system usage and performance(see [46]). Research on individual cognition during group collaboration has examinedthe cognitive demands placed on groups by technologies [2, 42], and the roleof cognition in collaboration [31, 47, 67]. However, we are not aware of any studiesthat have attempted to predispose individual cognition to enhance the performanceof virtual groups.There is considerable research in psychology showing that much of human behavioruses subconscious cognition [5, 8]. Research in information systems has establishedthat subconscious cognition influences constructs important to the study of informationsystems, such as behavioral intention and perceptions of ease of use [52]. Ourresearch, however, shows the importance of subconscious cognition in shaping ourbehavior when using information technology.Improvin g Electronic Brainstorming with Individua l Cognitive Priming 197One approach to influencing subconscious cognition is priming. Priming is the presentationof a stimulus designed to activate in working memory certain mental representationsof concepts, attitudes, or beliefs that then influence the individual’s behavior on asubsequent task [6]. The effects of priming on individual behavior have been extensivelystudied in psychology [3, 6, 60, 65]. Individuals can be primed in a number of ways,including exposure to words, pictures, sounds, or, as in this study, a computer game.Priming has been used in the human–computer interaction literature to study the behaviorof individuals in a virtual setting [13, 51]. These studies have utilized a special typeof priming, known as “supraliminal” or “above threshold” priming. With supraliminalpriming, an individual is aware of the stimulus, but he or she is unaware of the intent ofthat stimulus [6, 22]. A few studies have found that priming can influence group behavior.Postmes et al. [56], for example, found that priming could influence group behavior in
computer-mediated communication. They found that anonymous groups primed with
prosocial norms produced solutions that were more socially influenced solutions than
those primed with efficiency norms. Priming can be designed to influence an individual’s
affect, attitudes, or behavior [6].
In this paper, we present a study examining the impact of priming the concept of
achievement on performance of EBS groups. We found that groups produced significantly
more unique ideas and more creative ideas following the achievement priming.
The effect sizes were large, with most Cohen’s d above 0.80. To put this into perspective,
these effect sizes are as large as the one observed in using EBS technology versus
verbal brainstorming [25].
Prior Theory
Creativity and Electronic Brainstorming
Idea genera tion is often perform ed by forma l or informa l groups [36]. A group’s
primary objective in idea generation is to produce creative ideas with an ultimate goal
of creating a set of possible ideas that can be further evaluated and, eventually, implemented
[28, 36]. Overall creativity and ideation performance can be measured using
either the quantity or creativity of ideas generated [26]. Quantity of ideas is usually
measured as the total number of unique ideas generated by a group. The creativity
of unique ideas can be conceptualized on a number of different dimensions, such as
novelty, workability, relevance, and specificity [21]. Each of these dimensions illustrate
a different aspect of the overall creativity of an idea [21]. In some situations, it
is desirable to generate a large quantity of ideas, whereas other situations require a
few highly creative ideas [18].
Verbal brainstorming has been used for more than half a century as a technique for
improving idea generation performance [23, 49]. Organizations use brainstorming
sessions as an important way to develop creative ideas [70]. Early research argued that
four practices improved the effectiveness of verbal brainstorming: (1) producing a large
quantity of ideas, (2) ruling out criticism, (3) freewheeling (wild/weird ideas) must be
accepted, and (4) combining and improvising ideas should be encouraged [53].
198 Dennis, Minas , and Bhagwatwar
EBS involves the use of technology such as e‑mail, browser-based systems, textbased
chat, group support systems, or vendor-specific tools to support the brainstorming
process [35]. It has been shown through multiple research studies that use of EBS
results in better idea generation performance than verbal interaction [25]. This result
is rob
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