Creativity through Connectedness: The Role of Closeness and Perspective Taking in Group Creativity

Abstract

Achievements in various fields of creativity are resulting more and more from collaborative teams. This research investigated the role of interpersonal process variables, namely closeness and perspective taking in group creativity, with a 2 by 2 experimental design. Sixty-one 3-person groups assigned to 4 conditions (a: closeness and perspective taking, b: perspective taking, c: no closeness and no perspective taking, d: closeness). Group members collaboratively wrote stories that were rated by 3 independent expert judges. There was a positive main effect of closeness and negative main effect of perspective taking on group creativity scores. Moreover, the significant interaction between perspective taking and closeness displayed that combination of closeness with perspective taking negatively affect group creativity. These results indicate that closeness might be beneficial for group creativity only when it is not accompanied with perspective taking.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Gregor Caregnato and Julia Cleeman, the laboratory staff of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at Max Planck Institute of Human Development, for their assistance in recruiting the participants and conducting the experiments. Additionally, they appreciate the technical support of Amit Kothiyal. They would also like to thank the participants who took part in this research for sharing their time and enthusiasm. This research was completed as part of Marie Curie Initial Training Network FP7-PEOPLE-2013-ITN, CogNovo, grant number 604764.