Acceptance of Ideas Generated Through Individual and Group Brainstorming

Summary This study compared the performance of nominal groups of individuals (N = 64 undergraduates) who actually brainstormed alone and real groups (N = 64 undergraduates) in terms of the number of ideas they produced for realistic and unrealistic brainstorming tasks, time taken to select a “best” idea following brainstorming, and level of agreement as to the quality of selected ideas. As in previous studies, nominal groups produced significantly more ideas than real groups, and an unrealistic problem stimulated more ideas than a realistic problem. Contrary to predictions of group brainstorming advocates, real groups were not found to be superior to nominal groups regarding either the selection of “best” ideas or level of agreement as to the quality of selected ideas. For both nominal and real groups, selection of “best” ideas was accomplished faster for an unrealistic as opposed to a realistic problem.