Creative Supergroups: Group Performance as a Function of Individual Performance on Brainstorming Tasks

Summary This study investigated the reliability of individual brainstorming performance and the relative productivity of groups comprised of high (“supergroups”) versus low individual performers. Over a six-week period, and across different problems, the reliability coefficient for individual brainstorming performance was .54. Supergroups were found to be significantly more productive than groups comprised of low individual performers. Moreover, the mean number of ideas produced by the supergroups was substantially higher than the means obtained in three prior studies which used the same brainstorming problem. It was concluded that group performance can be markedly improved by selecting members on the basis of their ability to work alone on productive thinking problems.