Motivated Closed-Mindedness and Creativity in Small Groups

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to investigate whether the need for cognitive closure affects the degree of creativity in small groups. Participants in groups of four performed a task in which they had to create advertising slogans for a given product. Some of the groups were composed of individuals with high dispositional need for closure, whereas other groups were composed of individuals with low need for closure. Results showed that ideational fluency, degree of elaboration, and creativity, as rated by independent judges, was lower in high (vs. low) need-for-closure groups. These results suggest that the tendencies to restrict the number of hypotheses generated and to produce conventional ideas, consequences of the need for closure, lower the degree of creativity in interacting groups.