Fuelling effects of unique opinion holder’s emotions on team creativity: A collective information processing perspective

• Main Author: OH, Hui Si
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
• Subjects: Teams; Creativity; Working Memory Capacity; Emotions; Anger; Happy; Organizational Behavior and Theory; Social Psychology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/336; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1334&context=etd_coll
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Building on past studies that have found positive influence of minority member on team creativity, this research examined an underexplored yet crucial topic of a unique opinion holder’s happy and anger emotions on team creativity. Using a collective information processing perspective, this study examined whether the expression of anger and happiness would be beneficial for team creativity by spurring team members to respond qualitatively differently to each other’s ideas during the discussion. Additionally, this study examined whether the influence of a unique opinion holder’s emotions on team creativity through information-processing pathways would depend on individual members’ working memory capacities. Three hundred and ninety-six undergraduate students (M = 22.07 years, SD= 1.84) were randomly assigned to work with three to five members, including a confederate who expressed anger, happy or neutral emotions. They were asked to brainstorm ideas that could improve online learning for future semesters in Singapore. As compared with teams with a neutral unique opinion holder, teams with a happy unique opinion holder showed an improvement in their creativity by expanding the active associations within the semantic network of ideas across members (i.e., generative pathway). On the other hand, teams with an angry unique opinion holder elicited improved team creativity by deliberating on expressed ideas (i.e., elaborative pathway). These mediational pathways, however, did not depend on teams’ levels of working memory capacity. Future applications with technological tools and implications of this research for organisations would be discussed.