The Effects of Role Assignment on the Quality of Creative Outputs

The impact of externally imposed group structures on creativity is a conjecture that the existing body of research on creativity has left largely understudied. The purpose of this working paper is to examine the direct and combined effects of group structure and evaluative pressure on group creativity. Data collected from 32 teams working on an idea generation task (i.e., a five-panel comic strip) is analyzed to test hypotheses about the benefits of functional structures versus non-structured groups on the quality of the creative outcome. Inferences are discussed, as well as possible limitations and directions for future research.