ELECTRONIC GROUP BRAINSTORMING - THE ROLE OF FEEDBACK ON PRODUCTIVITY

The development of electronic brainstorming systems (EBS) farces the p rocess of idea generation to be rethought. These systems can greatly c hange the interface between the individual and the group, affecting th e behavior of both. This study examines how the feedback on group perf ormance provided by the public screen can affect individual motivation and idea generation. Prior psychosocial reseal ch has shown that feed back can have positive and negative effects. In a laboratory experimen t, two of these psychosocial factors were studied social matching and social loafing. The effectiveness of continuous display versus display at the end versus no display was compared for 230 subjects. Results s how mixed evidence of social loafing and significant evidence of socia l marching, that is, participants use EBS feedback to adjust their lev el of effort to that of the group. These findings have major implicati ons for the development of better EBS and raise important questions on the theory of EBS-supported groups.