Reflection #8 – [04/09] – Viral Pasad

“From Diversity to Creativity: Stimulating Group Brainstorming with Cultural Differences and Conversationally-Retrieved Pictures. Hao-Chuan Wang, Susan R. Fussell, Dan Cosley.

This study classifies the two forms of diversity and explains how brainstorming is affected by internal and externals diversity. The authors discuss how brainstorming is positively affected by external stimuli as well as cultural diversity. Their study looks at the impact that diversity could have on the outcomes of brainstorming. Their results show that external stimuli such as visual cues/guides such as images enhanced results.The research is just a concept or an approach instead of a fancy or novel implementation that could be further dissected. This paper disagrees with the fact that diversity in culture would be detrimental to productivity.

One major flaw with the paper’s ideology of diversity was in the approach where they select Americans and Chinese individuals in groups of 2 as diverse. They could have defined or explained diversity better. Of course, it would also be prudent to acknowledge the fact that a scientific study on diversity is no cakewalk. Diversity is a very broad topic and very difficult to study considering its range, complexities and sensitivities. The more interesting approach for this research, rather than filtering individuals based on ethnicities, would be the selection of individuals based on backgrounds, relevant past experiences, etc.