The Effect of Creative Tasks on Affective Experience in Group Work

Abstract

This study investigates how the type and order of creative tasks may influence the affective states and group work satisfaction of people engaged in creative group work. The experiment was a mixed design, with the type of creative tasks and the order of the task as fixed factors, and the students nested in groups as random factors. Groups of five to six participants performed two kinds of conventional creative tasks: the alternative uses test as a divergent task and the remote associates test as a convergent task. Five groups started with the divergent task and then performed the convergent task, while the other five groups started with the convergent task and then performed the divergent task. The affective states and group work satisfaction were measured repeatedly after each of the two tasks. The results show that the convergent task produced a more positive effect on the affective state and group work satisfaction than did the divergent task. Furthermore, the task order had an impact on affective experience. The second task induced a higher valence than the first task. This study provides a better understanding of the design of creative group tasks to yield better affective experiences.