The Association Between Personality Traits, Evaluation Apprehension and Performance in Creative Thinking Group
By Amer Shakir Bin Zainol1, Nabilah Mudzafar2 1. Introduction
Beauty is a perennial joy for every man who walks the earth. Even at selecting a choice for a piece of furniture, for instance, a man and his wife are willing to spend on hours end or days just to choose an item of the heart’s desire. People who make such a choice are also willing to spend a lot of money in order to satiate the kind of furniture that fulfills the characteristics. Man experiences the joy of life more interestingly when the objects of daily necessities up to those of luxury, from a toothbrush to vehicle to luxurious furniture; all of which focus on elements that can bring about comfort, not only for physical well-being, but also for the fulfillment of their soul.
Undeniably, Industrial design is a dimension that contributes to well-being in terms of services for concepts development and specialization to both factories and consumers (The Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), 2004). The term of Industrial design that is used interchangeably with product design involves both engineering and aesthetic design (Ekberg, 2005) but its more emphasizes on users’ consideration (Roozenburg & Eekels, 1995). Therefore, Industrial Designers is not the people who handle the things that are involved with engineering directly, but they deliver the idea to an engineer (Hannah, 2004). For instance, Alexander Graham Bell is the person who is responsible to invent the telephone, but Henry Dreyfuss as an Industrial designer is the person who is responsible to give the modern form to the phone (Hannah, 2004).
Creativity in group have been discussed in vast dimensions. The findings sometime show the inconsistency regarding the context. Furthermore, the different factors also play an important role in order to explain about group performance. Recently, Jirasek and Sudzina (2020) and Burch, Burch and Batchelor (2019) and Zang, Sun and Jiang (2019) for examples found that the factors of personality traits always be an interest among researchers.
Preferable as a most popular method to be used in creative environment and creative group thinking, brainstorming is a series of procedures (rules) designed to maximize the productivity of groups engaged in idea generation by reducing process losses, popularized by Osborn an advertising executive. Recently, Maaravi, Heller, Shoham, Mohar and Deutsch (2020) explained how Electronic Brainstorming become one of the alternatives techniques that can be used to generate the new ideas. The main concern in this tool is increasing creativity in organization (Osborn, 1963). Brainstorming is also identified as a technique of a variety tools for generating ideas (Isaksen, 1998) and that many people could produce many ideas compare when they are working alone (Osborn, 1963). The ideas, even the impractical ideas are encouraged, because it would lead to more good ideas (Shepherd, Briggs, Reinig, Yen, & Nunamaker Jr., 1996). In addition to the other techniques, brainstorming is always a priority for idea generation. Initially, the concern of small group of creative problem solving as known as brainstorming has been led by Osborn in 1953 (Dorval, 1999). In 1953, Osborn introduced the technique of brainstorming to gain the new ideas. Based on his experienced, this technique could encourage people to solve the problem by seeking many possible solutions that constructive rather than critical way (Sternberg, & Lubart, 2003). This technique focuses on the method how to increase the productivity by sharing of ideas in groups (Osborn, 1963).
Although brainstorming is a most popular method that is used by an organizations (Paulus & Brown, 2007), research in brainstorming has consistently found that nominal group of brainstorming demonstrated that high productivity of ideas, rather than
brainstorming in groups (Paulus, 2000; Maginn, & Harris,1980; Paulus, Dzindolet, Poletes,
& Camacho,1993; Dennis, & Valacich, 1993; Paulus, Larey, Putman, Leggett, & Roland, 1996). Worrying on this situation, Paulus & Brown (2007) have mentioned that if this technique is not handled properly such as the processes issues, and group composition, organizations will waste their time, even though this technique is most popular (Paulus &
Brown, 2007).
Recently, Paulus and Brown (2007) have highlighted that to make the brainstorming more effective, combinations with other methods nee to be worked out. For example, in personality studies, often variables play a role in improving group performance (Peslak, 2006). In this case, personality traits are one of the diversities that should be explored in group research (Milliken, Bartel, & Kurtzberg, 2003). Expanding on the group performance in industrial design, personality can lead to the better performance (Keinonen, 2006). For example, the team members who are talkative could stimulate the other members who are not talkative (Keinonen, 2006).
Generally, this article hopes to extend the methodology by examining simultaneously the effects of personality traits and process together that can influence group creative thinking performance. Most of previous researcher have used experimental studies (see Burch, Burch and Batchelor, 2019; Jirasek and Sudzina, 2020; Kramer, Fleming, & Mannis, 2001; Camacho & Paulus, 1995; Paulus, Dzindolet, Poletes, &
Camacho, 1993) and are conducted in laboratory setting (see Nemeth, Personnaz, Personnaz, & Goncalo, 2004; and Nijstad, Diehl, & Stroebe, 2003). Strategic consideration of mediating and moderating variable should be aware by researcher because “moderator variables are typically introduced when there is an unexpectedly weak or inconsistent relation between a predictor and a criterion variable” and
“mediation, on the other hand, is best done in the case of strong relation between the predictor and the criterion variable” (Baron & Kenny, 1986, p. 1178). Hence, this study would contribute to the existing brainstorming research by examining correlational effect of personality traits the and process of evaluation apprehension in creative group thinking.
Objectives of the Study
Specifically, this study focuses on achieving three objectives:
1. To examine the relationship between personality trait of Extraversion and Evaluation Apprehension in creative group thinking,
2. To examine the relationship between personality trait of Emotional Stability and Evaluation Apprehension in creative group thinking, and
3. To examine the relationship between personality trait of Openness and Evaluation Apprehension in creative group thinking.
Operational Definition Personality of Openness
McCrae and Costa (1987) define personality of openness as the person who has characters of original, imaginative, broad interests, and daring. They have a little motivation and they are creative (McCrae, 1987). While, John & Srivastava (1999) define Openness as enquiring intellect, culture, intelligent, intellect, intellectual interests, and intelectance. English, Griffith, & Steelman (2004) define personality of openness to experience is imaginative, sensitive, intellectual, curious vs. down-to-earth, insensitive, simple, and narrow.
In this study, openness to experience is referred to subject’s responses to the Big Five Inventory (BFI) (John & Srivastava, 1999).
Extraversions
Personality of Extraversions is the person who has characters of sociable, fun-loving, affectionate, friendly, and talkative (McCrae & Costa, Jr., 1987). They are also sociable, enthusiastic, energetic, and optimistic. The people who are possess the personality of extraversions tend to be a desire to work with others, motivated to behave in ways that ensures that team will be effective (Barrick & Stewart, 1998). While, John & Srivastava (1999) define Extraversion as confident self-expression, surgency, assertiveness, social extraversion, and power. English, Griffith, & Steelman 2004) define personality of extraversions as a sociable, talkative, assertive, active vs. retiring, sober, reserved, and cautious. According to Burke and Witt (2002), personality of extraversions has been referred to as the tendency to be assertive, sociable, active, and talkative.
In this study, openness to experience is referred to subject’s responses to the Big Five Inventory (BFI) (John & Srivastava, 1999).
Emotional stability
English, Griffith, and Steelman (2004) define personality of emotional stability is calm, enthusiastic, poised, secure, vs. anxious, depress, emotional, and insecure.
While John & Srivastava (1999) define Neuroticism versus Emotional stability as emotionality, ego strength (anxiety), dominant assured satisfaction and affect.
In this study, openness to experience is referred to subject’s responses to the Big Five Inventory (BFI) (John & Srivastava, 1999).
Evaluation Apprehension
Evaluation Apprehension is a situation in which individuals may fear a negative reaction from other group members and they withhold their ideas in the brainstorming group (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987). Similar to the definition by Diehl & Stroebe, Barki and Pinsonneault (2001) define Evaluation Apprehension as the feeling of individuals in a group who fear that their creative ideas would be evaluated and can entail retaliation in the group. In this study, Evaluation Apprehension is examined in regard to the subject’s responses to instrument of Evaluation Apprehension (Bolin, 2002; Bolin & Neuman, 2006).
2. Literature Review
In group creativity, brainstorming emphasized that group members are required to restrict the evaluation of ideas until all possible ideas have been suggested, encourage the expression of wild or freewheeling ideas, place an emphasis on the quantity of ideas produced without regard to quality, and to build upon the ideas that are expressed by other group members through elaboration or combination of ideas. Osborn believes that brainstorming groups should produce twice as many ideas as the same number of individuals working in isolation. Osborn felt that the evaluation or convergent thinking in the early stage of brainstorming is the main problem when using brainstorming as a toll to generate new ideas. It would tend to inhibit the ideas’ generation. Osborn stress on four basic guidelines:
1. Quantity is wanted. When the number of ideas is greater, the good ideas would be greater as well.
2. There is no criticism. Adverse judgment of ideas must be withheld until later. The purpose of the brainstorming session is generating the many ideas as we can.
3. The wildest ideas are is welcomed. The wilder the idea, the better; it is easier to tame down than to think up. Criticism would kill the wild ideas. Therefore, when there is no critic, the wildest ideas would be produced.
4. Combine and improvement are sought. The previous ideas are not just leave as an idea, participants should suggest how the ideas of others can be turned into better ideas.
Sorting and evaluation of ideas will be postponed and become a main agenda for another separate meeting.
Osborn also proposed many guidelines and suggestions for those who might choose to lead a brainstorming session. He recommended that these facilitators should take at least one formal course in creative problem solving and should be able to: ask stimulating questions, develop plans for guiding the generating of ideas, provide warm-up practice and orientation for the participants, teach and reinforce the guidelines, and manage the planning and scheduling of follow-up sessions and meetings, among other responsibilities.
The group of 5-10 participants should be selected based on the nature of the problem to be brainstormed.
Participants should be prepared with the type of problem to be approach had to be oriented in advance before using brainstorming as a tool. The problem had to be clearly stated and focused for idea generation. The task had to be specific rather than general.
It should provide a single target for participants’ idea-generating efforts. Furthermore, In order to be very clear and useful of brainstorming, Osborn recommended that orientation of brainstorming should be provided to participants in 30 minutes. It will make participants familiar with this tool. In order to be effective, the role and responsibility of leader and group members should be given. Problem statement should be clear. One of the factors to contribute to generate new ideas is team spirit. Therefore Osborn (1963) also suggested that member in the group have a same rank of power and the rules or guideline of brainstorming is displayed.
Burch, Burch and Batchelor (2019) have conducted a study to see the extent to which personalities in groups and creative thinking process can enhance creativity for organizations. A total of 349 students were involved in this study. Respondents consisted of those studying at public universities in the Southeast U.S. Atotal of 105 groups were formed at random. Hierarchical regression is used to look at he influence aof the variables.
Studies have found that groups with personalities tend to be creative able to produce creative products. The findings of the study also found that group processes influence group creativity.
Slightly different from productivity in the field of design, Payne and Harper (2020) have conducted a study to look at the impact of personality traits on the performance of Construction and engineering. Specifically, they wanted to determine the correlation of Big Five Factors for personality traits predicting the performance of this group. A meta- analysis methodology linking correlations between personality traits and performance has been explored. Findings revealed that from 33 studies, there was a significant correlation in the personality traits of Conscientiousness to performance.
Bolin & Neuman (2006) attempted to examine the relationship between personality, processes, and performance in brainstorming groups. The purpose of study was to determine if the personality composition of an interactive brainstorming group has an impact on the group’s processes and subsequent productivity. The model that has been developed as shown:
Figure 2.1 Bolin & Neuman, 2006 p. 569.
Bolin & Neuman (2006) used NEO Five –Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa &
McCrae,1992) to measure personality traits. The measures of group processes (social loafing, production blocking, and evaluation apprehension) was developed by Bolin (2002) and Bolin & Neuman (2006). To identify the unique number of ideas, the coder was appointed. People who do not know what the purpose of the study is will erase the overlapping ideas. In order to measure quality of ideas, Bolin & Neuman (2006) adapted the procedures from (Barki & Pinsonneault, 2001; Bouchard, 1972); Total quality, mean quality, and good ideas. Two raters who were familiar with the topic appointed. The raters also were blind of hypothesis of study. Three contents of quality of ideas were; a.
originality b. feasibility, and c. effectiveness.
The participants were three hundred and twelve undergraduate psychology students.
They were randomly placed into seventy-eight four-person groups. The topic of study was;
a. what are some uses for a brick (in practice session- 3 minutes) b. how can the campus community be improved for students (task 1 – 10 minutes), and c. how would things be different if everyone suddenly had a second thumb? (task 2 – 10 minutes). Before the participants started the brainstorming session, they were given the brainstorming rules
Extraversion
Openness
Social loafing
Evaluation apprehension
Production blocking
Quantity
Quality
Emotional Stability
introduced by Osborn, 1963; a. the more ideas the better b. the wilder the idea the better it is c. do not criticize, and d. combination or improvements of previous ideas are desirable.
Bolin & Neuman (2006) found that Mean Openness has strong relationship with group outcomes. Result also showed that the mean Extraversion has a significant relation with the process, mean openness did not have a significant relation with the process but has a significant relation with the quantity and quality of ideas. Mean Emotional stability did not have significant relation with the process but has a significant relation with the quality of ideas.
Further, Bolin & Neuman (2006) found that Emotional Stability did not predict the group process variables and only predicted on group outcomes. The finding also revealed Extraversions predicted group process and mean quality for task 2, on the other hand mean quality and Extraversions for task 2 was not mediated by the process variables (production blocking, evaluation apprehension, and social loafing).
To see the relationship between creativity and how the influence of personality on creativity, Jirasek and Sudzina (2020) have conducted a study on students from Denmark.
A simple random sampling method was used in this study. Participant were given 44 items of Big Five Personality Inventory. Data were analyzed using the Least Squares Model. As predicted with previous studies, this study also found that personality of Openness was closely related to creativity. While, personality of Conscientiousness was negatively related to creativity.
Peeters, Rutte, Van Tuijl, & Reymen (2006) studied on the big five personality traits and team satisfaction. The purposed of study was to examined the relationships between team composition in terms of members’ Big Five Personality traits and individual satisfaction with the team after project completion. The study wanted to answer the question: how does them composition in terms of personalities of the team members feel about working in their particular team? The samples of students were three hundred and ten undergraduate students who volunteered to involve in this study. 68 teams were formed which was pertaining 3-7 members in each group, mean sized was 5.33.
Students were assigned to completed on engineering design work over a one-, six-, or 13 week-period at Dutch University of technology. They were assigned to design and built a robot. Before them working on assigned, they had to fill out the personality questionnaire. By the end of the assignment given, they also had to fill out the questionnaire of individual satisfaction with the team. Questionnaire was filled out before their project was evaluated and graded. Peeters, et al. (2006) had been using the Self-report of extensively validated Five-factor Personality Inventory (Hendrick et.al., 1999). To measured satisfaction, Peeters, et.al. (2006) developed their own formulated items based on definition of satisfaction. Operationalization of individual team member personality was: It is score of a team member on each of the five traits. The higher this individual trait score, the more the trait presents itself in that person. Peeters, et.al. (2006) discovered that team members’ satisfaction with their team increased if they were more Agreeableness and Emotional Stability. They would be less satisfaction when they were more Extravert.
Finding by Peeters, et al. (2006) indicates that at individual-level, traits personality of Emotional stability is the good predictor of satisfaction, but not for Extraversion.
Past research has demonstrated that the process of production blocking, social loafing, and evaluation apprehension is negatively related to a group brainstorming performance. For example, Diehl & Stroebe (1987) have found that production blocking is a production loss in group brainstorming research. Therefore, three prominent process loss of Production blocking, Social loafing, evaluation apprehension, and group effectiveness (Paulus, Larey, Putman, Leggett, & Roland,1996; Dennis & Valacich, 1993), Production blocking, evaluation apprehension, and group effectiveness (Gallupe, Bastianutti, & Cooper,1991) Social loafing, evaluation apprehension, and group effectiveness (Bahli, 2004), evaluation apprehension (Gallupe, Bastianutti, & Cooper, 1991; Maginn & Harris, 1980; Nemeth, Personnaz, Personnaz, & Goncalo, 2004; Barki & Pinsonneault, 2001; Kramer, Fleming, &
Mannis, 2001;Gallupe, Denis, Cooper, Valacich, Bastianutti, & Nunamaker Jr., 1992) have been gone through with extensive research in brainstorming.
In another study, Shepherd, Briggs, Reinig, Yen, & Nunamaker Jr. (1996) designed two experiments in order to examine the use of technology in group brainstorming. In experiment one, Shepherd, et al. (1996) wanted to examine the use of technology to increased social comparison as a mean of reducing social loafing. The model that was developed as shown below:
Figure 2.3 GSS Effects on Group Idea Generation: adapted from Shepherd, Briggs, Reinig, Yen, &
Nunamaker Jr. (1996) p. 158.
There were one hundred and eight teen male and female students who took
‘Introduction to computer technology’. Subjects were randomly assigned in five-person group. In this experiment, participants used EBS tool from group system®. Participants were assigned the role of Associate Dean, President of Student Council, President of Alumni Association, Chairperson of faculty Council, and Vice President of Undergraduate Instruction. Nineteen interrelated problem were raised to be solved by participants in brainstorming session. Participants were given forty minutes to brainstorm regarding to the problems. The dependent variables in this study were nonredundant ideas produced in
Simultaneous contribution
anonymity
Synergy
Production blocking
Evaluation Apprehension Free-riding
Productivity (idea generation)
brainstorming session. Thee treatment-blind coders were used (interrater reliability=0.84).
In experiment one, result showed that participants who had a basis for social comparison produced a significant more ideas than participants who had no basis social comparison.
In experiment two, Shepherd, et.al (1996) examined social facilitation technique to increased the salient of social comparison in an effort o further reduce social loafing.
Subjects of study in experiment two were two hundred and eighty-five students who took the subject of ‘Introduction to computer technology’. Subjects were also assigned the group of five such as in experiment one. Result showed that participants in the high-salience treatment produced more unique ideas as compared to participants in the low-salience and no-comparison.
The role play that has been given by Shepherd, et.al (1996) in their brainstorming is not related to the subjects. Isaksen (1998) emphasized that most of studies do not pay an attention on the topic that is discussed in brainstorming sessions. Study by Shepherd, et.al (1996) used coder to assessed the quantity of ideas to make interrater reliability.
Zang, Sun and Jiang (2019) conducted a study on 347 people among 26 firms.
53 creative groups have been successfully formed. The finding shows that there was a positive correlation between Openness to Experience and group creativity.
To see the effectiveness of brainstorming technique, many updates are implemented. For example, Vegt, Visch, Vermeeren, Ridder and Hayde (2019) have included user-centered design variables in their study. The purpose of the study was to see the effect on brainstorming output when game-based is implemented. This effect is hypothesized to be either positive or negative. 10 groups of 5 students were involved in brainstorming for 30 minutes. Interestingly, the finding showed that the role of games can stimulate the quantity and quality of brainstorming output.
All the studies above clearly indicate that personality traits, process in group creativity always influence performance.
3. Research Methodology Research Design
This study examines the hypothesized relationships between the independent variables of personality traits and dependent variable of evaluation apprehension. The appropriate research design in this study is correlational study.
Correlational Study
Correlational study is done by the researcher for the purpose to examine the prediction (Mertens, 1998) and relationships of variables (Ary et al., 2002; Gravetter &
Wallnau, 2003). It is done between one or more variables (predictor) to predict the performance of one or more variables (criterion). Correlational study is useful in any research and the major application can be classified into: (1) determining relationships, (2) assessing consistency, and (3) prediction (Ary et al., 2002). The implication of correlational study is not must be cause-effect (Tuckman, 1994). Correlational study has a specific purpose and useful in order to determine the relationship between variables (Tuckman, 1994). Clearly, this type of design investigates how score on one variable influences the other variables (Ary et al., 2002). The strength and the direction of relationship can be explained by means of quantitative index which is called coefficient correlation. The sign (+ or -) of the coefficient correlation indicates the direction of relationship (Ary et al., 2002; Kaplan, 1987). If the coefficient correlation has a positive sign, it means if one variable increases, the other variable will also increase. If coefficient correlation has
negative sign, it means if one variable increases, the other variable will decrease (Ary et al., 2002; Gravetter & Wallnau, 2003; Kaplan, 1987).
Reliability of Instruments Extraversion
Table 3.1 shows that personality of Extraversion has Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient of .688. Haslina (2006a.) reported that Cronbach’s Alpha for Extraversion scale was 0.71. Pallant (2005) recommended that if there is low Cronbach Alpha, researcher should consider to removed item that has low item-discrimination index which is indicated by corrected-item total correlation. In this case, item of 31 was deleted. This item has value of .066 in corrected- item total correlation. After the item of 31 was deleted, Alpha value increase drastically from of .688 to. 724.. It indicates that all the items have satisfactory measure the same construct.
Emotional Stability
Table 3.1 also shows that personality of Emotional stability has Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient of .690. Haslina (2006a.) reported that Cronbach’s Alpha for Emotional stability (Neuroticism) scale was 0.68. There is no low value of item- discrimination index. The Alpha value is considered acceptable because it is almost .70.
Mohd Majid Konting (2000) agrees in social science research, the value of .60 above is acceptable. It indicates that all the items have satisfactory measure the same construct.
Openness
Table 3.1 shows that personality of Openness has Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient of .695. Haslina (2006a.) reported that Cronbach’s Alpha for Openness scale was 0.307. In the case of item-discrimination index, item of 20 and 41 have low value.
Pallant (2005) recommended that if there is low Cronbach Alpha, researcher should consider to removed item that has low corrected item correlation. In this case, item of 35 and 44 were deleted. Item of 35 has value of .015 and item of 44 has value of .221 in corrected-item total correlation. When these two items were deleted, the internal consistency coefficient of eight items increase drastically from .695 to .767. It indicates that all the items have satisfactory measure the same construct.
Table 3.1 Reliability statistics- Personality traits
Corrected Cronbach’s Alpha
Scale item items-total if item deleted
Correlation
EX1 .407 .651
EX6 .528 .617
EX11 .407 .654
EX16 .256 .682
EX21 .529 .616
EX26 .332 .669
EX31 .066 .724
EX36 .513 .625
ES4 .380 .661
ES9 .325 .672
ES14 .296 .680
ES19 .481 .635
ES24 .534 .627
ES29 .390 .658
ES34 .367 .664
ES39 .288 .682
OP5 .465 .655
OP10 .389 .668
OP15 .515 .646
OP20 .473 .655
OP25 .578 .637
OP30 .414 .664
OP35 .015 .743
OP40 .524 .645
OP41 .283 .690
OP44 .221 .707
EX ES OP
Reliability coefficients:
Cronbach’s Alpha .688 .690 .695
(before deleted)
Cronbach’s Alpha .724 .690 .767
Note: All items are measured on 5-point scales ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. N=460. EX= Extraversion; ES= Emotional stability; OP= Openness.
Table 3.2 shows the all variables that involve in this study and reliabilities.
Table 3.2: Instruments and Alpha value
Instrument Cronbach’s Alpha
1. Extraversion .724
2. Emotional Stability .690
3. Openness .767
4. Evaluation Apprehension .764
Normality Tests.
Table 3.3 provides the summary statistics for all the Personality traits of Extraversion, Emotional Stability, Openness to Experience and Evaluation Apprehension.
The finding showed that the mean and median values of each dimensions of personality traits (Extraversion, Emotional stability, and Openness) were much closer. The distribution of the variables process (evaluation apprehension) was considered approximately normal as the skewness values were close to zero. The result from this study also revealed that kurtosis values for all of the variables were less than 3.0 except for production blocking.
For ownership of the topic, mean and median were much closer. The distribution of the variable was considered approximately normal which is the skewness and kurtosis was close to zero.
Table 3.4 provides the statistics for dependent variable. The distribution was considered approximately normal. Even though mean and median was seen as not much closer as seen in Table 3.3. This is because the data was drawn from actual data (quantity of ideas. But they are still close. The skewness also closes to zero and kurtosis is not more than 3.0.
Extraversion Emotional
Stability Openness Evaluation Apprehension
Mean 3.8332 3.1747 3.9467 4.1639
Median 3.8214 3.1563 3.9375 4.2500
Standard
deviation .29021 .27670 .27161 .44285
Skewness -.150 .049 -.036 -1.041
Kurtosis .384 .639 .575 1.413
Table 3.3 Descriptive Statistics for all Independent variables
Quantity of Ideas
Mean 33.5826
Median 27.0000 Standard
deviation 20.17641
Skewness 1.358 Kurtosis 2.231
Table 3.4 Descriptive Statistics for dependent variables
4. Results
Correlation Analysis at Individual-Level
Table 4.1depicts the analysis of Pearson Correlation between variables at individual-level. It indicates that the personality of Extraversion has positive correlations with Emotional Stability ( = .31, p < .01), Extraversion and Openness ( = .50, p <
.01), and Emotional Stability and Openness ( = .27, p < .01). Personality of Extraversion, Emotional stability, and Openness has negative correlations with Evaluation Apprehension ( = .29, = .21, = .26, p < .01).
Table 4.1
Means, Standard Deviations and Zero-order Correlations at Individual-Level for Personality Traits and Evaluation Apprehension
Variables Mean SD (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
Extraversion 3.83 .55 .72
Emotional Stability 3.17 .56 .31** .69
Openness 3.95 .49 .50** .27** .77
Evaluation Apprehension 1.84 .72 -.29** -.21** -.26** .62** .68** .76
Note: N = 460. ** Correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed), * Correlation is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed), † Correlation is significant at the .10 level (2-tailed).
Analyses of correlation at individual-level indicate that there are relationships between personality of Extraversion, Emotional Stability, and Openness. Results also indicate those individuals who have high personality of Extraversion, Emotional Stability, and Openness would negatively related to evaluation apprehension.
5. Discussion of the Findings
The objective of the study is to examine the relationship between personality traits, and production loss, evaluation apprehension. Group with high personality of Extraversion, Emotional Stability, and Openness would reduce the level of Evaluation Apprehension. Results mostly demonstrated that there is negative relationships between personality traits and production loss. These findings is consistent as predicted previously.
Group with high Extraversion that is talkative, out-going, and enthusiastic would reduce Production Blocking, Social Loafing, and Evaluation Apprehension. These findings are consistent with the past studies such as Bolin and Neuman (2006) who found that Extraversion has a significance relation with production loss. Even though past studies such as Barrick et al. (1998) and Barry and Stewart (1997) have stated that people who are extravert tend to be a leader and conquer the group, this study has proven that the group with extravert tends to reduce the obstacles of group performance; Production Blocking, Social Loafing, and Evaluation Apprehension.
This study also proves that negative relationship between personality traits of Emotional Stability and production loss. This finding revealed that group with high Emotional Stability would reduce Evaluation Apprehension. Even though past research such as Bolin and Neuman (2006) has not found any significant relationship between personality traits of Emotional Stability and production loss, the attempt of this study revealed that this type of personality traits especially in industrial design practices predicted the production loss of Production Blocking, Social Loafing, and Evaluation Apprehension. If Electronic Brainstorming (EBS) is able to reduce Production Blocking and Evaluation Apprehension in information systems context, such as studied by Maaravi, Heller, Shoham, Mohar and Deutsch (2020), Gallupe et al. (1992) and Gallupe et al. (1994), in the real situation of industrial design practices, personality of Extraversion and Emotional Stability are able to reduce Production Blocking, Social Loafing, and Evaluation Apprehension simultaneously.
They subsequently contribute more ideas especially when the topic is related to their area. Overall, Industrial Design undergraduates in the group may also reduce Evaluation Apprehension when they are talkative and emotionally stable. Even though the obstacles of group work such as Evaluation Apprehension is always occurring (Paulus et al., 1996), this present study clearly indicates that in industrial design practices, there is no longer the ‘real killer’ as labeled by Paulus and Brown (2007) in group brainstorming when the groups have high personality of Extraversion and Emotional Stability. Similar with two personality traits above, findings by Zang, Sun and Jiang (2019) also shows shows that there was a positive correlation between Openness to Experience and group creativity.
Expanding the discussion on the relationship between personality traits and the problem of production loss, the circumstances seem to see that the problem is overcome by these three personality traits when the Industrial Design undergraduates are in group. This could also be related to the topic has been given, when they are in the same line (industrial design issue) and the topic is also from prominent industrial designer and the problem is also concerning industrial design issue. Therefore, they do not evaluate the group members’
ideas and they have high motivation to contribute the ideas. This is also in the same line as
the Cognitive-Social-Motivational Model of Group Ideation (Paulus & Brown, 2007) and Semantic Networks and Associative Memory Model of Group Brainstorming (Paulus &
Brown, 2003) that stated people in brainstorming session would produce more ideas when they are familiar with the topic given. Furthermore, Vegt, Visch, Vermeeren, Ridder and Hayde (2019) also found that included user-centered design give an impact on brainstorming output.
All groups are also seen to participate in the creative task. ‘Equilibrium’ exists in the group. Group is seen to have balance whereby there are no members in the group themselves feel they do not contribute anything or are having ‘free ride’. This situation is interesting because Social Loafing is labeled as the problem in work group especially brainstorming. However, this study found the different point of past researches’ view.
Probably this ‘equilibrium’ exists because every member in the group has the sense of
‘empathy’. They respect their colleagues’ ideas and attend the particular ideas.
In general, probably, most of the samples were Malays. In Malay culture, criticizing others would hurt someone feelings (kecil hati). Moreover, the group members come from the same programme and university and they try to make someone to be comfortable and to mind people’s feelings (menjaga hati). This study also signifies that all personality traits, especially Extraversion influences Social Loafing. This circumstance occurs because in Malaysian culture they are shyness (malu) when they are not contributing the ideas in brainstorming session. Therefore, in order to avoid the feeling of shy (malu), they try to contribute the ideas as many as they can. Fortunately, the ideas that they contribute is attended by other group members. This circumstance leads to be high motivation to participate in the group and hence, less Social Loafing. Finally, the practitioners in industrial design context is provided with the norms that can be used in creative group thinking.
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