📝Production blocking in brainstorming

Production blocking. In a normal discussion setting, the implicit rule is that only one person should talk at a time. This means that when one member is talking, all other participants’ (overt) production of ideas is being blocked. (Lamm & Trommsdorff₁₉₇₃)

This can be compared to a “verbal traffic jam.” While waiting to share their ideas, people may forget their ideas or decide that they are not worth sharing.

This may explain why Brainstorming individually is more efficient that brainstorming in a group.

This is supported by the fact that in larger groups the difference becomes more pronounced (Lamm & Trommsdorff₁₉₇₃):

Group size. Bouchard and Hare (1970) compared real and nominal brainstorming groups of the sizes 5, 7, and 9. They found that, as group size increased, the superiority of nominal over real groups with regard to quantity became larger (a significant interaction between group size and group type). Nominal groups performed better with increasing size but this was not true of real groups. These results were replicated by Bouchard, Barsaloux and Drauden (in press).