Does Brainstorming Work? In a Review, Groups Had Fewer Ideas

Short answer. For sheer number of ideas, group brainstorming came out behind, according to a 2018 review this page read in full and the abstracts it could read. By the review's account, groups that talked face to face produced fewer ideas than the same number of people who worked alone and pooled their lists. Paul Paulus and colleagues base that on a 1987 paper and a 1991 meta-analysis, both titled for a “productivity loss in brainstorming groups” and read here only as citations. The verdict covers idea counts in short lab sessions, not idea quality or the other goals of a team meeting.

In one sentence: For sheer number of ideas, a 2018 review of lab studies reports that talking brainstorming groups fall behind the same number of people working alone.

Myth checked: A group brainstorming out loud comes up with more ideas than the same number of people working alone. [status not assigned] Talking groups vs. the same number of people working alone; idea counts in short lab sessions. Based on a 2018 review's full text and the abstracts this page could read; the experiments and meta-analysis the review cites were read as citations only. Checked 2026-11-06.

Outline5 sections

1. The promise
2. The question asked in 1958
3. Productivity loss, named twice
4. Why groups might fall behind
5. Verdict: idea counts, not idea quality

The comparison behind the phrase productivity loss: a group that talks, and a nominal group of the same size whose members work alone and whose lists are combined afterward. Four people per group follows the example in the 2018 review; the drawing is not the design of any one study.

You and three coworkers get twenty minutes and a whiteboard to list every idea you can for a new product. Down the hall, four other people get the same task and time, but each works alone at a desk. Their lists are combined at the end. The question is which side should end up with the longer list.

Group brainstorming was promoted on the bet that the room wins. This page checks what lab studies found when they set up that comparison. It also checks how much of that evidence it could actually read.

Replication scorecard

The promise

Illustration

Two ways to set up the same idea session: one table for a group that talks, or separate desks for people who work alone and pool their lists later. A scene illustration; it does not show which setup produces more.

Alex Osborn's 1953 book Applied Imagination popularized group brainstorming. This page could not read the book, so it does not quote it. A 2018 review by Paul Paulus, Jonali Baruah and Jared Kenworthy describes the procedure he popularized. A group aims for as many ideas as possible in a short time, without worrying about quality.

The same review lists the rules most formal sessions follow: go for quantity, say whatever comes to mind, criticize nothing, and build on each other's ideas. It reports that talking in a group is the most common way to brainstorm, and that people tend to enjoy it and see it as effective. A 2026 paper in PLOS ONE by Theresa Wöllner, Tim Schweisfurth and Alexander Brem calls it one of the most widely adopted ways that organizations try to spark creativity.

The 2018 review reports some evidence for the rules themselves, the best of it for aiming at quantity first. It cites a 2011 paper by Paul Paulus, Nicholas Kohn and Lauren Arditti, “Effects of Quantity and Quality Instructions on Brainstorming.” This page read that paper only as a citation.

The question asked in 1958

Five years after Osborn's book, Donald Taylor, Paul Berry and Clifford Block published a paper in Administrative Science Quarterly. Its title asks: “Does Group Participation When Using Brainstorming Facilitate or Inhibit Creative Thinking?” Only its bibliographic record could be read here. The title shows the question was being asked within five years of the book. It does not give the answer, the design or the numbers, so none appear here.

Five milestones in the brainstorming research this page draws on. Hollow markers are sources read only as citations; the filled marker is the one read in full. Positions follow the publication year.

The comparison those later papers made has a name. In the 2018 review, a nominal group is the same number of people brainstorming alone, with their ideas counted together. It is a lab comparison, not a meeting format.

The nominal group technique is something else, despite the similar name. By the abstract of a 2024 review by Seung Ho Lee and colleagues, it is a consensus method for pooling expert opinion. It runs in four stages: idea generation, round-robin sharing, clarification and voting.

Productivity loss, named twice

In 1987, Michael Diehl and Wolfgang Stroebe published “Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle.” In 1991, Brian Mullen, Craig Johnson and Eduardo Salas published “Productivity Loss in Brainstorming Groups: A Meta-Analytic Integration.” A meta-analysis pools the results of many earlier studies. Both papers were read here as citations only, so the page gives none of their numbers or methods.

The titles still say something. Each names a productivity loss in brainstorming groups, and the 1987 title treats it as a riddle that needs solving. For the content, this page relies on summaries it could read.

By the 2018 review's account, groups of four that share ideas by talking tend to generate “only about half as many ideas” as the same number of people brainstorming alone (section “The Use of Different Modalities,” first paragraph). The review cites the 1987 and 1991 papers for that, and this page could not check the figure against them. A 1991 study by R. B. Gallupe, L. M. Bastianutti and W. H. Cooper starts its abstract from the same point. In earlier work, it says, groups that brainstormed together reliably came up with fewer ideas than an equal number of people working alone.

How much of each source this page could read, from Osborn's 1953 book to a 2026 paper. The same ledger is printed as a table, with a CSV file, in the Data section below.

That 1991 abstract also reports a twist. The study crossed electronic brainstorming, then a new technique, with the ordinary kind, and nominal groups with interacting ones. Electronic groups produced more ideas, but nominal and interacting groups did not differ, and interacting groups felt better about the process. The abstract gives no separate result for the groups that met face to face without computers.

[status not assigned] Electronic and nonelectronic, nominal and interacting groups in one 1991 study. The abstract gives no group size, sample or numbers. Based on the abstract. Checked 2026-11-06.

Why groups might fall behind

The abstract of the 1991 study names three suspected causes: social loafing, evaluation apprehension and production blocking. The 2018 review and the 2019 paper described below explain them. Production blocking means that in a talking group only one person can speak at a time, so others wait and may lose their ideas. Evaluation apprehension is the fear of being judged, and social loafing is putting in less effort when your part is hard to see.

Three candidate explanations and where this page read them. None was tested in a talking group in the sources read for this page; each is labeled a possible explanation.

These are candidates, not settled causes, at the level this page could read them. Diehl and Stroebe's 1991 follow-up is titled “Productivity loss in idea-generating groups: Tracking down the blocking effect.” Bernard Nijstad and Wolfgang Stroebe proposed a model of idea generation in 2006. By its abstract, turn-taking gets in the way, while ideas from others help bring useful knowledge to mind.

One readable experiment tested two of these factors, though not in a talking group. In a 2019 study by Xiang Zhou and colleagues, 80 pairs of college students listed ways to improve their university. For 20 minutes they sent ideas to the experimenters by chat, without talking to each other. Pairs told that their ideas would be judged afterward produced 21.03 ideas on average, vs 32.95 for pairs told they would not be judged.

Replication tag: [single study] Pairs of college students, 19 to 23 years old, sending ideas by chat for 20 minutes; number of ideas. No matched replication found (search of 2026-11-06). Based on full text. Checked 2026-11-06.

Seeing a partner's ideas narrowed the range: pairs who could see each other's ideas covered 12.58 categories of ideas, vs 14.13 for pairs whose members worked separately and had their lists combined. Neither factor made a statistically significant difference to the novelty score the authors computed, though they note the scoring rule may not have been suitable. They suggest, as a possible explanation, that seeing a partner's ideas fixed attention on a few categories. A different kind of fixation, on an object's usual use, is the subject of this site's study file on functional fixedness.

Replication tag: [single study] Same pairs and task; number of idea categories. No matched replication found (search of 2026-11-06). Based on full text. Checked 2026-11-06.

Two follow-up experiments in the same paper added a 5-minute break halfway through. People who saw a partner's ideas, or in the third experiment sample ideas presented as a partner's, produced more ideas in the last 10 minutes when they took the break than when they worked straight through. Not every type of break passed the authors' stricter statistical test. Whether time away from a problem helps is a separate question, taken up in this site's review of the incubation effect.

Replication tag: [single study] College students sending ideas by chat, 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after a 5-minute break; number of ideas in the last 10 minutes. No matched replication found (search of 2026-11-06). Based on full text. Checked 2026-11-06.

Verdict: idea counts, not idea quality

On the narrow question the lab studies asked, the evidence this page could read points one way. A review read in full reports that talking groups produce fewer ideas than nominal groups of the same size, and one 1991 abstract opens with the same summary of earlier work. No tag is assigned, for two reasons. The experiments and the meta-analysis behind that summary were read only as citations, and the 1991 abstract found no difference between nominal and interacting groups in its own design.

What this page's verdict covers and what it leaves out. Each item is described in the text below the figure.

The verdict leaves three things out:

• Idea quality. In the 2019 pairs study, novelty scores did not differ significantly between conditions, and the sources read here do not settle whether groups end up with better ideas.
• Video calls and online whiteboards. No source read here tested them. The 1991 study, read as an abstract, is the only one here that compared electronic with ordinary brainstorming. The 2019 pairs study had every group send ideas by chat, so it has no talking comparison. The 2018 review adds that sharing ideas electronically tends to produce more ideas than talking.
• Other goals of a meeting, such as agreement or a shared sense of ownership. Interacting groups in the 1991 study felt better about the process, which is a separate outcome from idea counts.

Before your next brainstorming meeting, give everyone a few quiet minutes to write ideas alone. Then pool and discuss them. The 2018 review suggests writing first and reports that studies by its first author found groups sharing ideas on paper slips can beat nominal groups. This page did not read those studies, so treat writing first as a promising setup, not a tested rule.

Data: What each source could support

Source	Year (quoted)	Read as	What this page takes from it
Osborn, Applied Imagination	1953	citation only	The book exists; the 2018 review credits Osborn with popularizing brainstorming
Taylor, Berry & Block	1958	citation only	The paper exists; its title asks whether group participation helps or hinders creative thinking
Diehl & Stroebe	1987	citation only	Its title names a productivity loss in brainstorming groups
Mullen, Johnson & Salas	1991	citation only	Its title names a productivity loss in brainstorming groups and a meta-analytic integration
Gallupe, Bastianutti & Cooper	1991	abstract	Background: groups had produced fewer ideas; own result: no nominal vs interacting difference, electronic groups more productive
Diehl & Stroebe	1991	citation only	Its title names a blocking effect in idea-generating groups
Nijstad & Stroebe	2006	abstract	A model in which turn-taking interferes with idea generation and others' ideas aid recall of relevant knowledge
Paulus, Kohn & Arditti	2011	citation only	The paper exists; the 2018 review cites it for the quantity rule
Paulus, Baruah & Kenworthy	2018	full text	Talking groups produce fewer ideas than nominal groups; writing ideas down first may help
Zhou et al.	2019	full text	Pairs told they would be judged produced fewer ideas; seeing a partner's ideas narrowed the categories
Lee et al.	2024	abstract	The nominal group technique is a four-stage consensus method
Wöllner, Schweisfurth & Brem	2026	full text	Brainstorming is one of the most widely adopted techniques in organizations

Download the data (CSV, brainstorming-source-ledger.csv) · Where each value comes from (JSON) Data: Paulus, P. B., Baruah, J., & Kenworthy, J. B. (2018). Enhancing collaborative ideation in organizations. Frontiers in Psychology 9: 2024, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02024, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/); Zhou, X., et al. (2019). Exposure to ideas, evaluation apprehension, and incubation intervals in collaborative idea generation. Frontiers in Psychology 10: 1459, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01459, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

The replication scorecard at the top of this page, as a CSV file · Where each value comes from (JSON) Data: Paulus, P. B., Baruah, J., & Kenworthy, J. B. (2018). Enhancing collaborative ideation in organizations. Frontiers in Psychology 9: 2024, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02024, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Retrieval check

Answer from memory first, then follow the link to the passage and check.

1. What phrase do the titles of the 1987 paper and the 1991 meta-analysis share? Back to the passage
2. What three things does this page's verdict on brainstorming leave out? Back to the passage
3. In the 2019 pairs study, what happened to idea counts when people were told their ideas would be judged? Back to the passage · When a break helps: the incubation effect

Sources

1. Osborn, A. F. (1953). Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Thinking. New York: Scribner. https://archive.org/details/appliedimaginati00osborichRead: citation only · the book was not read and is not quoted · checked 2026-11-06
2. Paulus, P. B., Baruah, J., & Kenworthy, J. B. (2018). Enhancing collaborative ideation in organizations. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2024. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02024 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02024Read: full text · [status not assigned] talking groups vs. nominal groups of the same size, idea counts, because the studies the review cites were read as citations only · Crossref lists no correction or retraction · checked 2026-11-06 · Text license: CC BY 4.0
3. Wöllner, T., Schweisfurth, T. G., & Brem, A. (2026). The impact of mixed-anonymity on brainstorming performance: Evidence from field experiments. PLOS ONE, 21, e0354236. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0354236 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0354236Read: full text · used only for its description of brainstorming as widely adopted · Crossref lists no correction or retraction · checked 2026-11-06 · Text license: CC BY 4.0
4. Paulus, P. B., Kohn, N. W., & Arditti, L. E. (2011). Effects of quantity and quality instructions on brainstorming. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 45(1), 38–46. doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.2011.tb01083.x https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.2011.tb01083.xRead: citation only · cited by Paulus, Baruah & Kenworthy (2018) for the quantity rule · checked 2026-11-06
5. Taylor, D. W., Berry, P. C., & Block, C. H. (1958). Does group participation when using brainstorming facilitate or inhibit creative thinking? Administrative Science Quarterly, 3(1), 23–47. doi:10.2307/2390603 https://doi.org/10.2307/2390603Read: citation only · title and year only, no results · checked 2026-11-06
6. Lee, S. H., ten Cate, O., Gottlieb, M., Horsley, T., Shea, B., Fournier, K., Tran, C., Chan, T., Wood, T. J., & Humphrey-Murto, S. (2024). The use of virtual nominal groups in healthcare research: An extended scoping review. PLOS ONE, 19(6), e0302437. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0302437 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302437Read: abstract · used only for what the nominal group technique is · Crossref lists no correction or retraction · checked 2026-11-06
7. Diehl, M., & Stroebe, W. (1987). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(3), 497–509. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.53.3.497 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.53.3.497Read: citation only · title and year only, no results · checked 2026-11-06
8. Mullen, B., Johnson, C., & Salas, E. (1991). Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: A meta-analytic integration. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 12(1), 3–23. doi:10.1207/s15324834basp1201_1 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp1201_1Read: citation only · title and year only, no results · checked 2026-11-06
9. Gallupe, R. B., Bastianutti, L. M., & Cooper, W. H. (1991). Unblocking brainstorms. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(1), 137–142. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.76.1.137 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.76.1.137Read: abstract · [status not assigned] electronic and nonelectronic, nominal and interacting groups, abstract-level evidence only · Crossref lists no correction or retraction · checked 2026-11-06
10. Diehl, M., & Stroebe, W. (1991). Productivity loss in idea-generating groups: Tracking down the blocking effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(3), 392–403. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.3.392 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.61.3.392Read: citation only · title and year only, no results · checked 2026-11-06
11. Nijstad, B. A., & Stroebe, W. (2006). How the group affects the mind: A cognitive model of idea generation in groups. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(3), 186–213. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_1 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_1Read: abstract · a model, described as a possible explanation, no tag · Crossref lists no correction or retraction · checked 2026-11-06
12. Zhou, X., Zhai, H.-K., Delidabieke, B., Zeng, H., Cui, Y.-X., & Cao, X. (2019). Exposure to ideas, evaluation apprehension, and incubation intervals in collaborative idea generation. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1459. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01459 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01459Read: full text · Replication tag: [single study] being told ideas would be judged lowered idea counts, college-student pairs sending ideas by chat for 20 minutes · Replication tag: [single study] seeing a partner's ideas narrowed idea categories, same pairs · Replication tag: [single study] a 5-minute break raised idea counts in the last 10 minutes, college students · Crossref lists no correction or retraction · checked 2026-11-06 · Text license: CC BY 4.0
13. Crossref. Update searches (corrections, retractions, expressions of concern) for doi:10.2307/2390603, doi:10.1037/0022-3514.53.3.497, doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.3.392, doi:10.1207/s15324834basp1201_1, doi:10.1037/0021-9010.76.1.137, doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr1003_1, doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.2011.tb01083.x, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02024, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01459, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0302437 and doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0354236. https://api.crossref.org/works?filter=updates:10.1037/0022-3514.53.3.497record check · no correction, retraction or expression of concern registered for the eleven DOIs · checked 2026-11-06

Cite this page

Feedback & Forgetting. (2026-11-06). Does Brainstorming Work? In a Review, Groups Had Fewer Ideas. https://feedbackandforgetting.com/creative-minds/brainstorming/ (accessed [date you read it])

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