Thanks for your ideas: Gratitude and team creativity

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 156 (2020) 69–81

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Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp

Thanks for your ideas: Gratitude and team creativity Nashita Pillay a b c

a,1

, Guihyun Park

b,⁎,1

c

c,⁎

T

, Ye Kang Kim , Sujin Lee

Set Apart, 2 Havelock Road #04-15, Singapore S059763, Singapore Australian National University, Australia Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea

A B S T R A C T

Many ideas and products are borne out of collaborative efforts among members of teams and workgroups, and thus finding ways to improve team creativity is of significant interest. Adopting a collective information processing perspective, we argue that gratitude intervention for teams would serve as a powerful facilitator for information elaboration—whereby team members engage in more deliberate and thorough integration of others’ ideas—and, in turn, enhance team creativity. Study 1 found that teams in the gratitude condition increased information elaboration more than those in the neutral condition. Study 2 compared teams in gratitude emotion and teams in positive emotion in general. Teams in the gratitude condition generated highly creative ideas, due to more information elaboration. On the other hand, teams in the positive emotion condition expressed greater enthusiasm and confidence in their ideas and immediately accepted the ideas suggested, which led to an increase in the quantity of ideas. Our findings suggest that gratitude facilitates intellectual exchange in groups, which in turn enhances team creativity. We discuss our findings’ implications for team creativity and potential directions for future research.

1. Thanks for your ideas: Gratitude and team creativity Teams that achieve a high level of creative performance often find that their creative process is more like a journey filled with obstacles and uncertainties, in which members encourage, challenge, and develop each other’s ideas, continually deepen their understanding of the issue, and improve their solutions (Hargadon & Bechky, 2006; Harvey, 2014; Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001). Given the nature of a creative task, no set routine serves as a checklist; specific individual contributions cannot be anticipated nor a clear outcome guaranteed. Creative teams often rely on each other’s knowledge and perspective as much as on the benevolence and prosocial intentions fueled by heartfelt recognition and appreciation of one’s team members. Hargadon and Bechky (2006) found that creative teams shape their ideas through an evolving cycle of asking for help, providing help, and engaging in collective reflection, whereby members experience a sense of gratefulness for each other’s efforts and contributions. This study aims to gain a deeper, richer, and more nuanced understanding of team creativity by examining the effect of a specific form of positive emotion—gratitude—on team creativity by delineating its impact on collective information processing. Gratitude is defined as a positive emotion that stems from valuing and being aware of one’s surroundings, such as the presence of helpful others (McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, & Larson, 2001); gratifying events (Graham &

Barker, 1990); and even chance (Wood, Froh, & Geraghty, 2010). Of the multiple specific types of positive emotion (e.g., joy, serenity, awe, hope, pride; Fredrickson, 2013), we chose gratitude to examine team creativity because it is unique, due to its tendencies to find and reciprocate others’ contributions (Algoe, 2012; Fredrickson, 2013). Therefore, while positive emotion in general encourages team members to exhibit upbeat attitudes (George, 1990; Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005), gratitude triggers team members to reframe an experience, by which they become aware of their teammates’ contributions. In turn, this can motivate them to think deeply about novel and useful ways to reciprocate and benefit others (e.g., DeSteno, Bartlett, Baumann, Williams, & Dickens, 2010; Fredrickson, 2004; Grant & Gino, 2010; McCullough et al., 2001). By focusing on a specific positive emotion (i.e., gratitude), we provide a much needed and nuanced understanding of what positive emotions actually do for group creativity. Indeed, the effects of positive emotions on group dynamics and information processing are largely paradoxical. Positive emotion facilitates and solidifies social bonds among members—but it may also discourage the rigorous processing of information (George & King, 2007; van Knippenberg, Kooij-de Bode, & van Ginkel, 2010). The hazards of groupthink are well known, by which team members’ optimism and confidence can result in failure to coordinate their collective intelligences (Janis, 1982). Positive emotions facilitate trust, inclusion, and lenient views of team members’ ideas

⁎

Corresponding authors at: Research School of Management, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia (G. Park). Graduate School of Innovation and Technology Management, KAIST, Daejeon, South Korea (S. Lee). E-mail addresses: [email protected] (G. Park), [email protected] (S. Lee). 1 The first two authors contributed equally to this article. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.11.005 Received 7 September 2017; Received in revised form 17 August 2019; Accepted 14 November 2019 0749-5978/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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gather information (Fredrickson, 2004). Bonnie and de Waal (2004) argue that a feeling of gratitude has evolved by allowing humans to engage in reciprocal exchanges of resources, which reinforces a cascade of beneficial actions as the result of more effective collective actions. Unlike perspective taking, which involves a cognitive effort to understand another’s perspective (Hoever, van Knippenberg, van Ginkel, & Barkema, 2012), feeling grateful involves finding or being reminded of positivity and the benefits associated with the person (Algoe, 2012). Gratitude is also distinct from indebtedness and obligation, which stem from negative or uncomfortable encounters; gratitude, in contrast, arises from contentment or positive experiences (McCullough et al., 2001). Feelings of gratitude can be induced by practicing gratitude—for instance, by writing in a journal about the generosity and benefits one has experienced (e.g., Ban Breathnach, 1996; Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Hay & Friends, 1996).

(Forgas & Moylan, 1987). Positive mood could put groups at risk of engaging in shallow processing and consensus-seeking tendencies (Forgas, 1992; Schwarz & Clore, 2003). Sunstein and Hastie (2015) warn against “happy talk,” by which expressions of enthusiasm and confidence erode the group’s likelihood of thoroughly considering diverse perspectives. Gratitude is a deeply social emotion that focuses on the benefits received from others and motivates individuals to engage in thoughtful reciprocation (Fredrickson, 2004). Members feeling grateful, therefore, would be less likely to engage in the typically shallow chatter of groups that feel highly positive. Instead, an individual member’s ideas would be received and reciprocated with careful consideration by fellow members. Gratitude, therefore, provides a fertile environment for diverse ideas to be expressed, considered, and integrated during group discussion. Using a controlled laboratory study that randomly assigned participants to groups and manipulated three affective states—gratitude vs. neutral (Study 1) and gratitude vs. positive (Study 2)—we shed light on how experiencing gratitude influences the quality of team information processing and team creativity. Specifically, this study makes three unique contributions. First, by decomposing positive emotion as a specific positive emotion—gratitude—and examining its role, this study clarifies the creativity-boosting effect of positive emotion on teams and affords more precise prediction of team creativity. Second, using a group information processing approach, this study unpacks the “black box” of positive emotions and team creativity. That is, we examine the extent to which groups engage in shallow, consensus-seeking processing or careful, deliberative processing of ideas during discussion. Finally, while the benefits of gratitude have been widely discussed as an antecedent of individual-level well-being or satisfaction in close relationships (e.g., Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Froh, Sefick, & Emmons, 2008; Tsang, 2006), its impact on group-level performance has been little investigated in organizational science. Our research, which examines gratitude’s impact on team information processing and team creativity, offers a precise and powerful tool for predicting and facilitating team performance in organizations.

2.2. Gratitude as a team-level emotion Because this is the first study to examine gratitude in a team context, we use an inclusive definition of team gratitude: the average of group members’ feelings of gratitude, by which we assume that the team boundary contains a meaningful implication on the level of gratitude its members experience during teamwork. An extensive literature examines how affective experiences can be treated as group property by considering how group members share and regulate their feelings while working together. Specifically, studies suggest that group emotions are formulated through social interaction in both top-down and bottom-up processes (Barsade & Knight, 2015; Bartel & Saavedra, 2000; George, 1990). A top-down perspective explains the mechanism by which group characteristics and shared events shape members’ feelings in the group (Barsade & Gibson, 1998; Barsade & Knight, 2015). Groups offer ample opportunities to experience events that can spur feelings of gratitude (Fehr, Fulmer, Awtrey, & Miller, 2017). Some groups may have a gratitude-enhancing norm and culture (Fehr, Fulmer, Awtrey, & Miller, 2017). For instance, a group might have a ritual in which all members are expected to express and reciprocate their appreciation of one another while celebrating the end of a project. Group leaders can also promote the importance of recognizing contributions made during a project, which would enhance the gratitude felt by group members. The bottom-up mechanism causes an individual member’s emotional state to cascade upward to the group’s overall collective emotion (Barsade, 2002; Kelly & Barsade, 2001; Totterdell, 2000). An individual member’s feelings are transmitted through emotional contagion, vicarious effects, and interaction synchrony. The individual functions as an emotional spark for his/her teammates, by which an initial emotional expression spirals through the group and induces an affective experience across group members. In particular, grateful people, feeling approved and cared by benefactors, tend to see others as potential benefactors for them and bind with others for the welfare and reciprocation of one another. Thus, boundaries of benefactors are extended beyond a particular benefactor to collective level (Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Algoe, 2012; Algoe, Haidt, & Gable, 2008). In this way, individual members’ feeling of gratitude may trigger a group-level gratitude in a team. For instance, a member can express his/her gratitude for a teammate in a range of ways, from a gesture or tone of voice to a card or a gift. The grateful person’s emotions are expressed such that the target person and other teammates experience a vicarious feeling of gratefulness—in this case, for the teammate’s gratitude for them. That is, grateful people are responsive to others’ needs, benefiting and providing utility for others and groups in which they are embedded. This feeling of mutual gratefulness would further escalate into a team-level state of thankfulness.

2. Theory and hypotheses 2.1. Definition of gratitude Gratitude, which is a specific positive emotion that stems from valuing and being aware of one’s surroundings or events (Graham & Barker, 1990; McCullough et al., 2001; Wood et al., 2010), is a benefitrelated experience that arises when an individual appraises a positive outcome as having been caused by external influence (Tugade, Shiota, & Kirby, 2014). Gratitude is often described as a high-level positive emotion, attitude, or experience initiated by a cognitive process such as pride, interest, or contentment (Fredrickson, 2004). While gratitude has positive emotional valence (Lazarus & Lazarus, 1994; Mayer, Salovey, Gomberg-Kaufman, & Blainey, 1991; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988), it differs from happiness and other positive emotions because it is linked with the external attribution of positive feeling (Weiner, 1986) and stimulates actions to promote positive outcomes for others, including but not limited to the original benefactor (Fredrickson, 2004; Weiner, Russell, & Lerman, 1979). Gratitude is related to, but distinct from, optimism and hope; optimism is the expectation of good future outcomes (Emmons & McCullough, 2003), and hope is the pathway for attaining those outcomes (Geraghty, Wood, & Hyland, 2010). Gratitude carries unique implications for human sociality (Roberts, 2004). It distinctively produces constructive, meaningful interpersonal engagements and motivates generous actions that benefit others (McCullough et al., 2001). Other positive emotions, in contrast, are vague in their social implications. For example, pride is linked to an urge to share news of individual achievement and visions of greater future success; joy is linked to an urge to play and push physical limits; and interest is linked to an urge to explore, have new experiences, and 70

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by team members would be more likely to trigger a response gesture by which the team works collectively to improve on the ideas. The more effort teams with higher gratitude put into thinking and systematically integrating others’ ideas, the more likely that these ideas will become intriguing or novel—and would otherwise have been harder to generate (Stasser & Titus, 1987). Team members who feel grateful should be motivated to think deeply and thoroughly about how to reciprocate the benefits they have received from others and, in turn, engage in more information elaboration during team discussion, thereby supporting and building on others’ ideas (e.g., Bonnie & de Waal, 2004; DeSteno et al., 2010; Tsang, 2006). Active intellectual exchanges among team members would increase the cross-fertilization of ideas, which in turn enables teams to develop novel ideas (Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001; Nemeth, 1986). In sum, teams that feel grateful would integrate and elaborate on others’ ideas more during team discussions, which in turn enhances team creativity (Bechtoldt, De Dreu, Nijstad, & Choi, 2010; Hoever et al., 2012).

2.3. The collective information-processing perspective on team creativity The collective information-processing perspective on team creativity highlights a team’s quality of information processing as a key antecedent for the production of creative ideas (De Dreu, Nijstad, & van Knippenberg, 2008; De Dreu, Baas, & Nijstad, 2008; Hinsz, Tindale, & Vollrath, 1997). Teams that engage in information elaboration, which is defined as actively deliberating on and systematically integrating team members’ ideas (Hoever et al., 2012; Paulus & Brown, 2007), are more likely to come up with creative solutions. Teams working on a creative task begin their idea deliberation process with members expressing undeveloped ideas and opinions. These initial ideas function as raw ingredients that can be further processed by teammates. Information elaboration transforms team members’ initially unconnected ideas into well-integrated, coherent sets of ideas of higher creative quality. In a team, one’s ideas are expressed and then acknowledged, endorsed, evaluated, and/or modified with the help of teammates during discussion. Team discussion that involves minimal information elaboration—that is, when team members merely focus on expressing and reinforcing their own ideas—gains little from the intersection of different ideas. Team output, in this case, will merely be an assortment of unconnected ideas, with little advancement of their creative qualities. In contrast, team discussion can include extensive information elaboration, whereby team members engage in a synergetic discussion of different ideas and advance those ideas with greater creativity (Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001; Resick, Murase, Randall, & DeChurch, 2014).

Hypothesis 2: A feeling of gratitude will facilitate information elaboration in teams. Hypothesis 3: Information elaboration will mediate the effects of a feeling of gratitude on team creativity. 2.5. Differential effects of gratitude vs. positive emotion Despite the prevalence and significance of positive emotion for teams, the literature has largely been divided: Positive emotions boost collective morale, yet they can weaken the epistemic rigor of teams, which is essential for team creativity (George & King, 2007; Jones & Kelly, 2009; Sunstein & Hastie, 2015). We propose that a feeling of positive emotions in general and of gratitude in particular trigger different interpersonal and social dynamics during group discussion, which in turn dampen or contribute to team creativity. Specifically, we expect that compared to teams that feel positive emotion, teams feeling grateful would be more likely to engage in careful information processing. Without feeling grateful, other positive emotion would prompt teams to engage in superficial chatter, in which members focus on demonstrating excitement about and enthusiasm for ideas during discussion. Positive emotion signals success and solidifies social bonds, by which teams feel an enhanced sense of unity and confidence (e.g., Keltner & Haidt, 1999). When simply feeling positive, teams would feel optimistic regarding their chances of success and members would share more lenient evaluations of ideas suggested by others (e.g., Bohner, Crow, Erb, & Schwarz, 1992; Isen & Means, 1983). Under the influence of positive emotion, ideas would be shared with a high level of enthusiasm and conviction, which triggers immediate agreement with and acceptance of teammates’ ideas. In support of our prediction, studies have shown that when speakers exhibit a highly energetic, enthusiastic attitude, their ideas are perceived as creative and convincing (Elsbach & Kramer, 2003; Goncalo, Flynn, & Kim, 2010). When feeling positive, team members would exhibit greater fervor and confidence regarding their ideas, and be more likely to accept teammates’ ideas. Therefore, teams in the positive emotion condition, compared to teams in the gratitude condition, would be more likely to lose their opportunity to integrate and advance their ideas. Instead, their ideas would remain largely unconnected in the midst of a greater quantity. On the other hand, gratitude is associated with distinct reciprocating, binding behavioral tendencies that would reinforce highly engaging discourse on others’ ideas and have an enduring positive impact on the quality of group discussion. Gratitude would be more likely to create chains of events that carry positive meaning for team members, which fosters the successful integration of different ideas during team discussion (Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Algoe et al., 2008; Algoe, 2012). Gratitude would function as a powerful reinforcement that prompts individual to reciprocate others’ generosity (which is not

Hypothesis 1: Team information elaboration will promote team creativity. 2.4. Gratitude, information elaboration, and team creativity In this section, we propose that teams with high gratitude would deeply and systematically process and respond to others’ ideas and put more effort into integrating team members’ ideas during team discussions. Gratitude entails recognizing others’ contributions and giving others credit (Algoe, 2012). Teams with high gratitude are more likely to be other-focused (DeSteno et al., 2010), by which they would attend to teammates’ ideas and suggestions with a positive and sincere attitude that encourages active listening and constructive conversation. Awareness of external contributions inspires grateful individuals to see the merits and benefits of conversing with teammates. By being more attentive and responsive to team members’ comments and suggestions, the whole team becomes involved in idea elaboration, which further improves and integrates their ideas (Paulus & Brown, 2007). In his essay on moral sentiments, Smith (1982) argues that gratitude helps society develop a balanced understanding of issues that are highly divisive, such as theology, because it allows constituencies to remain respectful toward those with different perspectives and recognize the interdependencies that bring diverse ideas together. In contrast, when team members are feeling ungrateful, they would be less motivated to reciprocate their teammates’ contributions and efforts. Instead of collectively building creative ideas, members in ungrateful teams would be more likely to focus on expressing and reinforcing their own ideas throughout the discussion. Moreover, behaviors driven by gratitude are uniquely reciprocal and thoughtful in nature (Tsang, 2006) and accompanied by a strong focus on benefiting others and collectives (DeSteno et al., 2010). Fredrickson (2004) argues that grateful individuals are creative, because they formulate actions that benefit others and their focus is not limited to the original benefactor. Also, gratitude does not foster a simple, mindless tit-for-tat or reciprocation for the exact benefit. Instead, gratitude motivates individuals to remain generous and creative in their formulation of reciprocal actions and engage in mutually beneficial collaborations. Therefore, in grateful teams, initial ideas shared 71

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3. Study 1

necessarily related to other kinds of positive affect), and should thus lead to more constructive responses to and elaboration on others’ ideas. This, in turn should induce helpful suggestions and comments about team members’ ideas. When a team member feels grateful, they would not present their ideas with great ardor, which prompts the immediate acceptance of their ideas. Rather, grateful team members would focus on building on each other’s ideas collectively and reflecting on their team members’ suggestions and comments.

3.1. Participants Two hundred and twelve undergraduate students (60 teams) were recruited from psychology classes at a large public university in Singapore and received extra credit. Of the participants, 70% were female and 88.3% Chinese; mean age was 21.04 (SD = 1.59).

Hypothesis 4: A feeling of gratitude (vs. positive emotion) will decrease team members’ engagement in shallow information processing, such that grateful (vs. positive) members will show less enthusiasm for and confidence in their ideas (Hypothesis 4a) and are less likely to immediately accept teammates’ ideas (Hypothesis 4b).

3.2. Procedure and experimental manipulation Groups of 6–8 individuals were directed to arrive at our laboratory at a given time. On arrival, each group was randomly divided into two teams of 3–4 members each and seated in separate rooms. Participants were then told that they were going to work on three different tasks (i.e., arithmetic, writing, and creativity tasks) as a team and given 3 min to introduce themselves and come up with a team name. For the first task, teams worked on a collective task in which they collaborated to solve puzzles. Specifically, each team member was given a Sudoku puzzle of medium difficulty on a sheet of paper. Participants were then told that they were going to solve the puzzles together by passing the puzzle they were working on to the team member on their right every 90 s. After being informed that the top 10% of individuals with the most correct solutions would win $10, they had 90s to complete as much as possible of the first puzzle they were given. At the end of this interval, team members passed their puzzles to the right and, in turn, began working on the puzzle given to them by the team member on their left. This was repeated until everyone had worked on each puzzle once. After this, participants were told that they were going to work on a writing task for 5 min. We adopted a manipulation that has been widely used in previous research on gratitude (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Froh et al., 2008; Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005; Watkins, Grimm, & Kolts, 2004). As this study aims to motivate participants to feel grateful by recalling instances in which they were grateful to their teammates, we asked participants to write about their teamwork experiences for five min. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to the gratitude condition (n = 106; 30 teams) and given the following to read:

Furthermore, we predict that due to the negative impact of gratitude on shallow information processing, gratitude will decrease the number of ideas generated by teams. Teams that feel positive emotion in general are expected to engage in superficial information processing, during which they produce ideas that are large in quantity but lacking in quality. Specifically, in the absence of gratitude, teams in the positive emotion condition would spend more time complimenting each other and praising themselves for how valuable they and their ideas are. On these occasions, letting teams indulge in exuberant feelings would allow them to run wild with their positive spirits and express as many ideas as possible. In such teams, the initial ideas shared by team members would remain a mere list—unevaluated, unelaborated on, and unconnected. In contrast, because grateful (vs. positive) teams would engage in less superficial and more deliberate information processing, the overall quantity of ideas that teams generate would be lower. Thanking each other for their contributions and elaborating on each other’s ideas would take time, and thus hamper the generation of a large number of ideas. Hypothesis 5: A feeling of gratitude (vs. positive emotion) will decrease the number of ideas teams generate via its impact on shallow information processing.

2.6. Overview of the studies There are many things in our lives, both large and small, that we might be grateful about. For the next 5 min, think back and write in detail about why you are grateful or thankful for your team members. These team members include the people you just worked with and past team members. Please elaborate on why you feel grateful or thankful and provide contextual information where necessary.

We tested our proposed relationship—that gratitude leads to information elaboration and then team creativity—in two lab experiments. Specifically, we manipulated a feeling of gratitude to examine the causal mechanism involved in team creativity. Furthermore, by manipulating gratitude, we sought to determine whether organizations could use it as a practical tool to enhance team creativity. Study 1 compared teams in a gratitude condition with those in a neutral condition to determine whether gratitude increases team information processing and team creativity from the baseline (Hypotheses 1–3). In particular, Study 1 adopted the top-down perspective of group emotion by letting participants work on a team task and then assigning them to the condition of feeling gratitude or not. Study 2 further demonstrated the differential effects of gratitude compared to positive emotion in general on team information processing and the quantity and creative quality of team ideas (Hypotheses 4–5). Here we adopted the bottom-up perspective of group emotion: participants individually responded to our gratitude manipulation without a preceding group task. Prior to conducting the study, following Cohen (1992) power analysis with power = 0.80 and a large effect size (d > 0.50) assumption, we targeted a sample size of 30 groups for each condition, similar to related studies by Hoever et al. (2012) and Park and DeShon (2018).

The other half of the participants were randomly assigned to the neutral condition (n = 106; 30 teams) and asked to write in detail about their activities on a typical day and given the following to read: For the next 5 min, write about your typical day starting with the first thing you do in the morning. Please only write about the objective actions that you typically do in a day. After 5 min of the writing task, participants in both conditions were informed that they would take part in a team creativity task. Specifically, they were asked to generate, as a team, creative ways to improve education at the university for 8 min, and told that it was important to come up with highly creative ideas that were both original and practical. The experimenter then further emphasized that those ideas that are high in only one dimension, such as novelty or practicality, but lacking in the other, such as practicality or novelty, would not be considered highly creative. Participants were then informed that the top 10% of individuals and the top 10% of teams with the most creative ideas would win $10 per individual. This reward was designed 72

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conditions. Twenty-seven undergraduates from the same subject pool as Study 1 participated (52% female). Following prior studies on gratitude (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Froh et al., 2008), after the manipulation, participants rated the degree to which they felt grateful, thankful, and positive using a 5-point scale (1 = disagree to 5 = agree). Participants in the gratitude condition (M = 5.67, SD = 1.07) reported feeling more grateful than participants in the neutral condition (M = 4.00, SD = 1.56), t(25) = 3.150, p = 0.004, d = 1.24. Similarly, participants in the gratitude condition (M = 5.75, SD = 1.29) reported feeling more thankful than participants in the neutral condition (M = 4.53, SD = 1.60), t(25) = 2.138, p = 0.042, d = 0.85. Participants in the gratitude condition (M = 4.72, SD = 1.07) and the neutral condition (M = 4.41, SD = 1.03) showed no significant difference in their reported general positive affect, t(25) = 0.76, p = 0.452.2 Hypothesis testing. Table 1 provides preliminary statistics, such as the correlation coefficients of all variables measured, along with their means and SDs. Hypothesis 1 predicted that team information elaboration would promote team idea creativity. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a simple regression analysis where we entered team information elaboration as the predictor of team idea creativity. Consistent with our hypothesis, there was a significant positive relationship between team information elaboration and team idea creativity (β = 0.39, p = 0.002). Hypothesis 2 predicted that a feeling of gratitude would promote information elaboration. To test this hypothesis, an independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare information elaboration in the gratitude versus neutral condition. Consistent with our hypothesis, there was a significant difference in information elaboration for the gratitude (M = 3.60, SD = 1.21, 95% CI [3.11, 4.00]) and neutral (M = 2.73, SD = 0.94, 95% CI [2.42, 3.07]) conditions; t(58) = 3.08, p = 0.003, d = 0.80. This indicates that teams in the gratitude condition were more likely to engage in information elaboration, during which they actively elaborated on different ideas during team discussion. Hypothesis 3 predicted that gratitude would have an indirect effect on team creativity through information elaboration. We first tested the direct effect of gratitude on team idea creativity. There was a significant difference in team creativity for the gratitude (M = 3.25, SD = 0.55, 95% CI [3.04, 3.43]) and neutral (M = 2.90, SD = 0.70, 95% CI [2.65, 3.16]) conditions; t(58) = 2.32, p = 0.024, d = 0.60. This indicates that teams in the gratitude condition were more likely to generate highly creative ideas than teams in the neutral condition. Next, to test the overall proposed mediation model (gratitude → team information elaboration → team idea creativity), we used Preacher and Hayes (2004) bootstrapping estimation approach with 1,000 samples. Results indicate that the indirect effect of gratitude on team creativity through information elaboration was significant, b = 0.1655, SE = 0.0979, 95% CI = [0.0298, 0.4319], supporting the overall model proposed

to motivate participants and give them an opportunity to benefit themselves (by producing creative ideas as an individual) or to benefit their team (by producing creative ideas as a team) (De Dreu, 2007; Tsang, 2006). Teams were provided with a lined worksheet and told to write their ideas in point form (i.e., as a simple list) to be submitted at the end of the discussion. The entire study lasted about 40 min. 3.3. Measures Information elaboration. Participant interactions were videotaped during the brainstorming session. Two research assistants who were blinded to the study design and hypotheses rated each team’s level of idea elaboration during the 8-min team discussion on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very low elaboration) to 5 (very high elaboration), based on the coding scheme from Hoever et al. (2012). For example, a value of 1 was assigned to teams in which members immediately started writing down ideas with little or no systematic discussion of the information and/or team members’ perspectives, and a value of 5 to teams in which all members acknowledged the information and perspectives shared by their teammates and elaborated on the ideas during their discussion. We estimated the convergence between the two coders on 10 teams by estimating the mean rwg coefficient, coefficient alpha index, and two ICCs. All four agreement and reliability measures were acceptable, which suggested adequate levels of agreement and reliability (rwg = 0.81; α = 0.81; ICC1 = 0.57; ICC2 = 0.73). After checking the convergence, average values for the two coders were used as the information elaboration variable. Team idea creativity. Each team was asked to submit their ideas on paper at the end of the team discussion. Following Goncalo and Staw (2006), the creativity of the team’s ideas was measured using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not creative at all) to 5 (extremely creative). Two independent coders were asked to base their creativity ratings on their perceptions of team ideas’ uniqueness and practicality. Specifically, guidelines were given such that a team was considered to be highly creative if their ideas took an original, novel, or unique approach to solving the university’s challenges; contained ideas that were useful or practical for overcoming the challenges; and could easily and readily be implemented. All four agreement and reliability measures were found to be acceptable, suggesting adequate levels of agreement and reliability (rwg = 0.94; α = 0.85; ICC1 = 0.73; ICC2 = 0.85). Number of ideas generated. Although we used creativity ratings provided by independent coders to represent team creativity, the number of ideas that teams generate can also serve as an indicator of idea-generation fluency and is, thus, a potentially interesting alternative proxy for creativity (Paulus & Yang, 2000). We measured this by counting the ideas listed on the lined worksheet provided during team discussion (De Dreu, Nijstad, et al., 2008; De Dreu, Baas, et al., 2008). 3.4. Results

2 In a separate pilot study, we further examined whether our gratitude manipulation is relevant for people with organizational team experience. Our sample contained 256 full-time employee MTurkers (Mage = 36.13, SD = 10.58; 52% female) who had worked with teams in organizational settings. A 2 (manipulation: gratitude, neutral) x 2 (measure: felt-gratitude, positive affect) repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), with the measure as a withinparticipant factor, showed a significant two-way interaction effect, F(1, 254) = 7.08, p < 0.01. Subsequent multivariate analyses showed that participants in the gratitude condition felt a significantly higher degree of gratitude (M = 3.89, SD = 0.10) than those in the neutral condition (M = 3.44, SD = 0.10), p < 0.01, 95% CI = [0.170, 0.731]. However, positive affect levels for the gratitude condition (M = 3.55, SD = 0.08) and the neutral condition (M = 3.38, SD = 0.08) were not significantly different, p > 0.10, 95% CI = [−0.044, 0.396]. This demonstrates that people in the gratitude condition felt significantly more grateful than those in the neutral condition. Thus, our gratitude manipulation effectively induced a feeling of gratitude among full-time employees with organizational team experience.

Pilot testing. We conducted a separate pilot study before the study to ensure successful manipulation of the gratitude and neutral Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlations for main variables (Study 1).

1. 2. 3. 4.

Conditiona Team information elaboration Team idea creativity Team idea quantity

M

SD

1

2

3

0.50 3.17 3.11 12.56

0.50 1.16 0.69 7.06

0.38** 0.29* −0.16

0.39** −0.20

0.11

Note. N = 60 teams. a 0 = neutral, 1 = gratitude. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01. 73

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Fig. 1. The indirect effect of gratitude on team creativity through information elaboration (Study 1).

collectively on Sudoku puzzles and asked individuals to reflect on moments of gratitude they experienced while working in teams. This manipulation is consistent with the top-down perspective of group emotion and specifically tied to a feeling of gratitude during the teamwork experience. However, previous studies have argued that gratitude can come from diverse sources, such as help from others, a belief in personal luck, or a blessing from God (e.g., Graham & Barker, 1990; McCullough et al., 2001; Solomon, 1977). Would team members’ feelings of gratitude toward their teammates be a necessary condition for teams to benefit from gratitude? Or does a source of gratitude not need to be team-related, and could instead be more general? In Study 2, we adopted the bottom-up perspective of group emotion and had participants reflect on moments of gratitude without prompting them to think about their team experience. We examined whether and how such a gratitude manipulation has an effect on group-level outcome, team creativity.

(Fig. 1). Additional analysis. We examined whether teams in the gratitude and neutral conditions generated different numbers of ideas. There was no significant difference in the number of ideas generated between the gratitude condition (M = 11.41, SD = 6.16, 95% CI [10.84, 16.59]) and neutral condition (M = 13.66, SD = 7.77, 95% CI [9.46, 13.62]), t (58) = −1.23, p = 0.224.

3.5. Discussion of Study 1 Findings from Study 1 demonstrate that gratitude felt toward team members increases the likelihood that team members will elaborate on ideas and, in turn, increase the team’s creative performance. That is, teams with a higher feeling of gratitude seemed to value different perspectives and actively integrate diverse information, such that they achieved a higher level of creativity and reaped the benefits of working as a team. In particular, such information elaboration accounted for felt-gratitude’s beneficial effect on team creativity. While Study 1 elucidated the effect of the gratitude condition compared to the neutral condition on team creativity through information elaboration, a comparison of gratitude and general positive emotion would further highlight the unique effects of gratitude on team information processing and team creativity. Thus, Study 2 examines: Would both teams feeling positive emotion and teams feeling gratitude be equally motivated to further elaborate and build on each other’s ideas? Would teams in both condition rush to accept members’ ideas with enthusiasm and bypass the opportunity to further develop the ideas? Would a feeling of gratitude function as a trigger that enriches the quality of team collective information processing? We expected that a feeling of gratitude (vs. positive emotion) would result in less shallow information processing and fewer (in quantity) and more creative (in quality) ideas generated by teams. Accordingly, Study 2 examined the same three hypotheses that were tested in Study 1; a positive relationship between team information elaboration and team creativity (Hypothesis 1), a positive relationship between gratitude and team information elaboration (Hypothesis 2), and an indirect effect of gratitude on team creativity via team information elaboration (Hypothesis 3). In addition, Study 2 tests additional hypotheses regarding shallow information processing and team idea quantity; a negative relationship between gratitude and shallow information processing (Hypothesis 4), and an indirect effect of gratitude on the number of ideas generated by teams via shallow information processing (Hypothesis 5). In Study 2, we employed a slightly different manipulation method for gratitude to examine the effects of various sources of grateful feelings. Specifically, in Study 1, we gave teams an opportunity to work

4. Study 2 Study 2 sought to determine the effect of gratitude versus generalized positive emotion on information elaboration and the quantity and creative quality of team ideas. We examined whether a feeling of gratitude that is specific to particular teammates and irrespective of teams increases team creativity. Since Study 1 demonstrated that gratitude boosted team creativity compared to the baseline (neutral condition), we simplified Study 2′s experimental design, and randomly assigned participants to either the gratitude or positive emotion condition.3 3 In a separate study, we examined the effectiveness of our manipulations of all three conditions (gratitude, positive emotion, and neutral) for full-time employees with organizational team experience. Two hundred and sixty-two MTurkers (M age = 37.39, SD = 10.71; 54% female) participated in our study. A 3 (manipulation: gratitude, positive emotion, neutral) x 2 (measure: feltgratitude, positive emotion) repeated-measures ANOVA showed a significant two-way interaction effect, F(2, 259) = 13.93, p < 0.001. A subsequent multivariate test showed that the level of felt-gratitude of participants in the gratitude condition (M = 4.38, SD = 0.11) was significantly higher than that of the positive emotion condition (M = 4.05, SD = 0.12, p = 0.04, 95% CI = [0.013, 0.651]) and the neutral condition (M = 3.47, SD = 0.11, p < .001, 95% CI = [0.613, 1.221]). The degree of felt-gratitude among participants in the positive emotion condition was higher than those in the neutral condition (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.264, 0.908]). The level of positive emotion of participants in the gratitude condition (M = 3.77, SD = 0.08) was significantly higher than those in the neutral condition (M = 3.45, SD = 0.08), p < 0.01, 95% CI = [0.102, 0.542]. There was no significant difference between the gratitude and positive emotion conditions (M = 3.65, SD = 0.09, p > 0.30, 95% CI = [−0.112, 0.350]). This is consistent with previous studies that

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information elaboration based on the same coding scheme used for Study 1. All four agreement and reliability measures were acceptable, which suggested adequate levels of agreement and reliability (rwg = 0.97; α = 0.95; ICC1 = 0.90; ICC2 = 0.95). Average values for the two coders were used as the team’s information elaboration. Team idea creativity. Each team was asked to submit their ideas on paper at the end of the team discussion. Two independent coders, who were different from the coders for information elaboration, were asked to base their creativity ratings on the same criteria used in Study 1.4 All four agreement and reliability measures were found to be acceptable, suggesting adequate levels of agreement and reliability (rwg = 0.84; α = 0.75; ICC1 = 0.61; ICC2 = 0.76). Number of ideas generated. An independent coder counted the number of ideas each team generated (De Dreu, Nijstad, et al., 2008; De Dreu, Baas, et al., 2008). Number of utterances (individual level). Two independent coders who were blinded to the experimental manipulations counted the number of utterances made by each individual team member using video recordings of the team discussion (Park & DeShon, 2010). One rater watched all recordings and recorded the number of utterances, while a second rater rated a random selection of 25% of the recordings (59 individuals). Agreement and reliability measures were found to be acceptable (α = 0.97; ICC1 = 0.94; ICC2 = 0.97). Idea acceptance (individual level). Two independent coders who were blinded to the experimental manipulations counted the number of times an individual immediately agreed after listening to teammates’ expressed ideas (Park & DeShon, 2018). For example, in the following conversation example, Member 2 engaged with Member 1′s idea by immediately accepting/agreeing with it. Member 1: How about posting a class outline on social media? Member 2: I agree, let’s write it down. One rater watched all recordings and recorded idea acceptance, while a second rater rated a random selection of 25% of the recordings (59 individuals). Agreement and reliability measures were found to be acceptable (α = 0.96; ICC1 = 0.92; ICC2 = 0.96). Enthusiasm/Confidence (individual level). Two independent coders who were blinded to the experimental manipulations rated the extent to which each individual pitched their ideas with enthusiasm, energy, and conviction using a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely) based on the video recordings of team discussion. This coding scheme is an adapted version of demonstrated enthusiasm scales from previous studies on the creativity–enthusiasm link (e.g., Elsbach & Kramer, 2003; Goncalo et al., 2010). One rater watched all recordings and rated enthusiasm for each individual team member, while a second rater rated a random selection of 25% of the recordings (59 individuals). Agreement and reliability measures were found to be acceptable (α = 0.85; ICC1 = 0.73; ICC2 = 0.85).

4.1. Participants Two hundred thirty-one undergraduate students were recruited from a large public university in Singapore and paid for their participation; 68% were women and 87.8% Chinese. The mean age of participants was 21.53 (SD = 1.69). 4.2. Procedure and experimental manipulation Groups of 6–8 individuals were instructed to arrive at our laboratory at a given time. On arrival, each group was randomly divided into two teams of 3–4 members each and seated in separate rooms. Participants were then told that they were going to work on two different tasks (i.e., writing and brainstorming) as a team and given a few minutes to introduce themselves and come up with a team name. Participants in the gratitude condition (n = 118; 31 teams) were asked to recall and write in detail about some things in life that made them feel grateful or thankful. They were first asked to sink into the situation again and re-experience how they had felt. They were then asked to write what made them feel grateful or thankful at that moment. Participants in the positive emotion condition (n = 113; 31 teams) were asked to recall and write in detail about some things in life that made them feel positive or happy. They were first asked to sink into the situation again and re-experience how they had felt. They were then asked to write what made them feel positive or happy at that moment. After 5 min of the writing task, participants in both the gratitude and positive emotion condition were informed that they would take part in a team creativity task. Specifically, they were asked to come up with creative ways to improve education at the university, and were told that it was essential to come up with ideas that were both original and practical. Teams were given paper and pen and asked to generate creative ideas on the topic for 6 min. Participants were then informed that the top 10% of individuals and the top 10% of teams with the most creative ideas would win $10 per individual. This reward was designed to motivate participants and give them an opportunity to benefit themselves (by producing creative ideas as an individual) or to benefit their team (by producing creative ideas as a team). The interaction was videotaped so that the team process could be analyzed. The entire study lasted 30 min. 4.3. Measures Felt-gratitude. Following prior studies on gratitude (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Froh et al., 2008), after the manipulation participants responded to how grateful and thankful they felt using a 5-point scale (1 = disagree to 5 = agree; r = 0.88, p < 0.01). We averaged the two items and used the mean as an index of felt-gratitude. Positive emotion. Participants also responded to 10 positive emotion items (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = disagree to 5 = agree) after the manipulation. The items were: interested, excited, strong, enthusiastic, proud, alert, inspired, determined, attentive, and active (α = 0.85). The average of the items was used as an index of positive emotion. Information elaboration. Participant interactions were videotaped during the brainstorming session. Two research assistants who were blinded to the study design and hypotheses rated each team’s level of

5. Results Manipulation check. Participants in the gratitude condition (M = 4.08, SD = 0.80, 95% CI [3.92, 4.22]) reported feeling more grateful than participants in the positive emotion condition (M = 3.82, SD = 0.96, 95% CI [3.64, 3.99]), t(229) = 2.26, p = 0.025, d = 0.29. Participants in the gratitude condition (M = 3.08, SD = 0.67, 95% CI [2.96, 3.21]) and the positive emotion condition (M = 3.20,

(footnote continued) suggest gratitude as an activating, pleasant emotion (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Overwalle, Mervielde, & De Schuyter, 1995; Pekrum 2011; Reisenzein, 1994). While not expected, there was only a marginally significant difference between the neutral and positive emotion conditions in terms of their positive emotion, p > 0.08, 95% CI = [−0.436, 0.030]. In sum, these results show that the gratitude manipulation—and not the positive emotion manipulation—did indeed cause full-time employees with organizational team experience to feel grateful.

4 Following reviewers’ recommendations, we also calculated team creativity using a multiplication function of idea uniqueness and idea practicality (e.g., Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004): Novelty: rwg = 0.85, ICC1 = 0.51, ICC2 = 0.68; Practicality: rwg= 0.85, ICC1= 0.65, ICC2 = 0.79. Using the multiplication method to calculate team creativity, our findings remained consistent such that gratitude had a significant indirect effect on team creativity through team information elaboration (b = 1.2545, SE = 0.7057, 95% CI = [0.0335, 2.8836]). More information on the analyses is available upon request.

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Table 2 Descriptive statistics and correlations for main variables (Study 2).

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

a

0.51 23.91 1.39 3.84 2.76 0.00 2.79 10.81

Condition Utterance (Ind-level) Idea acceptance (Ind-level) Enthusiasm (Ind-level) Team information elaboration Team shallow processing Team idea creativity Team idea quantity

SD

1

2

0.50 13.69 1.64 1.25 0.71 1.65 0.71 5.56

0.03 −0.20** −0.17** 0.49** −0.29* 0.46** −0.19

0.34** 0.68** 0.27* 0.62** 0.07 0.19

3

0.33** −0.18 0.83** −0.20 0.45**

4

0.03 0.83** −0.09 0.30*

5

−0.09 0.45** −0.57**

6

−0.18 0.45**

7

ICC1

ICC2

0.23 0.10 0.29

0.53 0.29 0.60

−0.25*

Note. Numbers in roman type are correlations of individual-level variables (N = 231). Underlined numbers in italics are correlations of team-level variables (n = 62). For example, correlation between team utterance and team elaboration is 0.27. a 0 = positive, 1 = gratitude. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

Hypothesis 3 predicted that gratitude would have an indirect effect on team creativity through information elaboration. First, we tested the significance of the effect of team gratitude condition on team creativity. Teams in the gratitude condition (M = 3.11, SD = 0.63, 95% CI [2.90, 3.33]) generated ideas with higher creativity than teams in the positive emotion condition (M = 2.46, SD = 0.65, 95% CI [2.24, 2.68]), t (60) = 3.98, p < 0.001, d = 1.02. Then, to test the indirect effect of gratitude on team creativity through information elaboration, we performed a mediation analysis employing a bootstrapping method (Hayes, 2013) where we put team total utterance as a covariate. As predicted, we found a significant indirect effect of the gratitude condition on team creativity through information elaboration (b = 0.2012, SE = 0.1144, 95% CI = [0.0224, 0.4837]). Hypothesis 4 predicted that gratitude (vs. positive emotion) would decrease teams’ engagement in shallow information processing, by which members showed less enthusiasm for and confidence in their ideas (Hypothesis 4a) and members were less likely to immediately accept teammates’ ideas (Hypothesis 4b). The data in this study have a multilevel structure in which individuals (Level 1) are embedded in teams (Level 2). For hypotheses that involve only Level 2 variables (i.e., Hypotheses 1–3), a linear least squares regression method provides an accurate estimate of the effects of independent variables (i.e., team information elaboration) on dependent variables (i.e., team creativity). For Hypotheses 4a and 4b, in which hypothesized variables are at the individual level, the analyses must also account for Level 2 effects of team membership (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2002). For example, an individual could have exhibited more enthusiasm because they were surrounded by enthusiastic members. In such cases, neglecting these team membership differences can lead to inaccurate estimates of hypothesized relationships. Accordingly, we used hierarchical linear modeling to test Hypotheses 4a and 4b where we entered individual utterance as a covariate of the analysis. Consistent with Hypothesis 4a, there was a significant negative relationship between the gratitude (vs. positive emotion) condition and team members’ enthusiasm (γ = −0.46; F(1, 60) = 6.44, p = 0.014). Consistent with Hypothesis 4b, there was a significant negative relationship between the gratitude (vs. positive emotion) condition and team members’ immediate acceptance of the ideas (γ = −0.70; F(1, 60) = 8.73, p = 0.004). Hypothesis 5 predicted that gratitude (vs. positive emotion) condition would decrease the number of ideas generated by teams via its impact on shallow information processing. To test this hypothesis, we combined the two indicators of shallow information processing used in the study5 (i.e., enthusiasm and idea acceptance) after z-score transformation of the scores for each individual. To calculate a team-level of

SD = 0.71, 95% CI [3.06, 3.32]) showed no significant difference in their positive emotion, t(229) = −1.29, p = 0.195—again, consistent with previous studies showing that gratitude is related to, but distinct from, positive emotion (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Weiner, 1986). Team members showed a significant level of convergence in their gratitude (rwg = 0.81, ICC1 = 0.31; ICC2 = 0.62) and positive emotion (rwg = 0.76, ICC1 = 0.31; ICC2 = 0.62) (Bliese, 2000; LeBreton & Senter, 2008). Hypothesis testing. Table 2 provides preliminary statistics, such as the correlation coefficients of all variables measured, along with their means and SDs. Hypothesis 1 predicted that team information elaboration would promote team idea creativity. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a multiple regression analysis where we entered team information elaboration as the predictor of team idea creativity (Table 3: Model 1). Consistent with our hypothesis, there as a significant positive relationship between team information elaboration and team idea creativity (β = 0.46, p < 0.001). Hypothesis 2 predicted that gratitude would promote team information elaboration. Consistent with the hypothesis, teams in the gratitude condition engaged in more information elaboration (M = 3.10, SD = 0.81, 95% CI [2.84, 3.42]) than teams in the positive emotion condition (M = 2.42, SD = 0.32, 95% CI [2.31, 2.54]), t (60) = 4.31, p < 0.001, d = 1.10. We also tested the effects using multiple regression where we were able to use the team total utterances as a covariate (Table 3: Model 2). After controlling for the effects of team utterances on team information elaboration, the effects of team condition on team information elaboration remained significant (β = 0.47, p < 0.001).

Table 3 Hypotheses testing for Study 2. B DV: Team creativity (Model 1) Team total utterance −0.00 Team information elaboration 0.47 DV: Team information elaboration (Model 2) Team total utterance 0.00 Team gratitude conditiona 0.65 DV: Shallow information processing (Model 3) Team total utterance 0.03 Team gratitude conditiona −1.15 DV: Team idea quantity (Model 4) Team total utterance −0.02 Shallow information processing 1.85

SE

ß

t

R2

0.00 0.12

−0.06 0.46

−0.46 3.82**

0.20

0.00 0.15

0.23 0.47

2.09* 4.23**

0.29

0.00 0.30

0.65 −0.35

7.05** −3.83**

0.50

0.02 0.49

−0.15 0.55

−1.04 3.75**

0.22

Note. a 0 = positive, 1 = gratitude. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

5 The correlation between enthusiasm and idea acceptance was .33, p < 0.001.

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suggestions, can be transformed into an idea with superior quality through group discussion. Scholars who understand the consensusseeking nature of group discussion, however, contend that group creativity is a paradox (Smith & Berg, 1987; Staw, 2009). Creative groups need to deviate from commonly held views and seek to challenge the status quo, while simultaneously preserving a sense of active collaboration and unity. Often, groups end up compensating for one thing with another. For example, groups successfully remain collegial and positive, yet their discussion is superficial, uncritical, and lenient and they produced a list of underdeveloped ideas (Sunstein & Hastie, 2015). This research unravels the paradox of group creativity by investigating gratitude as a potent emotion that boosts team creativity. We argue that by enhancing the mutual encouragement of and openness to team members’ ideas and suggestions to improve them, gratitude would be a viable positive emotion for team creativity. Due to its respectful and attentive nature (Tsang, 2006), strong focus on others and tendency to reciprocate (DeSteno et al., 2010), and concomitant recognition of others’ contributions and efforts (Bonnie & de Waal, 2004), we argue that gratitude would advance the quality of ideas through team information elaboration. Our results highlight the uniquely helpful role of feeling grateful for team information elaboration and team creativity. Our research makes three main contributions that encompass the fields of gratitude, team information processing, and team creativity. First, our findings demonstrate gratitude’s unique beneficial role in team information processing, which is distinct from that of general positive emotion. We believe the gratitude–team creativity link is interesting scientifically, not only because it is a positive emotion but also because of its distinct ability to boost the quality of team information processing. Consistent with our expectation, feeling grateful prevented teams from engaging in shallow, effortless processing of information. By delineating the unique social interaction dynamics that gratitude triggers in teams, we found that gratitude actually enhanced groups’ engagement in high-quality processing of information. Unlike members who felt positive in general, members who felt grateful carefully processed the information shared during the discussion in ways that went beyond simple acknowledgment and acceptance of suggested ideas. We also argue that future studies on positive emotion and team creativity would benefit from not lumping positive emotions together indiscriminately and delineating the specific team-level dynamics triggered by different positive emotions. Second, our findings offer enriched understanding of team creative processes, in which we identified two distinct processes using the comparison between the gratitude condition and the positive affect condition. Specifically, teams with positive emotion mainly focused on superficial chatter filled with enthusiasm and confidence that boosted the quantity of ideas. On the other hand, teams with gratitude achieved

shallow information processing, we aggregated individual team members’ shallow information processing using an additive composition approach (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). We also calculated team-level of utterance by aggregating the total number of utterances made by team members (see Table 2 for ICC values of the aggregated variables). We first predicted shallow information processing using team condition (Table 3: Model 3). Consistent with our prediction, there was a significant negative relationship between team gratitude (vs. positive emotion) condition and shallow information processing (β = −0.35, p < 0.001). We then predicted team idea quantity using shallow information processing (Table 3: Model 4). Consistent with our prediction, there was a significant positive relationship (β = 0.55, p < 0.001). This suggests that the more a team engages in shallow, uncritical information processing, the more ideas the team will generate. We then tested the proposed indirect effect using Preacher and Hayes (2004) bootstrapping estimation approach with 1,000 samples. Results indicate that the indirect effect of gratitude condition on quantity of team ideas through shallow information processing was significant, (b = −2.0631, SE = 0.8858, 95% CI = [−4.3647, −0.7285]). This means that teams in the positive emotion condition (compared to teams in the gratitude condition) were more likely to engage in shallow information processing, which then lead to more number of ideas. 5.1. Discussion of Study 2 Study 2 findings provide further evidence for the causal effect of gratitude on team information elaboration and team creativity. Both gratitude that was directed toward team members (Study 1) and gratitude that was unspecific to the participant’s teamwork experience (Study 2) equally benefited information elaboration and team creativity. When team members brought past feelings of gratitude to the team discussion, they engaged in more information elaboration, which explains the team’s creativity boost. Our data clearly demonstrate the beneficial effect of gratitude (vs. positive emotion) on information elaboration and team creativity. By comparing the two conditions, our findings show that gratitude’s beneficial effect on team creativity was due to its ability to increase team information elaboration. An increase in positive affect (compared to gratitude) led teams to engage in shallow information processing, with greater enthusiasm for and immediate acceptance of ideas, which in turn led to a greater quantity of ideas (Fig. 2). 6. General discussion Group creativity is largely determined by the quality of interaction dynamics among members. A team member’s idea, depending on the degree of careful attention it receives and team members’ helpful

The Proposed Model on Team Idea Quantity and Creativity (Study 2)

Fig. 2. The proposed model on team idea quantity and creativity (Study 2). 77

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discussion in which they failed to improve on the quality of ideas. This is consistent with the gratitude literature, in which gratitude works not by targeting the specific benefactor but by spreading the emotion through generous and inclusive acts of kindness and thoughtfulness (Fredrickson, 2013). Finally, this study has implications on the group decision-making literature. Team scholars have explored diverse ways to prompt teams to engage in high-quality information processing and avoid groupthink. One of the most widely used group decision-making interventions is the devil’s advocate, in which a team member takes the role of dissenter and offers alternative ideas and opinions that go against the team’s dominant perspective. This provides an opportunity for teams to be exposed to an alternative perspective and avoid making quick, consensus-driven decisions (Schweiger, Sandberg, & Ragan, 1986; Valacich & Schwenk, 1995). However, findings for the devil’s advocate method are not widely supportive; this type of contrived dissenting intervention lacks perceived authenticity, which is critical for motivating teams to sincerely consider minority opinions (Nemeth, 2018; Schulz-Hardt, Jochims, & Frey, 2002). Scholars have called for an intervention that promotes genuine diversity in expressed opinions and a group climate that encourages deep consideration of diverse opinions. Accordingly, along with previous interventions suggested by researchers—such as perspective taking (Hoever et al., 2012), having a developmental discussion leader (Maier & Hoffman, 1960), and a team learning goal orientation (Park & DeShon, 2010)—our findings suggest that gratitude is an effective, emotion-based intervention that can promote team performance on tasks that require high-quality collective information processing.

a synergistic process in which ideas were elaborated on and integrated during discussion; this, in turn, boosted the quality of the team solution. Our discovery of the quantity vs. quality creative process is consistent with previous studies of team information processing, in which the failure to engage in deep and systematic processing of diverse ideas yielded a list of unconnected, raw ideas put forth by individual team members (e.g., Hoever et al., 2012). As one of the first studies to identify the two distinct paths widely discussed in team discussion literature, our findings cannot be treated as conclusive evidence on the quantity vs. quality dichotomy in team creativity. Rather, we argue that team creativity studies need to consider team-level dynamics during interactions (e.g., how members express opinions and perceive and react to other’s ideas) as a key mechanism that drives team creativity. Third, by delineating the unique positive role of feeling grateful on collective information coordination processes and team creativity, this study delves deeper into what has long been assumed, but never tested, about gratitude and its impact on collectives. The role of gratitude in the functioning of collectives has long been a subject of debate and drawn the attention of philosophers, sociologists, and economists. Adam Smith (1982), for example, argues that gratitude functions as social capital and a balancing force between self-interest and social interest, and allows society to flourish in a commercial world by introducing natural kindness and sociability. In the same way, Bonnie and de Waal (2004) argue that gratitude is a fundamental for group success as a force that keeps distant tribal members entrained through exchanges of favors and gifts during hardships such as natural disasters. In the social dilemma literature, gratitude allows the successful coordination of collective actions, as it motivates helpful actions that target other individuals—including, but not limited to, the original benefactor (Harpham, 2004). Human beings essentially evolved to live and thrive in small group settings. Pinker (1997) argues that many positive emotions such as gratitude should be investigated from a group perspective—that is, what effect a given emotion has on the survival and success of groups—instead of the typical focus on the individual’s perspective. Fredrickson (2004) contends that the external attribution involved in feeling grateful carries a strong group-level implication that is uniquely different from feeling other types of positive emotions. In particular, she argues that gratitude creates stronger and more resilient group dynamics, by which members experience and reciprocate mutually beneficial interactions with one another. What we found in our two experiments on gratitude confirms these strong contentions regarding the benefits of gratitude on groups: Gratitude motivates group members to collectively process information more effectively, which renders them better able to produce creative solutions. In addition, not only does this finding support the theoretical perspective on gratitude, but it also offers an exciting opportunity for research on the implications of gratitude in organizational settings, such as team and organizational performance. It is not that gratitude has not been applied in a business context. The vast majority of gratitude interventions, however, have been used to improve employees’ well-being or interpersonal relationships or as a marketing tactic that motivates customers to keep coming back (e.g., Algoe, 2012, Emmons, 2013; Jacobson, 2011). Our study highlights the positive effects of gratitude on team-level processes and outcomes that extend beyond the findings of previous studies on gratitude. Especially in Study 1, teams in both the gratitude and neutral condition had the same experience, except that gratitude teams also had the opportunity to reflect on what they were grateful for. The change in perspective based on the gratitude condition became a powerful motivator for team members; they valued their teammates’ opinions and, by thoroughly and deliberately processing information, produced highly creative ideas. In a similar vein, even in the case in which gratitude was not specifically a team experience—such as in Study 2, in which we asked participants to reflect on grateful events (vs. positive events) in their life—the positive effect of gratitude remained: Members worked together to develop and integrate ideas and avoided engaging in a cursory

6.1. Practical implications The recent popularity of practicing gratitude in the workplace warrants rigorous scientific investigation (Emmons, 2013; Newman, 2018). Particularly with a construct such as gratitude, for which it is difficult to perceive a downside to practicing, when tautological arguments receive approval without much scrutiny, investigating the causal mechanism is especially important. This study not only found scientific evidence to support the current gratitude movement in organizations, but it also showcased a unique positive effect of a gratitude intervention on team creativity, which is critical for an organization’s success. An especially attractive aspect of such a gratitude intervention is that it is not necessary to have a special event or occasion to feel the emotion; gratitude arises from finding and reminding individuals of the people and circumstances they already have in their lives (Algoe & Haidt, 2009; Algoe et al., 2008; Algoe, 2012). As we have demonstrated in our studies, individuals need only 5 min and the opportunity to reflect on the events, people, and things they are grateful for. When overseeing teams in organizations, therefore, instead of focusing solely on negative qualities or performance gaps, we might also want to set aside time to reflect on and show gratitude for teammates. The teams in our experiments were all newly formed and shortlived. Teams in organizations in which team members have longer experience working together would offer greater opportunities for the effective implementation of gratitude interventions. For example, after achieving an important milestone for a team project, the transition meeting could incorporate a gratitude session in which members share the events and dynamics that made them feel grateful during the past project period, in addition to sharing constructive suggestions for advancing the project. We recommend using a gratitude intervention during transition meetings instead of at the end of the whole project, because gratitude would improve the overall group process (instead of directly promoting the outcome), and it is important to establish a healthy group process early in the group’s tenure rather than later (Mathieu & Rapp, 2009). In a related vein, when teams are feeling highly positive, such as upon securing a large grant or receiving recognition for excellent 78

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workplace in new and impactful ways; specifically, by conferring tangible benefits on creativity. In this study, we operationalized team gratitude as an average of team members’ grateful feelings. This conventional and inclusive approach to defining team gratitude was ideal, given that we are in the early stages of concerted research on gratitude. The additive approach for team emotion is also the most common method used in previous studies of positive emotion and group creativity (e.g., Grawitch, Munz, Elliott, & Mathis, 2003; Jones & Kelly, 2009; Klep, Wisse, & Van der Flier, 2011). We recommend future studies to consider a configurational approach to studying team gratitude. For instance, the ICC1 value for gratitude in Study 2 was significant (0.31) – as the value represents a large size of team membership effects on gratitude (LeBreton & Senter, 2008). On the other hand, this also demonstrates that there are considerable differences in members’ gratitude within teams that cannot be explained by the team membership. This suggests that a configurational model of team gratitude—i.e., investigating the patterns whereby gratitude differs within teams—would be an important aspect of future studies. For example, different combinations of gratitude dispersion and group member status (e.g., members with higher status being grateful and members with lower status being less grateful, or vice versa) would elicit different group dynamics and effectiveness. Study 2 did not have a neutral condition, and caution is advised when interpreting the results. That is, Study 2 compared gratitude with positive emotion, by which the findings only can show what gratitude does compared with positive emotion in general; they cannot identify what effect positive emotion has on team information processing. Therefore, it is inaccurate to conclude that positive emotion leads to superficial discussion in general, as this conclusion requires a neutral condition for comparison. Given that the focus of this study was on gratitude and Study 1 already included a neutral condition, we believe the omission of a neutral condition in Study 2 is not a critical flaw. Nevertheless, it does limit the ability to generalize the findings and allows less nuanced implications for the positive emotion condition. Therefore, we believe that a proper neutral condition in future studies would be advantageous for resolving conflicting views on the benefits and pitfalls of feeling positive emotion for team information processing and team creativity. In a similar manner, given the study’s focus on gratitude, we investigated one type of positive emotion and its impact on team information processing and outcomes. The findings point out the need for future studies to compare different types of specific positive emotions. Recently, positive emotion researchers have urged that studies of the impact of positive emotions go beyond the previous generalized approach (Tugade et al., 2014)—that is, prior studies have focused on finding common features and impacts of positive emotion, rather than identifying the unique characteristics of different positive emotions. As discussed earlier, pride is a pleasant and activating emotion that is distinct from gratitude (Weiner, 1986); it involves believing that a positive outcome is due to internal causes, such that it causes people to become more selfish and even gloat about others’ incompetence (Weary & Harvey, 1981). While this aspect of pride would lead to a decrease in collaborative information processing, it also indicates that such a pro-self characteristic could render individuals less afraid to express unique ideas and thereby demonstrate their superiority to teammates (De Dreu, Nijstad, et al., 2008; De Dreu, Baas, et al., 2008). Therefore, we believe that pride would have a positive influence on individual-level idea creativity, especially when the reward structure of the team is equity based (Goncalo et al., 2010). By going beyond a generalized approach to positive emotion and linking a specific emotion to team processes, this study and future studies will shed light on affective interventions to motivate teams to listen to, consider, and advance team members’ ideas and ultimately promote team creativity.

performance, such an event could be reframed to introduce a sense of gratitude. For instance, in research teams, in which it is important to carefully deliberate on multiple perspectives and develop a synthesized understanding of the subject matter, it would be beneficial to use these positive events as opportunities to boost a sense of gratitude instead of focusing on a jubilant reward. Feeling grateful to each other for their contributions and all forms of help that made such a positive outcome possible would not only further increase the viability of the team, but also increase the quality of information processing and yield subsequent creative performance. Team leaders are in a particularly good position to shape the emotional tone of a team easily and quickly. When team leaders share their feelings of gratitude, this exerts a strong top-down process by which team members will find reasons to also feel grateful. When a discussion leader responds graciously to team members’ ideas and considers them thoughtfully, team members will be more likely to join in and provide suggestions to further improve on the ideas. For teams with a deep-seeded conflict or intergroup conflicts, in which there is already an acute sense of resentment or distrust, gratitude intervention would be less likely to work—not to mention much harder to implement. For a gratitude intervention to be effective, a genuine feeling of gratefulness must be present (Emmons, 2013). The main reason a commercialized expressions of gratitude, such as a thankyou card from a sales representative, fails is because customers perceive the gesture as disingenuous. Similarly, depending on a team’s social dynamics, it could be significantly more difficult to elicit a feeling of gratitude for a team experience if thanking each others is considered to be involuntary or insincere. A failed gratitude intervention can backfire and stir up more resistance and cynicism, which further damages group information processing. Gratitude is a fertilizer for kindness and openness to others and is not a solution for conflict, anger, or frustration. It is also possible to combine the gratitude intervention with other factors known to benefit the team information elaboration process. For example, previous research demonstrates that perspective taking also promotes elaboration in teams (Hoever et al., 2012). One thing that differentiates the effects of perspective taking from those of gratitude on information elaboration is that perspective taking requires diverse perspectives to enhance team creativity. When there are homogeneous views in a team, perspective taking is not effective for fostering team creativity through elaboration. On the other hand, gratitude does not require diverse perspectives. Rather, gratitude’s beneficial effect on information elaboration is based on its other-focused nature (DeSteno et al., 2010)—i.e., being more attentive and responsive to others’ comments and suggestions. Therefore, gratitude elicits information elaboration through careful consideration of others’ ideas, whereas perspective taking promotes information elaboration by offering opportunities to embrace diverse viewpoints. When gratitude practice is combined with perspective taking, this would produce the synergetic effects that enhance the quality of team information processing. 6.2. Limitations and recommendations for future research In our study, the practice of gratitude was a one-time event. Gratitude has often been used as a long-term tool to assist veterans and other individuals in overcoming experiences such as posttraumatic stress disorder and depression (Kashdan, Uswatte, & Julian, 2006). Accordingly, we did not address the results of long-term gratitude practice. However, the existence of the relationship between gratitude and information elaboration in randomly assigned, short-term groups also demonstrates the robust effects of gratitude and offers the potential for future studies to investigate an immediate, short-term effect of gratitude on organizational behaviors. In addition, by diversifying the sources of gratitude, we demonstrate that a feeling of gratitude does not have to arise from a current team experience. Our findings therefore support the use of a gratitude intervention in organizations by providing scientific evidence of how gratitude practice could affect the 79

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Appendix A. Supplementary material

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