Experience Stern | Faculty & Research

Overview: In the paper titled “Unintentional Outcomes as a Catalyst for Brainstorming,” NYU Stern Professor Taly Reich, along with co-authors Alexander Fulmer (Cornell) and Kelly Herd (UConn), studies the effects of how asking people to recall unintentional outcomes (times they tried to do something but it turned out differently than they intended) during a brainstorming session can impact quality and quantity of resulting ideas.

Why study this now: Post-pandemic, brainstorming effectiveness has declined in virtual settings, despite its increased importance for organizations that spend significant time and resources on brainstorming sessions with their own employees as well as consumers. Any low-cost, scalable brainstorming improvements give companies a significant competitive advantage.

What the authors found: After conducting one field experiment with marketing and sales employees at a candy company and four laboratory studies, the researchers found: 

• When people take just a few minutes to reflect on times things didn't go as planned, they generate significantly more — and more creative — ideas in the brainstorming session that follows.
• Thinking about past unintentional outcomes makes people feel less in control, which in turn motivates them to regain control and subsequently generate a greater quantity and quality of ideas.
• This effect disappears when people are asked to reflect on a past unintended outcome in situations where they don’t believe they can regain control. If they reflect on something they believe is unchangeable, the creativity boost doesn’t happen.

What does this change: Past research and conventional wisdom favor intentionality as a driver of creativity; this research shows that reflecting on unintentional outcomes — regardless of whether they were positive or negative — can also boost creative output. These results highlight a low-cost and highly practical tool for companies and individuals trying to innovate.

Key insight: "This novel research draws a causal link between unintentionality and ideation," explains Reich. "It's the first study showing that a simple reflective writing exercise can boost both idea quantity and quality -- a valuable insight for company managers, innovative organizations, and individual brainstormers."

This paper was published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.