Do field-dependent individuals tend to have lower creativity than field-independent ones? The role of informational cues in electronic brainstorming

Much research on brainstorming has found that the power of a team can stimulate individual creativity, and that this influence is more prominent in computer-mediated online interactions. However, creativity appears to depend on the outcome of combining certain environmental factors with certain kinds of Individual characteristics. Two experiments using electronic brainstorming were conducted in this study to examine the creative performance of individuals with different cognitive styles in several creative fields and with various environmental cues. Overall, it was found that cognitive styles significantly affected the creativity of individuals. Creative performances of individuals with field-independent cognitive styles were more stable than those of individuals with field-dependent cognitive styles. However, the appearance of environmental cues reversed this particular effect. When cues were present, there were no significant differences between the creativity of field-dependent and field-independent individuals. The findings provide empirical evidence for improving the creativity of field-dependent individuals and have significant implications for education and talent cultivation.