Differences in Perception of Creativity between Females and Males
- There is statistically significant data that shows women participants viewed their towers as more creative compared to men in mixed gender groups. This suggests that the inclusion of women in the team composition may contribute to enhanced creative thinking and problem-solving.
- This difference in perception may indicate that women bring unique perspectives and approaches to the creative process, leading to more innovative solutions.
- Our findings partially align with existing literature: gender does influence creativity; females exhibit higher self-reported creativity than males
- This gap in different perceptions of creativity from male and women participants may result from societal norms, biological factors, or other influences, understanding these possible differences is important to create a more equitable environment for both genders.
- Gender diverse teams may present a wider range of perspectives and approaches, allowing organizations to encourage creativity and spur innovation, which can lead to an increase in creative output.
- Diversity enhances creativity and intellectual curiosity (Badilescu & Packirisamy, 2022), which leads to innovation, competitiveness (Schilling, 2008), and promotes long-term success (Smith, 2002).
- Within diversity, the relationship between gender and creativity is uncertain.
- With this project, we investigate the differences in gender perception of creativity.
- Research interest has increased in ways diversity and creativity are linked across individuals, teams, and organizations.
- Mixed findings with regard to gender composition of teams on creativity (Hundschell et al., 2021).
- Positive findings: Gender diversity has shown to give scientific institutions access to an "innovation dividend" that creates teams of more effective and creative people, which allows for the ability to make new discoveries (Nielsen, et al., 2017).
- Negative findings: Gender diversity hinders team creativity due to emotional team conflict (Pearsall et al., 2008). Gender differences may cause teams to be less creative due to less unity and higher threat (Spoelma & Ellis, 2017).
- N = 572 MBA students (227 POC and 345 European Americans; 36.8% female across the entire sample)
- Participants completed:
- Self-report questionnaires on Teamwork (attitudes, behaviors, demographics)
- Team tower-building task
- Analysis focused on the 563 participants who completed 1) pre-task survey, 2) Tower task and 3) post survey.
- Within this data, our research analyzed:
- Gender differences
- Creativity outcomes
- This study explores how men and women perceive the creativity of their own team towers.
*Received IRB approval
Among individuals in teamwork settings, women view their tower as more creative compared to how men view their tower.
t (571) = 1.86, p = .03
Error bars represent standard error of the mean
Dia Dhariwal, Michelle Zhang, Dr. Bencharit
WHAT DID WE LEARN IN SURP?
Michelle I’ve never used SPSS before, so there was definitely a learning curve, but I kept experimenting with different tests until I gained a better understanding. I feel much more confident analyzing data and forming interpretations on my own.
Dia I learned how to analyze and interpret data given from SPSS outputs. As well as find a real-life meaning to the interpretations that we found and how they affect our world in the bigger picture. Making meaning out of numbers has been so helpful in making me more interested in research.
We conducted a t-test. Females (M = 5.45 , SD =1.145 ) reported more creativity on the tower task than males (M =5.25 , SD =1.289 ), t (571) = 1.86, p = .03.
Avg mean male & female perception on the creativity of task