Brainstorming: Definition, Examples, & Strategies​

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Brainstorming is a technique for generating as many new ideas as possible. What are the benefits – and limits – of this group process? The science of brainstorming may surprise you.​
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My bedroom door opens onto the common space of the housing co-op I live in. With twelve other housemates, I am almost constantly hearing other people in the kitchen or living room. Time and again, I have noticed that the more people there are around, the more laughter I hear. I have noticed this when out with friends, too: get a big group together, and the humor and jokes really start to take off. I laugh more in big groups than I ever do with just a friend or two.​
I think this phenomenon that I’ve observed comes about because of the sheer creative energy that is summoned and channeled when a group of people get together in good spirits. It is way easier to be funny when there are other people’s contributions to build on; conversations head in directions that none of us could have anticipated or prepared for.

This is the beauty of creative group processes – individual ingenuity gets multiplied and transformed into something even more special. In the case of friend groups, hilarity often ensues. In the case of groups that are doing what we call brainstorming, the generation of ideas can increase significantly. Brainstorming is a term we have all probably used to describe group processes, but psychologists have a particular understanding of what brainstorming is and have put a lot of effort into understanding its potential and its limitations. Let’s take a look at what they’ve discovered.
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What Is Brainstorming? (A Definition)​

Brainstorming is a group process developed by Alex Osborn in the 1950s, an advertising executive who wanted to develop a way for his employees to generate more ideas together (Osborn, 2012). Osborn suggested four key rules that he believed should characterize brainstorming and optimize idea generation. In proposing these rules, his goal was to reduce the effects of second-guessing oneself, negatively evaluating and dismissing ideas, and maximize opportunities for people to be inspired by each other. His four instructions were for the group to prioritize generating as many ideas as possible, push themselves to generate uncommon ideas, try to combine ideas and improve on each other’s ideas, and refrain from criticizing each other’s ideas.
 
Perhaps this definition of brainstorming is not exactly how you have used the term yourself. For my part, I know I have called many kinds of group activities “brainstorming”, even though they did not meet this definition. Brainstorming has entered the public consciousness as a general term for group processes related to ideas, but it was originally developed for the particular purpose of generating as many ideas as possible (Mongeau & Morr, 1999).

Opposite of Brainstorming​

The opposite of brainstorming is to generate ideas on one’s own. Psychologists call this nominal brainstorming, and in some ways that we will discuss shortly, it is more effective than brainstorming (Rietzschel et al., 2006). Nominal brainstorming is simply the act of coming up with ideas on one’s own, without involving other people in the process.​

Why Is Brainstorming Important?

Brainstorming may be an important first step in the process of arriving at an important decision, since idea generation is a critical part of developing creative and innovative solutions to problems (Shalley et al., 2004). However, while some research shows that brainstorming is a good way to generate lots of ideas (Litchfield, 2008), there is more research showing that we mistakenly believe brainstorming is more effective than it really is. For example, research has also found that brainstorming generates fewer ideas than other idea-generation processes, that brainstorming produces fewer high-quality ideas than other group processes, and that it lacks a way to identify which of the ideas generated are the best (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987; Rietzschel et al., 2006).
 
Perhaps one of the reasons that brainstorming has remained a popular idea is that it is often effective in increasing idea productivity, or the sheer number of ideas that a group can generate (Sutton & Hargadon, 1996). While brainstorming succeeds by this measure, it does not seem to produce better outcomes when the rest of the group process is taken into consideration (Diehl & Stroebe, 1991). And since people working alone to generate ideas, then coming together to process them together, seems more effective overall than brainstorming as a group (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987; Mullen et al., 1991), one team of researchers even went so far as to describe the appeal of brainstorming as “the illusion of group effectivity” (Stroebe et al., 1992).

What Is the Main Purpose of Brainstorming?

The main purpose of brainstorming is to generate as many ideas as possible – the process was designed to limit interference with the process of simply coming up with more and more ideas (Osborn, 2012). However, a whole lot of research suggests that it may not achieve this goal optimally, compared to other idea-generation techniques (Rietzschel et al., 2006).​

Brainstorming Ideas

Brainstorming is the process of coming up with ideas. This can be done individually or in groups at multiple stages of the process. For example, researchers have found that it may be more effective for people to engage in nominal brainstorming – coming up with ideas on their own – and then engage in group decision-making based on those ideas (Putnam & Paulus, 2009). Well before the Zoom era, researchers were already observing that this process may be just as effective for people working with each other electronically (Mongeau & Morr, 1999).

Examples of Brainstorming​

For one of the research projects I work on, we must regularly reach out to teenagers and try to get them to complete surveys. We have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to increase their response rates! Sometimes, these conversations take the form of brainstorming – during a meeting, we dedicate some time to all thinking about how to reach more students at a particular school. While these conversations are sometimes helpful, it seems to be more effective for us each to think about the question before the meeting, then come with an idea or two to share.

There are probably examples of brainstorming that come up regularly in your life. When somebody texts a group chat asking folks where they want to meet up for vacation this summer, or you and your partner sit down to meal plan for the week, or a teacher asks their students what the theme should be for their class party, brainstorming is likely to start happening.

Brainstorming Process

By now, you might be curious about why brainstorming isn’t as effective as you might have assumed. Fear not – psychologists have a lot to say about where brainstorming goes awry.
 
A common and well-supported criticism of brainstorming is that it actually inhibits productivity (Diehl & Stroebe, 1991). For example, participants in the group must often wait to hear each group member’s contribution, and this may distract them from focusing on and further developing an idea that they find particularly interesting. If I think I have the answer, but I have to wait until everybody else chimes in on the last idea that came up, I might get discouraged and participate less as a result.
 
Second, people may become fixated on other people’s ideas, which limits the creativity of their own contributions (Kohn & Smith, 2011). This may explain why ideas generated in group brainstorming are often less comprehensive in their approaches than ideas generated in nominal brainstorming. Instead of introducing new ideas, people begin to restrict their contributions to elaborations or variations on things that have already been said.
 
Third, people are far more likely to engage in social comparisons during idea generation when operating in a group versus an individual setting (Diehl & Stroebe, 1991; Mullen et al., 1991). This can take several forms. Some participants may notice that other people are contributing lots of ideas and decided that they do not need to work as hard – this is called social loafing. Others may be motivated to conform to or match the opinions of other people whom they admire or want to be on good terms with, so they will refrain from introducing ideas that may conflict with those people’s ideas. Finally, group members may decide that other people’s ideas are simply better than theirs, and stop participating out of discouragement.

Brainstorming Techniques for Groups

Now that we are aware of the limitations of traditional brainstorming, we can turn our attention to some of the techniques that research suggests can help the process be more effective. One study suggests that brainstorming can also overload people with too many ideas to process, so having them focus on just a couple at a time may make the process less overwhelming (Paulus & Yang, 2000).
 
Another pair of researchers suggest that slowing down the group brainstorming process to include opportunities to write ideas down, or even free-write about how to implement ideas, can help produce better quality ideas (Al-Samarraie & Hurmuzan, 2018). They also suggest that incorporating periods of nominal brainstorming into group brainstorming can allow participants to get into more of a solitary, creative flow. Finally, they suggest that conducting brainstorming activities electronically may reduce some of the social comparison shortcomings of traditional brainstorming.

Tips on Brainstorming

Here are some tips for more effective brainstorming. 
​
  • First, know when to stop the process. Researchers have found that people will stay committed to the brainstorming process, even if they are not enjoying it, until they sense that the group’s productivity and performance have deteriorated significantly (Nijstad et al., 1999). So when it becomes clear that a group is running out of steam, it should stop there and perhaps return at a later date to the ideas it has generated.
  • Another tip is to get out ahead of the productivity loss that comes from social comparison (Paulus & Dzindolet, 1993). If a group leader can encourage participants not to draw comparisons between themselves and their ideas and others and their ideas, the group members may operate with less interference from fears of being negatively evaluated.
  • Third, groups brainstorm more effectively when their goals are more clearly defined and specific, and even more difficult (Paulus & Dzindolet, 1993; Wegge & Haslam, 2005). It is thought that these parameters function as additional rules or boundaries for the brainstorming process (Paulus et al., 2006), which can keep the group from getting led astray by less effective ideas.
  • Still more research suggests that one of Osborn’s four rules, that of avoiding criticism, may actually be counterproductive (Nemeth et al., 2004). Thus, groups may benefit from allowing space for a small and gentle amount of constructive criticism.
  • Another key ingredient is the inclusion of a diverse set of people in the group – this facilitates the generation of a wide range of ideas, as well as increases the possibility that ideas can be gently and effectively critiqued (Brown & Paulus, 2002). Finally, as research already mentioned has indicated, combining group brainstorming with nominal brainstorming, or allowing groups to operate online, may lead to a better selection of ideas (Brown & Paulus, 2002).

Quotes on Brainstorming

  • “I sometimes compare my brainstorming on paper to the drilling of oil wells. The only way to strike oil is to drill a lot of wells.” – Tom Monaghan
  • “Creativity is not the domain of one single person. Through free association of thoughts and brainstorming, an accidental suggestion can be the best solution.” – Joshua Fernandez

Articles Related to Brainstorming

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Brainstorming

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Brainstorming​

Brainstorming, to the extent that it is done with diverse groups and with flexibility to include individual and electronic periods of idea generation, can be a helpful component of creative problem-solving (Paulus et al., 2011). And some research suggests that group brainstorming, when led by a highly trained facilitator, is just as effective as when people brainstorm on their own (Oxley et al., 1996). I hope this article can serve as guidance for any brainstorming situations in which you find yourself in the future – armed with this knowledge, you may be able to help the group be more productive.
 
If you would like more background on how brainstorming works in practice, I recommend watching this video:

Video: An Introduction to Brainstorming Techniques​

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