An observation of a negative effect of social cohesion on creativity in musical improvisation

Although various social factors can significantly impact creative performance, it is still unclear how social cohesion (i.e., how close we feel to others) influences creativity. We therefore conducted two studies exploring the association between social cohesion and creativity within the domain of musical improvisation, a prime example of creative performance, which usually plays out in social contexts. The first study (n = 58 musical novices) showed that music-induced synchrony facilitates social cohesion. In our second study (n = 18 musical novices), we found that in two out of three experimental conditions, increased social cohesion is associated with less creative musical outcomes, as rated by nine expert musicians. In our subsequent analysis we related measures of social cohesion and creativity. This approach highlights how, within a musical setting, creativity unfolds in the context of social contingencies as social cohesion and related factors.

How and when institutional trust helps deal with group crisis like COVID-19 pandemic for Chinese employees? A social perspective of motivation

Social factors cannot be neglected in predicting individual psychological health during a group crisis. Grounded in Vroom's expectancy theory of motivation, the present research explores how and when institutional trust influences crisis related worries and griefs. Both the survey study (N = 234) and the experimental study (N = 111) were conducted to examine our hypothesized moderated mediation model. Multiple waves of surveys were delivered in Study 1 and participants were requested to rate their experiences and responses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Study 2, participants from both the collectivism manipulation group and the control group were requested to rate their psychological responses in an imagined group crisis. Regression analyses showed that institutional trust reduced worries and griefs by improving personal resilience, which is more significant for individuals with high levels of collectivism. These findings point to the importance of understanding individual psychological health in a social perspective of motivation.

Cooperative Criticism: When Criticism Enhances Creativity in Brainstorming and Negotiation

Long-standing wisdom holds that criticism is antithetical to effective brainstorming because it incites intragroup conflict. However, a number of recent studies have challenged this assumption, suggesting that criticism might actually enhance creativity in brainstorming by fostering divergent thinking. Our paper reconciles these perspectives with new theory and a multimethod investigation to explain when and why criticism promotes creativity in brainstorming. We propose that a cooperative social context allows criticism to be construed positively, spurring creativity without inciting intragroup conflict, whereas a competitive social context makes criticism more divisive, leading to intragroup conflict and a corresponding reduction in creativity. We found support for this theory from a field experiment involving 100 group brainstorming sessions with actual stakeholders in a controversial urban planning project. In a cooperative context, instructions encouraging criticism yielded more ideas and more creative ideas, whereas in a competitive context, encouraging criticism yielded fewer ideas and less creative ideas. We replicated this finding in a laboratory study involving brainstorming in the context of a union-management negotiation scenario, which allowed us to hold constant the nature of the criticism. Taken together, our findings suggest that the optimal context for creativity in brainstorming is a cooperative one in which criticism occurs but is interpreted constructively because the brainstorming parties perceive their goals as aligned.

The self’s choice: Priming attentional focus on bodily self promotes loss frequency bias

When attention is focused on self representation(s), the ability to evaluate one’s internal sensations is enhanced, according to previous research by Ainley and colleagues (Consciousness and Cognition, 22(4), 1231–1238, 2013). Self-representations are usually distinguished between bodily and narrative. Both bodily and narrative representations improve decision-making processes, in that the consideration of alternatives is informed by sensations experienced deep inside the body (e.g., anxiety) as suggest by the literature (Noël, Brevers & Bechara in Frontiers in Psychiatry, 4, 179,  2013). The objective of the present study is to analyze the decision-making process in multiple conditions of stimulated self-representations. Participants played the Iowa Gambling Task three times (a baseline without stimuli and two randomly ordered stimulations to prime bodily and narrative self-representations). While no significant differences emerged regarding advantageous choices, participants showed loss frequency bias in the condition with bodily-self representation priming. Two interpretations are proposed: bodily-self focus acted as a distractor diminishing participants’ commitment to long term outcomes or enhanced interoception promoted aversion to losses. Directions are given for future research and clinical implications.

Cooperation Makes a Group be More Creative

This study investigated how cooperative and competitive interaction modes affect the group creative performance. The participants were recruited as dyads to solve 2 problems either demanding divergent thinking (alternative uses task, AUT) or not (object characteristic task, OCT). The dyads solved 1 of the 2 problems in the cooperative mode and the other in the competitive mode. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based hyperscanning was used to record their neural activities in the prefrontal and right temporal-parietal junction (r-TPJ) regions. Results revealed the dyads showed higher AUT fluency, AUT originality, OCT fluency, and cooperation level in the cooperative mode than in the competitive mode. The fNIRS data revealed increased (task-baseline) interpersonal brain synchronization (IBS) in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (r-DLPFC) and r-TPJ, only for dyads in the AUT/cooperation condition. In both r-DLPFC and r-TPJ, the IBS of dyads in the AUT/cooperation condition was stronger than in the AUT/competition and OCT/cooperation. Moreover, a stronger IBS was evoked between the regions in prefrontal and posterior temporal regions in the AUT/cooperation condition, as compared with the competition mode. These findings suggest that enhanced IBS may underlie the positive effects of cooperation as compared with the competition in terms of group creativity.

Interprofessional collaborative team development in china: A grounded theory study

AIMS

To generate a theory of interprofessional collaborative team development in China.

BACKGROUND

Interprofessional collaborative practice is an important approach to improve the patient-centred care.

METHODS

Theoretical sampling was used to recruit individuals who had collaboration experiences. They each participated in face-to-face interviews lasting 40-60 min. Major categories describing the team development process for collaboration were extracted according to the grounded theory methodology.

FINDINGS

The interprofessional collaborative team development was guided by a common purpose-"patient-centredness." Three stages involved in team development were identified: exploration, integration and continuous adjustment. Various strategies described for each stage are required to move successfully through the process.

CONCLUSION

Interprofessional team development is a dynamic process with three primary stages. The culture in which a teamworks is reflected in each stage of team development and collaboration.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Understanding interprofessional collaborative team development and the strategies required will help nurse managers to better design interprofessional teamwork opportunities and provide necessary support to achieve the effective interprofessional collaborative practice.

Collectivistic Independence Promotes Group Creativity by Reducing Idea Fixation

The present study examined the joint impact of collectivistic value orientation and independent self-representation of group members upon group creativity. In a laboratory experiment involving three-person student teams ( N = 72), we induced a collectivistic (vs. an individualistic) value orientation and independent (vs. interdependent) self-representation via priming methods. Using a group-brainstorming paradigm, we found as expected that groups generated more original ideas when members combined a collectivistic value orientation with independent self-representation than with interdependent self-representation. By contrast, differences in self-representation did not have a significant effect when an individualistic value orientation was made salient. Furthermore, we found that this effect was mediated by the degree of idea fixation within the group, thereby illuminating the underlying cognitive mechanism of the observed synergy effect. Implications of the findings for research on group creativity and future directions are discussed.

Being nice isn’t enough: Prosocial orientation and perceptions of self-uniqueness jointly promote outgroup reparation

Using a real-life case of intergroup victimization (i.e., victimization of migrant workers in Korea), we tested our hypothesis that positive attitudes toward compensating a victimized outgroup and intention to participate in ingroup corrective actions would be facilitated when a prosocial orientation is combined with high levels of perceived self-uniqueness. In Study 1, we measured participants’ social value orientation and their self-attributed need for uniqueness as our independent variables ( N = 249) and found a predicted interaction effect, such that prosocials with high levels of perceived self-uniqueness were more likely to support outgroup compensation and more willing to engage in ingroup corrective actions than were prosocials with low levels of self-uniqueness. In contrast, for proselfs neither compensation nor intention to participate in ingroup correction varied as a function of self-uniqueness. We replicated these findings in Study 2 ( N = 106), in which we measured participants’ trait agreeableness as an index of prosocial orientation and manipulated self-uniqueness via priming. Implications of our findings for research on outgroup reparation and future directions are discussed.

[VOLTAGE-GATED CALCIUM CHANNELS: CLASSIFICATION AND PHARMACOLOGICAL PROPERTIES (PART I).]

Calcium influx though voltage-gated calcium channels mediate a huge amount of physiological events and cellular responses. Numerous scientific reports indicate that calcium channels are involved in synaptic transmission, neurotransmitter release, regulation of gene expression, cellular membrane voltage oscillations, pacemaker activity, secretion of specific substances from nerve and secretory cells, morphological differentiation, activation of calcium-dependent enzymes, etc. This review represents the modern classification, molecular structure, physiological and pharmacological properties of voltage-gated calcium channels expressed in mammalian cells.