Group Diversity and Creativity: Does Anonymity Matter?

This study expands on the current body of research examining technology-supported groups, individual creativity, and group diversity. By incorporating each of these elements into the experimental design, our objective was to determine how technology can best be leveraged to promote group creativity. We argue that diverse groups who are visually anonymous – i.e., they make use of the anonymity feature of collaborative technology and have not seen each other – will produce more creative results than homogeneous groups or groups who are diverse but not visually anonymous. A lab experiment was conducted using 80 student groups for whom anonymity was manipulated and diversity characteristics were captured. Conducting analysis for surface- and deep-level diversity differences uncovered interesting patterns. First, our analysis of surface-level differences revealed our all-male groups produced more creativity ideas than mixed gender groups. Second, groups who demonstrated deep-level diversity were higher performing when visually anonymous. Taken together these findings suggest visual anonymity can potentially be beneficial to both homogeneous and diverse groups.