The Effects of Objective Self-Awareness and Ostracism on Reducing Junk Comments in Computer-Based Idea Generation

The status of electronic brainstorming, once considered a solution to the generic problems in face-to-face brainstorming groups, has come to a fork in the road due to its productivity paradox. Making its way into a part of management technique or being another management fashion depends on resolving remaining critical process losses in electronic interaction. One aspect of such process losses that has received little attention is how to control task-irrelevant comments that often have a negative contagion effect on performance behavior. This study argues that frivolous or junk comments draw more attention faster than task-relevant information and are more likely to induce the same or similar type of comments, interfering cognitive stimulation, which is critical in group brainstorming performance. Two options are explored in an effort to suppress the frequency of junk comments: objective self-awareness and sanction. The results showed no effect of the former, but a significant effect of the latter on reducing junk comments. The findings showed evidence of a contagion effect of junk comments in ways that (1) the built-in group memory feature, which captures and displays junk comments on the computer screen constantly, induced a strong “mere exposure” effect, canceling out objective self-awareness and (2) individuals who were exposed to frivolous comments stimuli produced more frivolous comments than individuals who were not exposed to such stimuli. The implications of these findings for future research, as well as the implications for the interface design of the computer-mediated idea generation, are discussed.