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“We've Got Creative Differences”: The Effects of Task Conflict and

Participative Safety on Team Creative Performance

Article · March 2014

DOI: 10.1002/jocb.41

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 JOSHUA FAIRCHILD
SAMUEL T. HUNTER

“We’ve Got Creative Differences”: The Effects

of Task Conflict and Participative Safety on
Team Creative Performance

ABSTRACT
Although both participative safety and team task conflict are widely thought to
be related to team creative performance, the nature of this relationship is still not
well understood, and prior studies have frequently yielded conflicting results. This
study examines the ambiguity in the extant literature and proposes that both con-
structs must exist in tandem. Through a study of 55 design teams, we have identi-
fied a significant interaction between task conflict and participative safety. Results
suggest that both participative safety and task conflict must exist in tandem to spur
team creativity, and that team creative performance must be examined at the facet
level, instead of simply as a single construct. In addition, supplemental analyses sug-
gest that teams low on participative safety and task conflict are likely able to gener-
ate more original solutions for creative tasks due to the presence of an independent,
disagreeable creative member. Implications for future research and practice are
further discussed.
Keywords: creativity, innovation, groups, teams, problem solving, climate, partici-
pative safety, psychological safety.

Confronted with the demands of a highly technical, knowledge-driven society,

many companies have undertaken a strategy built around innovation as a primary
means of gaining and sustaining a competitive advantage (Boatman & Wellins,
2011). This trend is echoed by a growing number of scholars who propose that
innovation is essential for remaining ahead of competition, both in the business
world and beyond (e.g., Egan, 2005; Florida, 2002; Hartley, 2005; Kao, 2007;
Lapierre & Giroux, 2003; Tan, 2002). Accordingly, many organizations now place a
premium on promoting creative thinking as the core source of innovation within
the organization.
Creative performance itself is a complex and multi-faceted concept. Rather than
being a single construct, creative ideas are defined as those that are both novel and
useful (Amabile, 1996). Simply developing a design that serves a clear and useful

1 The Journal of Creative Behavior, Vol. 0, Iss. 0, pp. 1–24 © 2013 by the Creative Education Foundation, Inc. Ó DOI: 10.1002/jocb.41
Conflict and Participative Safety

purpose is not sufficient to be considered creative; it must also be original or

surprising (Amabile, 1996). Similarly, Besemer and O’Quin (1999) define creative
performance in terms of multiple dimensions, including both the usefulness and
originality of solutions. Moreover, originality has been identified as a particularly
important dimension that is necessary for radical creativity (Gilson & Madjar, 2011).
Thus, although organizations likely want their employees to generate useful ideas,
such outcomes alone are insufficient to generate creative solutions; they must also
be highly original. Traditionally, studies of creative performance have either rated
creative performance holistically (e.g., Amabile, 1982; Baer, Kaufman, & Gentile,
2004), or aggregated or otherwise collapsed these facets into a single outcome vari-
able (e.g., Baer, Leenders, Oldham, & Vadera, 2010). However, although the desire
for a single outcome measure of “creative performance” is understandable, these
unitary assessments of creative performance are not without limitations. Namely, the
facets of creative performance may have different antecedents and influences, nuan-
ces that may be lost when creative performance is examined as a single factor. That
is, the processes associated with developing useful ideas are not necessarily the
same as the processes for developing novel ones (e.g., Dean, Hender, Rodgers, &
Santanen, 2006). This study contributes to the extant literature on team creative per-
formance by examining team-level influences on facets of creative performance
themselves, under the expectation that elements of creative solutions may have dif-
ferent drivers (e.g., Puccio & Cabra, 2012), particularly when multiple individuals
are contributing to the product.
As can be inferred from such a statement, the path to successfully developing
solutions that are both original and useful is not an easy one. More precisely, the
development of such solutions through creative problem solving involves navigating
ill-defined problems (Amabile, 1996), and this ambiguity drives differences in opin-
ion and competing visions. Understanding and successfully managing such disagree-
ment is paramount to organizational success, particularly as creativity in modern
organizations is becoming increasingly team-based (Paulus & Yang, 2000). In light
of this, it is essential that we identify how conflict impacts originality, and how such
conflict can best be managed. Within the past decade, numerous scholars have
researched the effects of team conflict on performance in general (e.g., De Dreu &
Weingart, 2003; Jehn & Mannix, 2001) and creative performance in particular (e.g.,
De Dreu, 2006; Farh, Lee, & Farh, 2010; Miron-Spektor, Erez, & Naveh, 2011).
Despite a general acknowledgment that some level of task-related conflict can
enhance team creative performance, there is little consensus on how such conflict
can be beneficial. A recent meta-analysis by H€ ulsheger, Anderson, and Salgado
(2009) highlights this knowledge gap by failing to find an expected positive relation-
ship between task conflict and creative performance. Similar to De Dreu (2008),
H€ ulsheger and colleagues suggest that task conflict may only be beneficial for team
creative performance under specific circumstances, and call for further investigation
into what these conditions may be.
More specifically, although task conflict may have the potential to enhance crea-
tive performance, such conflict alone is insufficient, and may be detrimental if team

2
 Journal of Creative Behavior

members do not feel comfortable with one another. Scholars largely agree that
creative performance will only be successful when team members operate in a sup-
portive environment (e.g., Anderson & West, 1998; Taggar, 2001). On the whole,
however, there is substantial debate over what factors are necessary for successful
team creative performance (Hunter, Bedell, & Mumford, 2006). One condition that
is commonly suggested as an essential element to support such performance is par-
ticipative safety (e.g., West & Anderson, 1996). However, recent meta-analytic find-
ings have failed to generalizable evidence that participative safety is related to
creative performance (H€ ulsheger et al., 2009).
In examination of the literature on both team conflict and participative safety, we
further examine these inconclusive findings by suggesting that task conflict and par-
ticipative safety are closely linked, and that participative safety moderates the rela-
tionship between task conflict and originality, a key facet of creative performance.
We propose that it is this interplay between task-related conflict and a psychologi-
cally safe climate that creates the conditions necessary to promote team-level creative
performance, through the development of original solutions. We expect that consid-
ering the interaction of these constructs will help to address the tension between
safety and conflict in creative teams, and that such an interaction is vital for team
creative performance. We begin our examination with a discussion of team conflict.
TEAM CONFLICT AND CREATIVITY
To date, much research in creativity has emphasized the role of personality traits,
particularly openness to experience and extroversion, on individuals’ creative perfor-
mance (c.f. Silvia, Kaufman, Reiter-Palmon, & Wigert, 2011). However, other indi-
vidual differences associated with “creative personalities” likely exert their influences
when such individuals work together on a creative endeavor. Preliminary research
by Silvia et al. (2011), for instance, found that individuals lower on the honesty–
humility dimension of the HEXACO personality inventory were rated as more
creative. The researchers call for further investigation of the role of less-studied per-
sonality traits, which may influence how individuals work together to address
creative problems.
Drawing on Feist’s (1998) taxonomy of creative personality characteristics, it can
be inferred that a number of characteristics associated with creative individuals may
spur conflict or disagreement at the team level. For instance, creative individuals are
often thought to be hostile, disagreeable, and have a preference for working alone
(Feist, 1998). As team members share ideas during the early stages of the creative
processes, their initial interactions and team dynamics will be influenced by
the more obvious characteristics of the individual members (van Knippenberg &
Schippers, 2007), including the potentially antisocial traits associated with creative
individuals (e.g., Feist, 1998).
Such characteristics have the potential to lead to maladaptive conflict among
team members, which will, in turn, hinder team creative performance. Jehn (1995)
divides team conflict into two distinct constructs: task conflict and relationship con-
flict. Task conflict is defined as disagreement about how the team should approach

3
Conflict and Participative Safety

their tasks. This may involve differences in opinion, disagreement about ideas, and
discrepancies among team members’ viewpoints. Relationship conflict is discussed in
terms of interpersonal disagreement among members of a team and includes inter-
personal tension, discontent, and dislike among members of a team (Jehn, 1995).
Although relationship conflict is generally believed to impair team creativity, find-
ings for the effects of task conflict are far less clear. To understand how such conflict
may impact creative performance, a more detailed examination is necessary.

Task conflict and team creative performance

It has long been suggested that some degree of task-focused disagreement can
enhance team creative performance (e.g., Jehn, 1995).
In general, it is expected that engaging in task conflict will result in team mem-
bers sharing a wider range of ideas, vetting ideas more closely, and ultimately con-
verging on more unconventional solutions (e.g., Jehn, 1995; Skilton & Dooley,
2010). However, despite seemingly sound logical arguments, empirical results have
not been as clear.
Specifically, researchers examining the effects of task conflict on team perfor-
mance and team creativity have come to differing conclusions. Variously, its effects
on team performance, in general, and creative performance, in particular, have been
identified as positive (e.g., Isaksen, Lauer, & Ekvall, 1999; Skilton & Dooley, 2010),
negative (e.g., De Dreu & Weingart, 2003; Porter & Lilly, 1996), or nonlinear
(Byron, Khazanchi, & Nazarian, 2010; Farh et al., 2010). It is perhaps not entirely
surprising, then, that H€ ulsheger et al.’s (2009) recent meta-analysis failed to find an
effect of task conflict on team creative performance.
In fact, De Wit and colleagues (de Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2011) note that disparate
findings such as these can only be reconciled by taking a contingency approach to
evaluating the construct of task conflict. In their recent meta-analysis of team con-
flict, the aforementioned researchers refuted the negative relationship between task
conflict and team performance identified by De Dreu and Weingart (2003), instead
finding a more complex relationship with performance, which was influenced by
other moderating factors.
In line with such data, De Dreu (2008) suggests that task conflict may only prove
beneficial for team performance under very specific circumstances. Furthermore,
Lovelace and colleagues (Lovelace, Shapiro, & Weingart, 2001) note that the poten-
tial benefits of task conflict are contingent on the degree to which team members
feel comfortable voicing their opinions and disagreeing with one another. In the
absence of such a climate, dissent likely leads to interpersonal disagreement. Like-
wise, Edmonson (2003) argues that task conflict may only be effective in enhancing
performance when it occurs in “a learning climate of discussion, innovation, and
productive group thinking” (p. 18). Such a climate, often referred to as participative
or psychological safety (Edmonson, 1999; West & Anderson, 1996), is widely consid-
ered vital for successful team performance.
Most recently, Bradley and colleagues (Bradley, Postlethwaite, Klotz, Hamdani, &
Brown, 2012) examined such a proposed relationship among psychological safety,

4
 Journal of Creative Behavior

task conflict, and team performance. These researchers followed undergraduate pro-
ject teams as they worked together throughout a semester. Their results demon-
strated a moderated relationship between task conflict and team performance, such
that task conflict was only positively related to performance when psychological
safety was high. It is noteworthy that this study used an aggregate measure of overall
performance that did not emphasize creative outcomes. However, it is expected that
a similar relationship will hold when creative performance is conceptualized as the
outcome of team processes. Thus, we will now examine participative safety as a
potential moderator of the effects of task conflict on the facets of team creativity.
PARTICIPATIVE SAFETY AND CREATIVE PERFORMANCE
In the latter half of the 20th century, two groups of researchers independently
identified a safe, trusting climate as being essential for team performance and devel-
opment. Schein and Bennis (1965) first introduced the term “psychological safety”
as a factor that allows team members to feel at ease with one another, allowing them
to work toward improvement. West (1990) proposed a similar concept, dubbed
“participative safety,” in his model of a team climate for innovation. Although these
constructs emerged separately, they both describe what has become an accepted
tenet of team creativity research: that in order for creativity to flourish at the team
level, team members must feel comfortable expressing opinions as well as giving and
receiving feedback from one another (e.g., H€ ulsheger et al., 2009; West and
Anderson (1996). Ekvall’s (1996) creative climate model, for instance, includes a
“safety” factor, and Hunter et al. (2006) likewise proposed a taxonomy of creative
climate factors, in which high interpersonal comfort and low interpersonal conflict
is valuable for team-based idea generation. Such comfort, as described in this model,
is conceptually similar to participative or psychological safety. Furthermore, meta-
analytic work by Hunter, Bedell, and Mumford (2007) also found that, out of 14
predictors, participative safety produced the largest effects on creative performance.
Taken together, such findings underscore the longstanding belief that, whichever
term is applied, a safe, trusting climate is likely vital for successful team creative
performance.
West and colleagues (Anderson & West, 1998; West, 1990; West & Anderson,
1996) define participative safety as the degree to which team members feel comfort-
able sharing ideas as well as giving and receiving feedback within the team. They
describe two components to this construct, “participation in decision making,”
through which all team members are encouraged to voice their ideas and opinions
regarding the group’s task, and “intragroup safety,” meaning that team members feel
that their ideas will be received in a trusting and mutually supportive environment.
H€ulsheger et al. (2009) note that this construct, particularly the “intragroup safety”
component, may largely be equated with Edmonson’s (1999) discussion of psycho-
logical safety, which similarly involves a perception that team members perceive the
team as a comfortable environment in which they can share ideas and express opin-
ions without negative reprisal (Edmonson, 1999). Indeed, H€ ulsheger et al.’s (2009)
meta-analysis groups studies involving both constructs under one umbrella, and

5
Conflict and Participative Safety

Edmondson herself largely equates the two terms in her research on team-level safety
and trust (e.g., Edmondson, 2004; Edmonson, 2003).
Furthermore, including both the “intragroup safety” and “participation in deci-
sion making” components may allow us to better examine effects on creative perfor-
mance. For instance, Baer and Frese (2003) note that members of an organization
must be able to take risks and feel encouraged to propose new ideas in order for
innovations in organizational processes to be effective. They found that psychologi-
cal safety moderated the relationship between implementing innovative organiza-
tional process and firm performance, but only for the outcome of “return on
assets.” Additional consideration for employees’ involvement in decision making (as
specifically including in West’s definition of participative safety) may further help to
account for ways in which a safe climate can enhance performance.
Similarly, in a study of the effects of an inclusive leadership style, Carmeli, Reiter-
Palmon, and Ziv (2010) identified that a leadership approach that emphasizes
involving employees in the leadership process engenders a climate of psychological
safety, in which employees feel comfortable expressing ideas and opinions, despite
the risk of failure. This in turn increased employees’ involvement in creative tasks.
Within a team context (where there may not be a formal leader), both these inclu-
sive behaviors and the resulting safe climate may manifest as “participative safety,”
in that members of a team may encourage both participation in decision making
and intragroup safety (West, 1990).
In this study, we use West’s (1990) “participative safety” as our primary term of
interest. Given the conceptual similarities, we could have chosen Edmonson’s (1999)
psychological safety; however, we made our selection to be consistent with recent
meta-analytic work on this subject (H€ ulsheger et al., 2009). As will be discussed
shortly, this meta-analysis revealed some surprising findings regarding participative
safety in creative teams, and consistency with those researchers’ terms (and using a
measure based on such a definition) enables us to more accurately investigate poten-
tial explanations.
In general, it is thought that a climate of participative safety will enhance team
creativity by allowing team members to voice their opinions and share ideas without
censoring themselves (Anderson & West, 1998; West, 1990). Thus, we will now
briefly review some findings related to the impact of such a supportive climate.
Although we have selected “participative safety” as our focal construct, given the
similarity between the two, our review of findings groups both constructs together.
A precedent for such grouping exists in the extant literature (e.g., Edmondson, 2004;
Edmonson, 2003; H€ ulsheger et al., 2009), and it paints a more detailed picture of
the nature of a safe and supportive climate for creative teamwork.
In a qualitative study of hospital employees, Edmonson, Bohmer, and Pisano
(2001) found that employees at hospitals judged to be low in psychological safety
were less likely to deviate from the established status quo. Extrapolating from this
finding, it would appear that that low psychological safety is associated with reduced
originality, and thus likely reduced creative performance. Edmonson (2003) likewise
suggests that the open and accepting climate associated with psychological safety is

6
 Journal of Creative Behavior

necessary in order for task conflict to support team creativity. She argues that it is
only under these conditions that task-related dissent will lead to successful creative
abrasion (e.g., Leonard & Swap, 1999) instead of interpersonal arguments. In teams
with motivating, compelling goals, psychological safety was necessary to mitigate the
interpersonal risks associated with speaking one’s mind.
However, in spite of the widespread belief that participative or psychological
safety is beneficial for creative performance, it appears that its effects may not be as
clear-cut as believed. For instance, Eisenbeiss, van Knippenberg, and Boerner (2008)
suggest that a highly supportive climate can influence team members to be accepting
of any ideas proposed by their peers, rather than selecting the most effective or ori-
ginal ones. Such a supportive climate is similar to what one would expect in a team
high in participative safety, wherein team members are encouraged to participate
and feel comfortable sharing their ideas.
Furthermore, H€ ulsheger et al. (2009) failed to find a generalizable positive rela-
tionship between participative safety and team creative performance. They suggest
that, although participative safety should be associated with an increased exchange of
ideas within the team, it may actually discourage criticism and dissent; team mem-
bers may deliberately avoid disagreement to maintain the supportive and congenial
climate of a team high in participative safety (H€ ulsheger et al., 2009).
Nemeth and colleagues’ theoretical and empirical investigations of the relation-
ship between dissent and creativity (e.g., Nemeth, 1986; Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007;
Nemeth, Personnaz, Personnaz, & Goncalo, 2004) are again supportive of this
potential paradox. Examining the effects of stability and group composition on crea-
tive performance, Nemeth and Ormiston (2007) found that group membership
change reduced perceptions of comfort and group morale, but also enhanced the
quantity and creativity of ideas proposed by team members by stimulating dissent
and debate among team members. Such a comfortable climate is conceptually simi-
lar to one of participative or psychological safety. Thus, it appears as though percep-
tion of a safe, comfortable climate may not necessarily be positively related to team
creative performance.
Said differently, there is a theoretical precedent for the seemingly paradoxical idea
that a high degree of intra-team comfort, in the form of a participatively safe cli-
mate, can in fact restrict the generation of original ideas. That is, if team members
do not capitalize on such a safe climate to share dissenting opinions and provide
constructive criticism, the team’s overall product will likely be less innovative. Simi-
larly, intra-team disagreement in the absence of a safe climate is likely to increase
cognitive load on team members and induce anxiety that reduces team creative per-
formance. Therefore, it is expected that both participative safety and task conflict
are necessary for successful team creative performance.
Hypothesis 1a: Participative safety will moderate the relationship between task
conflict and usefulness, such that task conflict will be negatively related to
ratings of product usefulness when participative safety is low and positively
related to ratings of product usefulness when participative safety is high.

7
Conflict and Participative Safety

Hypothesis 1b: Participative safety will moderate the relationship between task
conflict and originality, such that task conflict will be negatively related to
performance originality when participative safety is low and positively related
to performance originality when participative safety is high.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

PARTICIPANTS
The sample consisted of 161 students enrolled in engineering design courses at a
large northeastern university divided into 55 teams of 3–5 individuals. 80.7% of the
participants were male (n = 130), and the average age of the sample was approxi-
mately 20 years old, with a standard deviation of 1.78 years. As part of their course-
work, these teams participated in a semester-long creative design task in which they
were required to develop a novel engineering solution to a problem laid out by the
instructor. These problems were broad in scope, and left teams with ample room to
explore and devise different approaches to a solution.
PROCEDURE
Participants in each engineering course were presented with a design problem
that they were required to address as a team. These problems were designed to be
broad, allowing team members to utilize a variety of strategies, materials, and tech-
niques to arrive at a solution. To complete their projects, teams needed to navigate
all of the phases of the creative process (e.g., Mumford, Mobley, Uhlman, Reiter-
Palmon, & Doares, 1991). For instance, teams were responsible for developing clari-
fying the problem at hand, developing a pool of potential designs to work with,
selecting the design they intended to pursue, and coming up with specifics needed
to successfully implement this design (such as materials lists, cost-benefit analyses,
and identification of potential flaws). These phases all occurred prior to the actual
development and implementation of teams’ designs, a process that itself required
multiple iterations.
All projects were supposed to address a real-world problem or concern, and many
were sponsored by outside companies or agencies, with requirements for periodic
sponsor updates. Such additional factors further increased the “real world” fidelity
of the projects. In prior semesters, student teams working on projects such as these
have had their designs picked up for implementation by their sponsors, and a num-
ber of teams have obtained provisional patents for their designs.
Over the course of a semester, teams met approximately once per week in class
to work on an engineering design to address their assigned problem. Additional
group work outside of class time could not be directly assessed. Each team’s specific
project varied depending upon the course and section in which they were enrolled.
However, all teams consistently worked with the same members on a project that
was broad in scope and in which they were specifically instructed to develop a crea-
tive solution. Furthermore, the problems presented within each design course were
of a similar complexity. For example, some teams were tasked with developing novel

8
 Journal of Creative Behavior

hydroelectric turbines suitable for household use, while some other teams designed
handheld vacuum cleaners. Other teams developed products such as a prototype for
a novel helicopter blade for a major aeronautics company, or a system for cleaning
oil wells for a major international petroleum producer. Given the variation among
projects between courses, benchmarks were developed by comparing each project to
others from within the same course, but utilizing a consistent metric across courses.
This was done to ensure that creative performance scores would be comparable
across all teams, regardless of course or section. Furthermore, meta-analytic data
from de Wit et al. (2011) suggest that task type does not affect the relationship
between task conflict and team performance.
Prior to beginning work on their semester-long team projects, each team member
completed a survey of demographic information, including their age, gender, and
year in their engineering program. During the final 2 weeks of the semester and
prior to completing their projects, team members completed an additional survey
designed to assess their perceptions of conflict and participative safety within the
team.
MEASURES
Team conflict
Team conflict was assessed using a four-item measure of task conflict (a = .87)
and a three-item measure of relationship conflict (a = .92) adapted from Jehn
(1995). Both scales were measured on a five-point Likert scale, with anchors ranging
from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.” Sample items for task conflict include
“Members of my team often disagree about opinions regarding the work being
done” and “There frequently are conflicts about ideas in my team.” Sample items
for relationship conflict include “There is tension among members in my team” and
“There are personality conflicts among members in my team.”

Participative safety
Participative safety was assessed using the short form of the participative safety
scale (a = .89) adapted from Anderson and West’s (1994, 1998) Team Climate
Inventory. This instrument included eight items measured on a five-point Likert
scale, with anchors ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.” Sample
items include “Members of this team felt understood and accepted by each other,”
“Team members generally shared information, rather than keeping it to themselves,”
and “Members of this team had a ‘we are in it together’ attitude.”

Covariates
Given the team-based nature of this study, it was possible that certain covariates
could be the results. Specifically, Feist (1998) outlines a number of creative personal-
ity characteristics that may make highly creative people harder to work within a
team setting. For our primary analyses, it was likely that such factors could influence
our outcomes of interest. In particular, how well members get along with people in
general could impact the effects of both task conflict and participate safety. Thus,

9
Conflict and Participative Safety

measures of facets of agreeableness were collected, in the event that these constructs
influenced the primary variables of interest in this study. We acknowledge that Silvia
et al. (2011) did not find a main effect for agreeableness on individual creativity,
but given Feist’s (1998) taxonomy, we would still expect that how agreeable individ-
uals are would impact how they interact as a creative team.
Furthermore, in light of the preference for many creative people to work alone
(Feist, 1998), we felt it necessary to control for the degree to which teams’ projects
demanded that individuals work together. To this end, we collected a measure of
task interdependence to use as an additional covariate.
All of these items were scored on a five-point Likert scale, with anchors ranging
from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Agreeableness was measured using sub-
scales from the HEXACO Personality Inventory (Lee & Ashton, 2006), and included
the facets of patience (a = .88) and flexibility (a = .73). These subscales totaled 20
items, with sample items including “I adjust easily,” “I am hard to reason with (R),”
and “I can’t stand being contradicted (R)” for flexibility, and “I rarely feel angry with
people,” “I am usually a patient person,” and “I get irritated easily (R)” for patience.
Task interdependence was assessed using a five-item measure (a = .74) adapted from
Kiggundu (1983). Sample items include “I depend on my teammates for the comple-
tion of my work,” I have a one-person job; “I rarely have to check or work with others
(R),” and “I have to work closely with my teammates to do my work properly.”

Creative performance
A unique contribution of this study is the emphasis on facets of creative perfor-
mance as the outcomes of interest, rather than a unitary measure of overall creative
performance. Thus, we assessed originality and usefulness independently of one
another, and used ratings of these facets as distinct dependent variables in the analysis
of our results. For the purposes of evaluation, originality was defined as how new, sur-
prising, or unconventional the design, materials, concepts or approach of the solution
was. Such a definition is consistent with Redmond, Mumford, and Teach’s (1993)
discussion of evaluating originality, and is also similar to Besemer and O’Quin’s
(1999) description of “novelty.” Usefulness was evaluated as the extent to which the
design in question is valuable and able to address the stated problem. This definition
is consistent with Redmond et al.’s (1993) “quality,” as well as Besemer and O’Quin’s
“resolution” factor, and Ford and Gioia’s (2000) “usefulness” factor.
Facet ratings were assessed by three trained coders with expertise in evaluating
creative performance. Coders were trained and supervised by a psychology faculty
member with extensive experience in assessing creative performance. The three cod-
ers each rated both the originality and usefulness of each project on five-point scales.
The order in which coders rated originality and usefulness was randomized between
projects, to control for order effects.
Initially, coders were instructed to individually assess the facets each team’s crea-
tive performance by comparing teams within each course to one another. This was
done to allow for the development of effective benchmarks for each type of project,
as different courses were assigned design projects that were substantively different

10
 Journal of Creative Behavior

from one another. Thus, without adequate benchmarks, ratings may not be compa-
rable across all projects.
However, initial coding results demonstrated a lack of agreement among coders.
It was determined that such discrepancies arose due to the nonparallel nature of the
projects being assessed. That is, independent coders were making qualitatively differ-
ent judgments about the projects from each course. To remedy this, projects instead
evaluated using an adaptation of Amabile’s (1982) Consensual Assessment Technique.
Baer et al. (2004) demonstrated that such an approach was effective for evaluating
creative performance when the products in question were dissimilar from one
another. In this revised coding process, raters met as a group to discuss each project
and develop scores based on consensus. Raters were instructed to use their prior
coding expertise and to compare their own interpretation to that of their peers.
Discussion continued until a consensus was reached for each project.

RESULTS
Prior to conducting team-level analyses, agreement among team members on
team conflict and team climate variables was assessed via ICC(1,k) and rwg. ICC and
rwg values for task conflict and participative safety were greater than .70, providing
support for aggregation. For task interdependence, ICC(1,k) and rwg values were
below .70. Thus, the aggregate of this variable was not included in the primary
analyses. Descriptive statistics, correlations, and ICC(1,k) and rwg values for these
variables are presented in Table 1.
As data were collected from teams enrolled in different engineering courses, it was
important to rule out course enrollment as a source of variance in ratings of original-
ity. As such, an analysis of variance was conducted for each dependent variable, with
course membership as the independent variable. Course membership was not found to
be a significant predictor of project usefulness (F = .33, n.s.). Likewise, ratings of pro-
ject originality did not differ as a function of course membership (F = .07, n.s.). To
further rule out any potential effects due to course membership, multilevel models
were tested using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (Bryk & Raudenbush, 2002). In these
models, the facets of creative performance (usefulness and originality) were entered in
the first level of the equation, and course membership entered in the second level of
the equation. Results indicated that less than 1% of the variance in the dependent
variables was due to course membership. Furthermore, although team sizes varied
between three and five members, team size was largely consistent within each course
(i.e., some courses had four person teams, others had three or five person teams).
Similarly, despite variability in team size, regression analyses demonstrated no differ-
ences in originality as a result of team size (p > .10). Taken together, these data sug-
gest that ratings can be compared across teams enrolled in each course.
INTERACTION TESTS
Effects on usefulness
To test the proposed interaction between task conflict and participative safety on
the dimensions of team creative performance, a set of hierarchical regression

11
12
Conflict and Participative Safety

TABLE 1. Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for Team-Level Variables

Mean SD rwg ICC(1,k) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 Task conflict 3.01 0.82 .71 .70 1.0
2 Participative safety 3.88 0.59 .72 .74 .18 1.0
3 Task interdependence 3.16 0.27 .48 .43 .26 .26 1.0
4 Agreeableness: 3.07 0.25 — — .02 .03 .08 1.0
Flexibility
5 Agreeableness: 3.54 0.45 — — .05 .13 .08 .51** 1.0
Patience
6 Usefulness 3.25 1.22 — — .26 .00 .29** .06 .03 1.0
7 Originality 2.93 1.30 — — .02 .24 .16 .05 .02 .49** 1.0
**Correlation is significant at p < .01.
 Journal of Creative Behavior

analyses was conducted. In accordance with Aiken and West’s (1991) guidelines for
testing interaction effects via regression, all variables were centered prior to conduct-
ing these analyses. In the first set of analyses, project usefulness was entered as the
dependent variable. In the initial block, task conflict and participative safety were
entered as predictors. An interaction term was computed and entered in the second
block. Prior to the inclusion of the interaction term, the first block only accounted
for a very small percent of the variance in project usefulness (R2 = .07; R2adj = .03).
Neither task conflict (b = .27, n.s.) nor participative safety (b = .05, n.s.) was sig-
nificant. Such null results are consistent with H€ ulsheger et al.’s (2009) meta-analytic
results. As previously stated, it is expected that task conflict is only positively related
to creative performance when it occurs in a climate of participative safety. Subse-
quent analyses further test this proposition.
Examination of the second block (after inclusion of the interaction term) showed
that the model incorporating the interaction term did not account for a significant
proportion of variance in project usefulness (ΔR2 = .02, F = 1.36, n.s.). Such find-
ings indicate that the interaction of task conflict and participative safety had no dis-
cernible effect on the usefulness component of team creative performance. Thus,
Hypothesis 1a was not supported. A summary of the regression coefficients for these
analyses is presented in Table 2.

Effects on originality
In the second set of regression analyses, project originality was entered as the
dependent variable. Task conflict and participative safety were entered in the first
block of the regression, and the interaction term was entered into the second block.
As in the evaluation of usefulness, all variables were centered prior to conducting
these analyses. Consistent with H€ ulsheger et al.’s (2009) findings, in the regression
equation prior to including the interaction term, neither task conflict (b = .06, n.s.)

TABLE 2. Regression Coefficients for the Interaction of Task Conflict and

Participative Safety with Project Usefulness
Unstandardized Standardized
Model t Sig.
coefficient beta
1
Constant 3.26 20.11 .00
Task conflict 0.47 .267 1.96 .06
Climate: Participative safety 0.13 .05 0.33 .74
2
Constant 3.22 19.68 .00
Task conflict 0.39 .22 1.56 .13
Climate: Participative safety 0.37 .13 0.84 .40
Interaction (Task conflict 9 0.65 .19 1.17 .25
Participative safety)

13
Conflict and Participative Safety

nor participative safety (b = .25, n.s.) was significantly related to ratings of project
originality. Thus, our subsequent analyses focus only on the interaction effects.
After including the interaction term, this model accounted for a significant pro-
portion of variance in project originality (R2 = .22; R2adj = .17). This constitutes a
significant increase in variance explained from the model containing only the main
effects (ΔR2 = .16, F = 10.14, p < .01). Furthermore, the interaction term demon-
strated a strong, positive relationship with originality (b = .48, p < .01).
This interaction was further evaluated via an analysis of simple slopes (Aiken &
West, 1991; Dawson & Richter, 2006). For low values of participative safety (1 SD
below the mean), the simple slope of task conflict was negative and significantly dif-
ferent from zero (b = .84, p < .05). For high values of participative safety (1 SD
above the mean), the simple slope of task conflict was positive and significantly dif-
ferent from zero (b = .63, p < .05). Thus, hypothesis 1b was supported. In addition,
it is worth noting that the discrepancy between effects on originality and usefulness
suggests that different factors may influence each of these facets of creative perfor-
mance. Thus, this finding underscores our earlier statement regarding the impor-
tance of evaluating creative performance at the facet level. A summary of the
regression coefficients for these analyses is presented in Table 3, and a graph of the
interaction between participative safety and task conflict on originality is presented
in Figure 1.
To rule out a nonlinear effect of task conflict (e.g., De Dreu, 2006; Farh et al.,
2010), a quadratic term was computed by squaring task conflict. This term was
included in the regression model, and yielded a nonsignificant coefficient. Neither
task conflict (b = .05, n.s.) nor its quadratic term (b = .07, n.s.) emerged as signif-
icant. Furthermore, including the quadratic term in the hierarchical regression
model did not have an appreciable effect on the results, as participative safety still
resulted in a negative relationship with originality (b = .48, p < .01), and the

TABLE 3. Regression Coefficients for the Interaction of Task Conflict and

Participative Safety with Project Originality
Unstandardized Standardized
Model t Sig.
coefficient beta
1
Constant 2.98 17.63 .00
Task conflict 0.12 .06 0.46 .65
Climate: Participative safety 0.73 .25 1.81 .08
2
Constant 2.90 18.29 .00
Task conflict 0.11 .06 0.43 .67
Climate: Participative safety 1.37 .46 3.24 .00
Interaction (Task conflict 9 1.72 .48 3.18 .00
Participative safety)

14
 Journal of Creative Behavior

5
Low Participative
4.5 Safety

4 High Participative
Safety
Design Originality

3.5

2.5

1.5

1
Low Task Conflict High Task Conflict

FIGURE 1. The Interaction of task conflict and participative safety on project

originality.

interaction of participative safety and task conflict still exerted a strong positive
effect (b = .45, p < .01). Finally, examination of the plot for this interaction revealed
that, although the slopes were significantly different from zero and in the expected
directions, the highest ratings of originality occurred when teams were low on both
participative safety and task conflict. This unexpected relationship is thought to be
due to patterns of individual differences within teams, and is examined in the fol-
lowing exploratory analyses.
SUPPLEMENTAL ANALYSES
In light of the surprising finding that teams low in participative safety and task
conflict generated the most original products, additional analyses were conducted on
this subgroup. It was expected that there were some characteristics of members in
these teams that caused them to fit a different pattern than the other teams in our
sample. In light of research on personality traits that may impact team creativity
(e.g., Feist, 1998; Hoff, Carlsson, & Smith, 2011), and Silvia et al. (2011) call for fur-
ther examination of interpersonal traits in team creativity, we sought to examine
interpersonal characteristics that might influence this pattern.
Specifically, we expected tendencies to be disagreeable and to prefer working
alone to drive the originality of this subgroup’s products. It would make sense that
teams with highly creative members may generate the most original products. How-
ever, to the extent that these members are disagreeably rigid and do not want to
work with others (i.e., key elements of Feist’s taxonomy), they may quash the devel-
opment of social and interpersonal processes within the team. Although Silvia et al.
(2011) did not find an effect of (dis)agreeableness on creative achievement, when
the outcomes of interest are team social processes, we expect a different result.
Barrick, Stewart, Neubert, and Mount (1998), for instance, note that agreeableness
contributed to teamwork-relevant factors.

15
Conflict and Participative Safety

Furthermore, we expect that it is not mean levels of agreeableness, but its vari-
ability within the team, that will drive its influence on interactions within creative
teams. In line with this, Mohammed and Angell (2003) note that variability in
agreeableness was negatively related to performance on interpersonal tasks. This sug-
gests that, when a team contains a mix of agreeable and disagreeable members,
social interactions among members will be impaired. Thus, in the present supple-
mental analyses, we use the standard deviation of facets of agreeableness (patience
and flexibility on the HEXACO inventory), rather than mean ratings, as one predic-
tor of the aforementioned “low conflict, low safety” teams.
Similarly, we further draw on Feist’s (1998) argument that creative individuals
exhibit a preference for autonomy in their work. In this study, we expect this to
manifest as low levels of task interdependence with specific (likely highly creative)
team members. Again, such a conceptualization draws not on mean levels of per-
ceived task interdependence, but instead variability among perceptions of task inter-
dependence within the team; the logic being that, within the team, individuals who
keep to themselves are likely to have a low perception of task interdependence,
whereas members who work together more closely will have higher perceptions.
Thus, we utilize the standard deviation of perceived task interdependence as a sec-
ond predictor of membership in the “low conflict, low safety” condition.
Prior to conducting these analyses, we first needed to identify which teams made
up the subgroup that was low in both task conflict and participative safety, but
demonstrated high levels of originality. To this end, a median split was conducted
to identify the teams in the lower half of the distribution for team-level ratings of
both task conflict and participative safety. Fifteen of 55 teams met these criteria. A
dummy variable was then computed, where a value of “1” indicated that the team
was low on both participative safety and task conflict, and a value of “0” indicated
that a team did meet the criteria for inclusion in this “low conflict, low safety”
group.
Next, logistic regression analyses were conducted to test whether our identified
predictors influenced the likelihood of teams being low in both task conflict and
participative safety. We first tested for the effect of variability in facets of agreeable-
ness. As a set, these predictors successfully distinguished between teams that were
low in both participative safety and task conflict, and those that were not (v2
(2,55) = 6.98, p < .05). Examination of the coefficients revealed that this difference
was largely due to the flexibility facet of agreeableness (eB = 185.11, p < .05). That
is, per unit increase in the standard deviation of flexibility, teams are 185 times
more likely to be in the low participative safety, low task conflict group. No similar
effect was found for the patience facet (eB = 0.43, n.s.).
We next tested for the expected effects of variability in perceptions of task inter-
dependence on membership in the low participative safety, low task conflict group.
That is, it was expected that teams who did not agree about how much they needed
to work together on their tasks would be more likely to be low on both task conflict
and participative safety. Thus, the standard deviation of perceived task interdepen-
dence was entered into the second block of the logistic regression, after SD

16
 Journal of Creative Behavior

(flexibility). The standard deviation of task interdependence did not reach accepted
levels of significance, but indicated a trend in the correct direction (eB = 13.08,
p = .68). Thus, although variability in interdependence did not have predictive
power above and beyond variability in agreeableness–flexibility, it suggests that
increasing disagreement about the level of task interdependence in the team may still
have some influence on a team’s likelihood of being low on both participative safety
and task conflict.
In sum, it appears that some teams may follow an alternate path to highly origi-
nal end products, beyond what is predicted by task conflict and participative safety.
In such teams, it seems as though a subset of people meeting Feist’s (1998) criteria,
disagreeable creative individuals may be driving the originality of the team’s prod-
ucts. Such a preliminary finding is intriguing, and bears further investigation in
future research.

DISCUSSION
This study examined the ways in which conflict between team members impacts
the creativity of products developed by design teams. Overall, this study suggests
that team dynamics have a complex relationship with creative performance, and that
commonly examined factors such as task conflict and participative safety cannot be
conceptualized as being purely good or bad for the team. Previous research has
come to mixed conclusions about the effects of these constructs on creative perfor-
mance. By examining task conflict and participative safety in concert with one
another, this study suggests potential reasons for these disparate findings. Further-
more, this study suggests that understanding the effects of team dynamics on crea-
tive performance necessitates an examination of the individual facets of creative
performance. Part of the reason for the heterogeneous findings of previous studies
of team creative performance may stem from such studies considering creativity as a
single performance outcome. Instead, by examining creative performance as separate
facets, clear relationships between team dynamics and specific facets may be identi-
fied. Our results have significant implications for how we think of creative teams
and their processes, both in research and in practice.
TEAM CONFLICT AND CREATIVE PERFORMANCE
Task conflict and participative safety
Most interestingly, this study identified a strong interaction between task conflict
and participative safety, such that task conflict was only positively related to team
project originality when teams had a high level of participative safety. While these
findings may appear counter to the typical literature on psychological or participa-
tive safety, we believe that complacency is a driving force behind this effect. Specifi-
cally, although such safety is associated with a climate in which team members feel
comfortable sharing new ideas and criticizing one another in a constructive manner
(Anderson & West, 1998; Edmonson, 1999), teams high on this dimension may not
necessarily feel compelled to do so. In fact, the perception of a comfortable, safe cli-
mate may discourage team members from inciting disagreement (H€ ulsheger et al.,

17
Conflict and Participative Safety

2009). In this way, the positive interaction of participative safety and task conflict
on project originality is far more understandable; when teams are high in participa-
tive safety but low in task conflict, originality will be low due to a lack of desire to
deviate from the status quo.
Conversely, when teams similarly high in participative safety also have a high level
of task conflict, task-related disagreement will be viewed as constructive (Edmonson,
1999). The high participative safety will spur team members to integrate these dispa-
rate ideas into more original solutions. Such an effect is not entirely without support
in the extant literature. For instance, Chen (2006) suggested that psychological safety
and task conflict may interact, such that task conflict may lead to high levels of team
performance when psychological safety is also high.
It is also of note that examination of the interaction plot suggestions that low
task conflict and low participative safety produced the greatest levels of originality.
In accordance with Aiken and West’s (1991) guidelines for interpreting interaction
effects, our prediction that the interaction of task conflict and participative safety
predicts originality was supported. However, the identification of a set of teams that
was low on both task conflict and participative safety and still high on originality
was surprising, and bears further examination. Results from exploratory analyses
shed light on the dynamics of these particular teams, and provide further insight
into the nature of creative individuals operating within groups.

Supplemental analyses
The high levels of originality observed for teams that were low in both task con-
flict and participative safety become clearer when considered in the context of their
members’ characteristics. Feist’s (1998) meta-analysis of the personality characteris-
tics of creative individuals suggests that creative scientists may often be difficult peo-
ple to work with. They can be arrogant, dominant, hostile, and have a preference
for working alone. Furthermore, in a recent review of personality factors associated
with creativity, Hoff et al. (2011) found that creative individuals tend to dislike
compromise, instead focusing on developing their own ideas.
Such findings paint a picture of creative individuals as being strong-willed and
needing to get their own way. As unconventional ideas are likely to meet resis-
tance from other group members (Nemeth, 1986), such attitudes are likely benefi-
cial to seeing unconventional or original ideas through to fruition. However, these
same characteristics are likely to hamper information sharing and positive team
dynamics within the group. In line with this, Taggar (2002) found that agreeable-
ness was positively related to beneficial intragroup processes that support team-
level creativity.
Therefore, although a disagreeable individual with a correspondingly low level of
flexibility may push his or her idea through to development, such a push will occur
at the expense of the potentially beneficial processes of task conflict and participative
safety. Said differently, the presence of an inflexible, disagreeable, but creative team
member in a group of more flexible individuals will hamper the sense of a shared
goal and nonjudgmental climate associated with participative safety, as well as the

18
 Journal of Creative Behavior

expression of differing opinions associated with task conflict. Thus, such teams are
likely more accurately defined as nominal groups, low in interdependence, but suc-
cessful in their creative endeavors due to the presence of a creative, outspoken indi-
vidual.

Facets of creative performance

Contrary to what was expected, the interaction of team task conflict and partici-
pative safety was only related to the originality facet of team creative performance,
and was unrelated to the usefulness of such performance. Although such a result ini-
tially appears surprising, further consideration suggests that this is a valuable finding
that helps to explain specific elements of how team dynamics influence creative per-
formance. Specifically, although the joint effects of participative safety and task con-
flict may not lead to products that are strictly “better,” a climate in which team
members feel comfortable both sharing ideas and disagreeing with one another will
lead to ideas that are less conventional. Such outcomes, although not inherently
innovative in and of themselves, are a necessary precondition for creative perfor-
mance (e.g., Besemer & O’Quin, 1999), and are thus important for organizations
that value innovation.
Furthermore, by being comfortable sharing opinions and disagreeing with one
another, team members are likely to take longer to converge on a final solution (de
Wit et al., 2011). Thus, they are more likely to bypass “obvious” solutions in favor
of more unique or unconventional ones. Although originality alone does not consti-
tute creative performance, it is an essential component (Amabile, 1996; Besemer &
O’Quin, 1999).
Such a finding is of value to organizations because creating products that are sim-
ply useful is not sufficient for success; continued growth and competition in modern
organizations relies on continual innovation to stay ahead of the competition (Flor-
ida, 2002), a process that is only possible through the development of products that
are not only useful but also original. As original products and solutions are so
valuable (e.g., Boatman & Wellins, 2011; Egan, 2005; Florida, 2002), it is wise to
consider factors that may enhance this desirable outcome in particular, as its drivers
may be different from those of other aspects of creative performance.
IMPLICATIONS
With regard to contributions to future research, this study suggests that examin-
ing creative performance in terms of its constituent components is highly valuable,
and may partly explain previous conflicting findings regarding the relationship
between team processes and creative performance. Specifically, this study identifies
that the interaction of task conflict and participative safety exerts a particular influ-
ence on the originality of teams’ products. An expected relationship between this
interaction and the usefulness of products was not found. This study is therefore
valuable in that it demonstrates that the team processes associated with developing
such original products are not inherently the same as those associated with useful
ones. That is, a team that is equipped to develop effective or useful products may

19
Conflict and Participative Safety

not produce original ones unless the team is appropriately high on participative
safety and task conflict. Thus, future research would benefit from continuing to
examine specific facets of creative performance, to both identify additional predic-
tors and continue to investigate previous ambiguous findings. The results of this
study suggest that some of the ambiguous findings in the extant literature regarding
the relationship between team conflict and creative performance could be better
understood by further examining how such conflict impacts specific elements of cre-
ative performance.
Furthermore, this study shows that team climate and process variables cannot be
thought of solely as having independent, positive, or negative relationships with cre-
ative performance. Instead, it is important to examine interactions among these vari-
ables. Various bodies of literature examine sets of such dynamics in isolation, but to
understand how they impact creative performance, more comprehensive analyses are
required. Examining interactions, such as the identified relationship between partici-
pative safety and task conflict, will further shed light on how teams navigate the cre-
ative design process.
Future research in this area should therefore emphasize longitudinal designs, in
which teams’ experiences are allowed to exert interactive, even recursive effects.
Performance and team dynamics at one stage can impact both the continued devel-
opment of team climate and the trajectory of team creative performance. Such a rec-
ommendation is in line with Ilgen and colleagues’ IMOI model of team creative
performance (Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, & Jundt, 2005), as well as Mumford and
colleagues’ model of the creative process (e.g., Baughman & Mumford, 1995;
Mumford & Baughman, 1996; Mumford, Baughman, Maher, Costanza, & Supinski,
1997; Mumford et al., 1991).
Regarding organizational practice, these findings suggest that effectively managing
creative teams requires a great deal of careful balance. If organizations are to foster
successful creative teamwork, they must not only pay special attention to seeding
teams with members whose personality traits orient them toward creative work but
also cultivate an environment in which creative performance is likely to arise. Such
an environment should focus on both developing a climate of participative safety
and encouraging team members to share ideas with one another. Within the context
of the team, either of these elements without the other is ultimately likely to hurt
creative performance.
LIMITATIONS
There are a small number of limitations to this study that must be acknowledged.
First, the use of a student sample may appear to limit the generalizability of our
findings. However, although this study was conducted in a classroom setting, data
were collected from individuals who were working on in-depth design projects that
required a great deal of expertise, thus mirroring the creative design process in orga-
nizations. As such, our sample likely had more in common with an organizational
population than with a typical student sample. Nonetheless, future field studies may
be useful to confirm these phenomena in an organizational setting.

20
 Journal of Creative Behavior

In addition, due to class time constraints, there was limited opportunity to

survey team members throughout the semester. Therefore, our methodology was
limited to a cross-sectional evaluation of the design teams. Thus, some salient team
experiences may have gone undetected in data collection efforts and analyses. That
is, we were not able to directly assess team dynamics, but rather made inferences
based on team members’ responses on survey instruments. Although this is an
established method for studying design teams (e.g., Choi & Thompson, 2005;
Miron-Spektor, Gino, & Argote, 2011; Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007), we acknowledge
that a more detailed or direct approach to assessing team dynamics could have
yielded additional information. Likewise, interactions that occurred outside of for-
mally scheduled class sessions (interactions that we were unable to directly assess)
may have influenced perceptions of conflict and other team dynamics. Information
about such interactions may have further enriched our findings about the relation-
ship among task conflict, participative safety, and originality. Therefore, future
research should attempt to examine team interactions and the effects of team con-
flict at a closer level, potentially in the form of a diary study of team creative per-
formance. Furthermore, in light of the potential effects of interactions that occur
outside of class, it may be worthwhile to examine aspects of the relationships
among individual differences, team dynamics, and creative performance in a more
controlled, laboratory setting.
Bearing these limitations in mind, it is believed that this study makes a meaning-
ful contribution to the literature on both team dynamics and team creativity. The
present findings underscore the complexities inherent in creative teams, and present
useful future directions for research and practice. Although both participative safety
and task conflict are related to team creative performance, neither alone is sufficient
to generate the level of originality necessary for creative performance. In fact, in the
absence of dissent, participative safety can undermine creativity by inducing compla-
cency. We therefore believe that the motivation to disagree and comfort in doing so
are necessary conditions for successful team creative performance. In conclusion, we
believe that this study sheds new light on the tension between team conflict and par-
ticipative safety, and provides valuable insight into the nature of the team creative
process.

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Joshua Fairchild, Samuel T. Hunter, The Pennsylvania State University
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Joshua Fairchild, The Pennsylvania State
University, 142 Moore Building, University Park, PA 16802. E-mail:jaf435@psu.edu

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge the National Science Foundation, whose funding support made this study possible.
This study was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. These funds were used to pay a
graduate student research assistant to work on the project, and to provide small incentives for participants to
complete follow-up surveys.

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