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Group Creativity

Music, Theater, Collaboration

• By R. Keith Sawyer

• Price: $27.50
• Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
• Pages: 344
• Published by: Psychology Press
• Publication Date: 1st April 2003
• ISBN: 978-0-8058-4436-8

About the Book

Group Creativity explores the unique form of creativity that emerges from collaborating groups. Dr. Sawyer draws on his studies of jazz ensembles and improvisational theater groups to develop a model of creative group processes. He applies this model of group creativity to a wide range of collaborating groups, including group learning in classrooms and innovative teams in organizations.

In group creativity, a group comes together to collaboratively create in real time. The creative inspiration emerges from the interaction and communication among the members, and makes the result more than the sum of its parts. The dynamic, moment-to-moment communication among jazz musicians and improvising actors is the primary topic of the book. Sawyer explores performers' close listening and sensitivity, the submerging of the ego to the group mind, and the ways that performers work together to create something better than and different from what one solitary individual could create alone. These explorations provide insight into all forms of group creativity and collaboration.

Table of Contents

Contents: Introduction. Jamming in Jazz and Improv Theater. Interaction and Emergence: An Interactional Semiotics. Group Creativity and the Arts. Group Creativity as Mediated Action. Degrees of Improvisation in Group Creativity. Collective Ideation: Creativity, Teamwork, and Collaboration.