Young-Jae Yoon
Young-Jae Yoon
Training Track: Applied Social
Advisor: James Larson, Ph.D.
Office: Coffey Hall 104
Email: yyoon1@luc.edu
Interests
I am particularly interested in information processing and performance in small groups. My program of research consists of three distinct but interrelated threads: 1) how cultural orientation and affective feelings shared among group members influence group creativity and decision-making, 2) the degree to which groups utilize outside advice to make better judgments; and 3) how host country national members of multinational corporations help expatriate team members adjust to a new environment.
Masters Thesis Title
The Effects of Individualistic-Collectivistic Value Orientation and Individualistic-Collectivistic Self Representation on Group Creativity
Masters Thesis Abstract
Cognitive fixation is detrimental to creativity of groups as well as individuals (Smith, 2003). In the present study, we explored under what conditions groups would be able to overcome this obstacle and achieve high levels of ideational creativity. Based on the notion that collective creativity requires key components of both individualism and collectivism (Choi, Cho, & Seo, 2015), we hypothesized that the combination of collectivistic value orientation and independent self-representation would lead to high levels of group creativity in terms of both quantity and quality of ideas generated. We conducted a laboratory experiment involving 56 triads of Korean undergraduates and found, as expected, that ideas were more creative when group members combined collectivistic values with independent self-representation.