Unpacking Social and Cognitive Processes
in Science and Engineering
Team Innovation
Susannah Paletz
University of Pittsburgh
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC
September 20, 2012
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Multidisciplinary Team Innovation
•  Most science & engineering innovation is in teams
–  Inherently collaborative
–  Time Magazine’s Top Ten Scientific discoveries,
2007-2010
–  NASA missions
Mars Exploration Rover
Science Operations, 2004
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Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
Multidisciplinary Team Innovation
•  Multidisciplinary work: Specialists
collaborating across disciplines that ordinarily
do not communicate
BP via Reuters
•  Team knowledge diversity has great potential
for innovation, but findings have been weak/
inconsistent (Mannix & Neale, 2005; van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004)
3
Gaps in Current Understanding of
Multidisciplinary Team Innovation
•  Much (but not all) research
examines inputs, outputs, and
self-report of process
Inputs
(e.g., team
structure)
Outputs
(performance)
4
Gaps in Current Understanding of
Multidisciplinary Team Innovation
•  Much (but not all) research
examines inputs, outputs, and
self-report of process
Inputs
(e.g., team
structure)
Self-reports
of process
Outputs
(performance)
5
Gaps in Current Understanding of
Multidisciplinary Team Innovation
•  Much (but not all) research
examines inputs, outputs, and
self-report of process
Inputs
Multiple
(e.g., team
disciplines
structure)
•  Moderators and mediators of
multidisciplinary team innovation
needed (van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007)
Outputs
Innovation
(performance)
6
Gaps in Current Understanding of
Multidisciplinary Team Innovation
•  Much (but not all) research
examines inputs, outputs, and
self-report of process
•  Moderators and mediators of
multidisciplinary team innovation
needed (van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007)
Inputs
Multiple
(e.g., team
disciplines
structure)
Self-reports
of process
–  Observing process
–  Complex interactions between
variables
–  Social and cognitive variables
Outputs
Innovation
(performance)
7
Our Research on Social and Cognitive
Team Processes
Social
Processes
Team
Structures
Disciplinary &
Knowledge
Diversity
Task (rather
than Social)
Conflict
Cognitive
Processes
Information
Search
Team
Innovative
Outcomes
Originality
Elaboration
Formal
Roles
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Communication
Norms
Sufficient
Participation /
Information
Sharing
Analogy
Shared Mental
Models
Appropriate
Evaluation
Quantity /
Fluency
Quality
(Paletz & Schunn, 2010, theory paper; NSF Grant SBE-0830210)
Our Research on Social and Cognitive
Team Processes
Team
Structures
Social
Processes
Cognitive
Processes
Team
Innovative
Outcomes
Conflict & Disagreement
(Paletz, Schunn, & Kim, 2011)
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(Paletz & Schunn, 2010, theory paper; NSF Grant SBE-0830210)
Our Research on Social and Cognitive
Team Processes
Team
Structures
Social
Processes
Cognitive
Processes
Team
Innovative
Outcomes
Participation
Equality/Dominance
(Paletz & Schunn, 2011)
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(Paletz & Schunn, 2010, theory paper; NSF Grant SBE-0830210)
Our Research on Social and Cognitive
Team Processes
Team
Structures
Social
Processes
Cognitive
Processes
Team
Innovative
Outcomes
Analogy & Uncertainty
(Chan, Paletz, & Schunn, in press)
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(Paletz & Schunn, 2010, theory paper; NSF Grant SBE-0830210)
Our Research on Social and Cognitive
Team Processes
Team
Structures
Social
Processes
Cognitive
Processes
Team
Innovative
Outcomes
Daily Team Efficiency and
Innovation over Time
(Paletz, et al., under review)
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(Paletz & Schunn, 2010, theory paper; NSF Grant SBE-0830210)
Our Research on Social and Cognitive
Team Processes
Team
Structures
Social
Processes
Cognitive
Processes
Team
Innovative
Outcomes
MicroConflicts
(Paletz, Schunn, & Kim, in press)
Analogy
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(Paletz & Schunn, 2010, theory paper; NSF Grant SBE-0830210)
Selected Research on Social and
Cognitive Team Processes
MicroConflicts
(Paletz, Schunn, & Kim, in press)
Analogy & Uncertainty
(Chan, Paletz, & Schunn, in press)
Analogy
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Selected Research on Social and
Cognitive Team Processes
MicroConflicts
(Paletz, Schunn, & Kim, in press)
Analogy & Uncertainty
(Chan, Paletz, & Schunn, in press)
Analogy
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Analogy: Concept
•  Analogy = accessing and transferring elements from
familiar categories to solve a problem or explain
concept (Gentner, 1998)
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Analogy: Concept
•  Analogy = accessing and transferring elements from
familiar categories to solve a problem or explain
concept (Gentner, 1998)
– Designing a tube to transport liquid:
Tube
problem
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Analogy: Concept
•  Analogy = accessing and transferring elements from
familiar categories to solve a problem or explain
concept (Gentner, 1998)
– Designing a tube to transport liquid:
– “the stuff you make Venetian blinds of…they can be
bent.” (Christiansen & Schunn, 2007)
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Venetian
blinds
Tube
familiar category
problem
Analogy: Concept
•  Analogy = accessing and transferring elements from
familiar categories to solve a problem or explain
concept (Gentner, 1998)
– Designing a tube to transport liquid:
– “the stuff you make Venetian blinds of…they can be
bent.” (Christiansen & Schunn, 2007)
Venetian
blinds
familiar category
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Tube
mapping:
bendable but tough material
problem
Analogy: Concept
•  Analogy = accessing and transferring elements from
familiar categories to solve a problem or explain
concept (Gentner, 1998)
•  Familiar category can be near or far from the domain
of problem
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Analogy: Concept
•  Analogy = accessing and transferring elements from
familiar categories to solve a problem or explain
concept (Gentner, 1998)
Design new
house
problem
•  Familiar category can be near or far from the domain
of problem
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Analogy: Concept
•  Analogy = accessing and transferring elements from
familiar categories to solve a problem or explain
concept (Gentner, 1998)
House already
built
familiar category
mapping:
steel and glass sections
Design new
Tube
house
problem
•  Familiar category can be near or far from the domain
of problem
– Near (within domain)
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Analogy: Concept
•  Analogy = accessing and transferring elements from
familiar categories to solve a problem or explain
concept (Gentner, 1998)
How adhere
when wet?
problem
•  Familiar category can be near or far from the domain
of problem
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– Near (within domain)
– Far (outside domain)
Analogy: Concept
•  Analogy = accessing and transferring elements from
familiar categories to solve a problem or explain
concept (Gentner, 1998)
Gecko Feet
mapping:
familiar category
tiny hairs using van der Waal forces
Adhesive,
Carbon
Nanotubes
solution
•  Familiar category can be near or far from the domain
of problem
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– Near (within domain)
– Far (outside domain)
Concept: Analogy
•  Analogy = accessing and transferring elements
from familiar categories to solve a problem or
explain concept (Gentner, 1998)
familiar
category
problem
feature mapping
•  Mixed background microbiology labs à create a
broader set of analogies à more successful
problem solvers (Dunbar 1995, 1997)
•  But how?
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Uncertainty in Complex Problem Solving
Psychological uncertainty = recognition or internal
state of missing, incomplete, or fuzzy information
Research questions: Do people use analogies when
uncertain, and does it help?
Is this cancer?
Will my landing design work?
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Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Context
•  Successful multidisciplinary NASA mission
•  11 hours of
transcribed, informal,
on-topic
conversations:
–  11,856 utterances/
clauses
•  Coded for social and cognitive variables by
utterance
•  Analyzed with time-lagged logistic regression,
hierarchical linear modeling
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Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
Uncertainty and Analogy Results
(Chan, Paletz, & Schunn, in press)
% uncertainty in segments
0.35
d = .77
**
0.30
0.25
d = .57
*
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
baseline: nowhere near analogy
0.00
Before
During
After 1
Segment Type:
Before, During, After Analogies
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For within-domain and within-discipline, problem-related analogies
After 2
Selected Research on Social and
Cognitive Team Processes
MicroConflicts
(Paletz, Schunn, & Kim, in press)
Analogy & Uncertainty
(Chan, Paletz, & Schunn, in press)
Analogy
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Concept: Conflict
•  Conflict: disagreement, “incompatibilities or
discrepant views among the parties involved” (Jehn &
Bendersky, 2003)
–  Task: the work performed
–  Process: plans, delegation
–  Relationship: interpersonal
incompatibility
–  Negative affect vs. neutral
•  Conflict & performance have complex relationship
(de Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2012)
•  Bad conflicts: process, relationship, negative
•  What about self-report vs. micro-conflicts, brief
disagreements in conversations? (Paletz, Schunn, & Kim, 2011)
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Conflict and Analogy:
The Missing Social-Cognitive Links?
Social/Organizational
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Cognitive
Multidisciplinarity
Multidisciplinarity
Task
Conflict
Analogy
Team
Innovation
Team
Innovation
High-Level Results
WithinDomain
Analogies
Science
(Task)
Conflicts
Process
Conflicts
WithinDiscipline
Analogies
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Negative
Conflicts
Summary and Implications
•  Summary of results
–  Analogy may be triggered by, reduce uncertainty
–  Certain analogies spark certain micro-conflicts
•  Don’t fear micro-conflicts, even process and negative ones
•  Some analogies may reveal gaps in assumptions
•  Implications
–  Value in:
•  Crossing disciplines
•  Opening up the black box, not relying on self-report
–  Understanding team processes can offer precise
empirically-driven suggestions for training
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In Progress Research
•  Study 20+ multidisciplinary
student engineering teams
•  Tie social & cognitive
processes (conflict,
analogy) to new ideas as
raised, innovative
outcomes
•  So far: coded 27 teams; 38 hours of video; 74
conversations; 47,516 utterances
–  143 analogies, 362 micro-conflict events
–  Conversation-level correlation between analogies and
conflict, r = .37, p = .001
NSF grant SBE 1064083
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Thank You
MER Science Team
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Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
Acknowledgments
Co-Authors
Assistance
•  Chris Schunn
•  Joel Chan
•  Kevin Kim
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Tiemoko Ballo
Julia Cocchia
Carl Fenderson
Kerry Glassman
Lauren Gunn
Justin Krill
Candace Smalley
Rebecca Sax
Michael Ye
Carmela Rizzo
Schunn-Nokes Lab
Artist Depiction of Rover
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Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech