Affective voice tone and dyadic creativity: an interventional study

Creativity is a key driver of innovation and social progress. Research on creativity has identified a variety of factors that affect creativity at both individual and group levels. However, the causal role of these factors in creativity has not been fully investigated. Thus, the present study examined whether affective voice tone has a causal effect on dyadic creativity. Pairs of participants took part in an experiment in which they cooperated on a verbal creativity task via a video conferencing system that modulated affective voice tone. The results showed that affective voice tone modulation, regardless of its valence polarity (i.e., happy or sad), significantly suppressed the beneficial effects of personality heterogeneity on dyadic creativity. This suggests that vocal expression of emotions in brainstorming, especially in dyads with different personalities, impairs collaborative creative performance. This is the first empirical evidence for an interactive effect of affective voice tone and personality heterogeneity on dyadic creativity in a brainstorming-type situation. Although more comprehensive investigations are needed, evidence from intervention studies such as this one may provide new insights for mechanisms/systems to promote co-creation both between humans and between humans and artificial intelligence agents.