Groupthink
The brainstorming myth.
The New YorkerBrainstorming didn’t unleash the potential of the group, but rather made each individual less creative. Although the findings did nothing to hurt brainstorming’s popularity, numerous follow-up studies have come to the same conclusion. Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, has summarized the science: “Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.”
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer#ixzz1xdhNSrdC