**9. Conclusions**

The findings highlight how task conflict can benefit creative problem solving in teams by prompting team members to engage in a social exchange by applying cycles of the cognitive processes of; knowledge processing, critical thinking, creative thinking and meta-cognition. These cognitive processes were instrumental in supporting both divergent and convergent thinking and suspending decision making to process additional information and explore alternative ideas. While conflict was positively related to creativity it was not associated with creative thinking, however previous episodes of conflict often resulted in subsequent topic segments of creative thinking. The ability to apply the cognitive processes appeared to depend on advanced social and collaborative skills pointing to a possible difference between how experts and novices might compare in managing conflict.

*How Task Conflict Can Support Creative Problem Solving in Teams by Stimulating Knowledge… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96600*
