The subjects of the study were asked to solve a particular problem-solving task previously used in other psychology studies researching problem solving.
In one study conducted by organizational psychologists Jennifer Mueller, Jack Goncalo, and Dishan Kamdar, 55 employees rated the responses of nearly 300 of their (unidentified) coworkers to a problem-solving task for both creativity (the extent to which their ideas were novel and useful) and as evidence of leadership potential.
The team, including Nicola Clayton and Nathan Emery, discovered that the eight pairs were happy to cooperate, with some pairs solving the task straight away, others taking a day or two to work out that team-work was the key to getting their nibbles.