Multicultural Experience, Idea Receptiveness, and Creativity

Abstract

Inspired by recent advances in creative cognition research, the authors examined in the current research some creative benefits of multicultural experiences. Study 1 showed that European American undergraduates had better creative performance immediately after being exposed to American and Chinese cultures or to a hybrid culture formed by fusing American and Chinese cultures; this effect was also observed 5 to 7 days after the initial exposure. Studies 2 and 3 showed that exposure to multicultural experiences is positively related to the likelihood of engaging in some creativity-supporting processes—generation of unconventional ideas (Study 2) and receptiveness to ideas originated from foreign cultures (Study 3). Finally, in Studies 4 and 5, the authors found that need for cognitive closure (or the need for firm answers) and existential terror significantly attenuated the positive link between multicultural experiences and receptiveness to ideas originated from foreign cultures. The authors discussed these findings’ implications on multicultural learning and creativity.

Complexity leadership in bureaucratic forms of organizing: A meso model

“…Therefore, complexity theory suggests that appropriate amounts of heterogeneity in terms of thought diversity and exposure to ideological differences is conducive to adaptive behavior (Kauffman, 1993;Kauffman, 1995;cf. Baer and Oldham, 2006;Gregory, 2006;Leung et al, 2008).…”

Criatividade e multiculturalismo: revisão de literatura

“…Apenas 47% (n=9) dos artigos empíricos analisados buscaram medir esse construto. Dois instrumentos foram utilizados em mais de uma publicação, a Pesquisa de Experiência Multicultural (n= 3; Leung & Chiu, 2010) e a Escala de Identidade Bicultural (n= 2; Benet-Martínez & Haritatos, 2005). Foram identifi cados instrumentos para medir a intensidade da exposição às multiculturas, a identifi cação dos sujeitos às culturas materna e hospedeira, o conhecimento sobre a nova cultura, o tipo de aculturação, a metacognição cultural e a distância entre as culturas.…”

“…Diversos benefícios já foram relacionados ao multiculturalismo, entre eles: adaptabilidade, liderança e capacidade de resolução de problemas (Friedman & Liu, 2009); sucesso profi ssional (Tadmor, Galinsky, & Maddux, 2012); ampliação de redes sociais (Mok, Morris, Benet-Martínez, & Karakitapoglu-Aygun, 2007); e criatividade (Crisp & Turner, 2011;Leung & Chiu, 2010;Saad, Damian, Benet-Martínez, Moons, & Robins, 2012). A criatividade, entendida como um processo por meio do qual algo útil e original é criado (Amabile, 1996), tem sido amplamente investigada nessa relação.…”

Excellence in International Cooperation

“…Research examining the outcomes of study abroad programs shows that studying abroad leads to several positive affective gains such as promoting students' cultural and personal development by providing experiences that facilitate international awareness, cross-cultural communication skills, and self-confidence [8,10,29], all of which significantly relate to greater creative performance, including the extension and combination of conceptual boundaries and flexibility in recruiting and synthesizing information [30][31][32].…”

“…On the Cultural Creativity Test, students who had studied abroad were deemed to have recruited and combined intellectual resources from various cultural frameworks to generate ideas and solutions that were richer in description, detail, and humor than those generated by students in the other groups, including the group planning to study abroad. Multicultural experiences involve the accumulation and integration of learned routines and conventional knowledge from a new culture, as well as practice switching mentally between different cultural worldviews [30,31,33].…”