Social context: Key to understanding culture's effects on creativity

Abstract

This paper proposes that the social context moderates the effect of culture on creativity by drawing on the constructivist dynamic approach. We assess creativity by the level of fluency, originality, and elaboration on the usefulness and appropriateness of ideas in three contexts: working under a supervisor, in a group, and alone. We hypothesized that in high power distance cultures, working under a supervisor inhibits creativity, whereas in individualistic cultures, the presence of peers attenuates creativity. Results from two parallel experiments, one in the United States (N = 79) and the other in China (N = 83), partially support the hypotheses. The Chinese originality level was significantly lower when working under a supervisor than when working alone. American subjects generated fewer ideas and elaborated less when working in the presence of peers and elaborated less in the presence of peers than when under a supervisor. We conclude that the social context moderates the culture-creativity relationship by making consensual cultural values more accessible in a social context than when working alone.

To create without losing face: The effects of face cultural logic and social‐image affirmation on creativity

“…We also show that face logic endorsement predicts creativity above and beyond individualism and collectivism values. Second, we advance recent theories that differentiate between the processes and values associated with the novelty and appropriateness dimensions of creativity (Berg, ; Mueller, Melwani, & Goncalo, ; Nouri et al, ; Paletz & Schunn, ). We show that face logic mainly hinders idea novelty and fluency, but not the appropriateness of generated ideas.…”

“…and/or a subordinate ( Fs < 3.16, n.s. ), thus ruling out the possibility that differences in the presence of these figures in the situation affected creativity (Nouri et al, ; Zhou & Su, ). These content analyses lend additional support to the effectiveness and equivalence of our social‐image affirmation manipulation in these three cultures.…”

“…Another theory proposes that because East Asian societies are tighter, they are less tolerant of creative behavior that deviates from norms than Western and looser cultures (Gelfand et al, ; Gelfand, Nishii, & Raver, ; Triandis, ). However, the empirical support for these theories is limited and the findings are equivocal (e.g., Bechtoldt, De Dreu, Nijstad, & Choi, ; Lubart, ; Nouri et al, ; Zha, Walczyk, Griffith‐Ross, Tobacyk, & Walczyk, ; Zhou & Su, ). We show that on average, East Asians participants (Japanese) endorse face logic more than Western participants (Israelis and Americans), and that their higher endorsement of face logic accounts for their tendency to generate fewer and less novel ideas.…”

12th Biannual conference of the German cognitive science society (Gesellschaft für Kognitionswissenschaft)

“…The semi-structured interviews reveal a wealth of different domains and categories related to creativity, and highlight the need for a holistic, action oriented, and system-oriented approach when studying creativity. The findings also broaden a narrow cognitive view on creativity, highlighting also the role of motivational and socio-cultural factors during the creative process (for the role of societal context in creativity see also Nouri et al 2014).…”

Culture, Conditions and Paradoxical Frames

“…Cultural support for integrating paradoxes increases the likelihood that individuals will use paradoxical frames, but is not a specific claim about how individuals will interpret specific conditions. The effect of culture hinges on the situational conditions (Nouri et al, 2015). Conditions create opportunities for using paradoxical frames, and specific, predictable conditions create opportunities that can be identified through analysis, as the current studies demonstrated.…”