Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
4-2008
Abstract
Many practices aimed at cultivating multicultural competence in educational and organizational settings (e.g., exchange programs, diversity education in college, diversity management at work) assume that multicultural experience fosters creativity. In line with this assumption, the research reported in this article is the first to empirically demonstrate that exposure to multiple cultures in and of itself can enhance creativity. Overall, the authors found that extensiveness of multicultural experiences was positively related to both creative performance (insight learning, remote association, and idea generation) and creativity-supporting cognitive processes (retrieval of unconventional knowledge, recruitment of ideas from unfamiliar cultures for creative idea expansion). Furthermore, their studies showed that the serendipitous creative benefits resulting from multicultural experiences may depend on the extent to which individuals open themselves to foreign cultures, and that creativity is facilitated in contexts that deemphasize the need for firm answers or existential concerns. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for promoting creativity in increasingly global learning and work environments.
Keywords
Cognition, creativity, culture, multicultural experiences
Discipline
Multicultural Psychology | Social Psychology
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
American Psychologist
Volume
63
Issue
3
First Page
169
Last Page
181
ISSN
0003-066X
Identifier
10.1037/0003-066x.63.3.169
Publisher
American Psychological Association
Citation
LEUNG, Angela K. Y., MADDUX, William W., GALINSKY, Adam D., & CHIU, Chi-Yue.(2008). Multicultural experience enhances creativity: The when and how. American Psychologist, 63(3), 169-181.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/538
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.63.3.169