Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

11-2016

Abstract

Past research has examined independently how openness to experience, as a personality trait, and the situational threat triggered by a foreign cultural encounter affect the emergence of creative benefits from a culture-mixing experience. The present research provides the first evidence for the interactive effect of openness to experience and cultural threat following culturally mixed encounters on creative performance. In Study 1, under heightened perceptions of cultural threat, exposing to the mixing of Chinese and American cultures (vs. a non-mixed situation) made close-minded Chinese participants to perform more poorly in a creative generation task. In Study 2, inducing cultural threat by having a foreign cultural icon spatially intrude a sacred space of the local culture caused Chinese participants with lower levels of openness to perform less creatively when the foreign icon was deemed highly symbolic of the foreign culture. These patterns of effects did not emerge among open-minded participants. These findings suggest that trait openness acts as a buffer against foreign cultural threat to sustain the creative benefits of culture mixing.

Keywords

creativity, cultural threat, culture mixing, openness to experience

Discipline

Multicultural Psychology | Psychology

Research Areas

Psychology

Publication

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Volume

47

Issue

10

First Page

1321

Last Page

1334

ISSN

0022-0221

Identifier

10.1177/0022022116641513

Publisher

SAGE Publications (UK and US)

Embargo Period

10-1-2017

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022116641513

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