Multicultural experience enhances creativity: the when and how.

By Angela Ka-yee Leung, William W Maddux, Adam D. Galinsky, Chi-Yue Chiu. American Psychologist, 2008

841 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f3a6c45cb61b3f007204a1b5a561d4085000081d

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In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Diversity in the person, diversity in the group: Challenges of identity complexity for social perception and social interaction (2009, positive): “However, other kinds of blended categories are becoming increasingly common, particularly the case of multiracial people. In the most recent national census in the United States, respondents were permitted for the first time to select more than one category when reporting their race; many people did”
Creating and maintaining high-performing collaborative research teams: the importance of diversity and interpersonal skills (2014, background): “Diversity has been found to increase team productivity as well as the quality of “end products” (Nemeth 1995; McLeod et al. 1996; Guimera et al. 2005; Leung et al. 2008).”
Deepening our understanding of creativity in the workplace: A review of different approaches to creativity research. (2011, background): “Leung et al. (2008) proposed that exposure to multiple cultures in and of itself can enhance creativity.”
Revisiting the Multicultural Experience–Creativity Link (2013, background): “This helps multicultural individuals to overcome cognitive fixedness, to break away from structured and routine ways of approaching problems, and to inspire creative thinking (Crisp & Turner, 2011; Leung et al., 2008).”
Assessment of real-life creativity: The Inventory of Creative Activities and Achievements (ICAA). (2017, background): “For example, higher multicultural experiences (Leung et al., 2008), or being exposed to diversifying experiences (Ritter et al.”
Multiculturalism and Entrepreneurial Intentions: Understanding the Mediating Role of Cognitions (2018, background): “In addition, our results also shed light on studies (Cheng et al., 2011; Fee & Gray, 2012; Lee, Therriault, & Linderholm, 2012; Leung & Chiu, 2010; Leung et al., 2008; Stevens, Plaut, & Sanchez-Burks, 2008; Tadmor, Satterstrom, Jang, & Polzer, 2012) that suggest that multicultural experiences lead…”