Intercultural experience and creativity

• Main Authors: CHENG, Chi-Ying, TAN, Yi Wen
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2017
• Subjects: bicultural integration; biculturalism; creative cognition; creativity; intercultural experience; intercultural relationship; International and Intercultural Communication; Sociology of Culture
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2431
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Creativity, commonly defined as a production of novel and usefulideas, has long been considered as a type of individual difference that ishighly associated with personality traits and intellectual intelligence, whichcannot be changed easily. Recently, it has been demonstrated that creativitycan occur as a result of cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes thatare driven by intercultural experiences, which can be acquired. In line withthe creative cognition approach, individuals with direct interculturalexperiences exhibit higher individual creativity. Specifically, those who adoptbiculturalism as their acculturation strategy and develop a high level ofintegration between their bicultural identities can reap the creative benefitof their intercultural experiences. Individuals with indirect interculturalexperiences also exhibit higher creativity, and the underlying psychologicalmechanisms are the use of a comparison mindset and perceived cultural distancebetween the cultures. Advantageous features of intercultural experiences for enhancingindividual creativity are discussed.