Living abroad and creativity

Is there anything more satisfying that academic research that confirms one's basic worldview? Thanks are due to William Galinsky and Adam Maddux for this one:

"Despite abundant anecdotal evidence that creativity is associated with living in foreign countries, there is currently little empirical evidence for this relationship. Five studies employing a multimethod approach systematically explored the link between living abroad and creativity. Using both individual and dyadic creativity tasks, Studies 1 and 2 provided initial demonstrations that time spent living abroad (but not time spent traveling abroad) showed a positive relationship with creativity. Study 3 demonstrated that priming foreign living experiences temporarily enhanced creative tendencies for participants who had previously lived abroad. In Study 4, the degree to which individuals had adapted to different cultures while living abroad mediated the link between foreign living experience and creativity. Study 5 found that priming the experience of adapting to a foreign culture temporarily enhanced creativity for participants who had previously lived abroad. The relationship between living abroad and creativity was consistent across a number of creativity measures (including those measuring insight, association, and generation), as well as with masters of business administration and undergraduate samples, both in the United States and Europe, demonstrating the robustness of this phenomenon." more>

Thanks to G.T. Viki for the link

Comments

Hi Colin,
I must say that it is interesting research on such a topic.
Would never thought that someone could go so deep to tackle this phenomenon.
I can say from my own experience that living abroad is a certain boost to human's creativity not only while adapting to different culture but also after finding a way to contribute to the society as a whole.
It is sure that lot of depends on a personal qualities of each person so I might say that we can't generalize such an outcome to whole population.
But that's just my opinion.
Haven't finished my reading felt to long, sorry for that ;*)
Thank you.

Well I'm sure being abroad influences creativity because of the many new impressions.

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