Cultural Influence on Creativity: The Relationship between Asian Culture (Confucianism) and Creativity among Korean Educators

Creativity is a very complex interaction among a person, a field, and a culture (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). People vary in their native capacity for creativity; however, an individual's interaction with the macrocosm can foster creative expression. East Asian cultures, which include Korean culture, are based upon the principals of Confucianism. The impact of Confucianism on creativity is reviewed and the relationship between Confucianism and creativity was explored in the present study. The study involved comparing 184 Korean educators' scores on a measure of Confucianism (Eastern‐Western Perspective Scale) with their scores on a measure of creativity (Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking‐Figural). The results indicate that Confucianism is negatively related to creativity. Specifically, some elements of Confucianism, Unconditional Obedience, Gender Inequality, Gender Role Expectations, and Suppression of Expression, may present cultural blocks to creativity. Further, Confucianism was found to be negatively related to Adaptive creative type and Creative Streangths, but not Innovative creative type, which indicates that Adaptive creative type may be more sensitive to, and thus more influenced by, culture.     

Creativity Development of High-Achieving Students

Few studies on creativity have focused on creativity development in various grade levels for high-achieving students. The purpose of this study was to explore the developmental trajectories of creative ability for high-achieving students. The participants constituted a national representative sample of 982 male (N = 506) and female (484) students from grades 1 to 10 in five governorates in Oman (Muscat, South-Al Batinah, South- Al Sharqia, Dhofar, and Al Dhakilia). The students completed two subtests of the Profile of Creative Abilities (PCA), a measure of creative potential, namely drawings and categories. There was an evidence of a developmental trend of creativity across grade levels. The Multi-variate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed that the main effect of grade was statistically significant for the drawings subtest. Also, the main effect of gender was also statistically significant for the drawings subtest. The main effect of interaction (gender X grade) was not significant. Overall, females’ creative performance was significantly better than males’ in the Creativity Index score. The results of the study are discussed in the light of existing literature about developmental trends and gender differences in creative thinking.     

Tracking the dynamics of divergent thinking via semantic distance: Analytic methods and theoretical implications

Divergent thinking has often been used as a proxy measure of creative thinking, but this practice lacks a foundation in modern cognitive psychological theory. This article addresses several issues with the classic divergent-thinking methodology and presents a new theoretical and methodological framework for cognitive divergent-thinking studies. A secondary analysis of a large dataset of divergent-thinking responses is presented. Latent semantic analysis was used to examine the potential changes in semantic distance between responses and the concept represented by the divergent-thinking prompt across successive response iterations. The results of linear growth modeling showed that although there is some linear increase in semantic distance across response iterations, participants high in fluid intelligence tended to give more distant initial responses than those with lower fluid intelligence. Additional analyses showed that the semantic distance of responses significantly predicted the average creativity rating given to the response, with significant variation in average levels of creativity across participants. Finally, semantic distance does not seem to be related to participants’ choices of their own most creative responses. Implications for cognitive theories of creativity are discussed, along with the limitations of the methodology and directions for future research.     

Tell Me Your Name and I'll Tell You How Creative Your Work Is: Author's Name and Gender as Factors Influencing Assessment of Products' Creativity in Four Different Domains

The main goal of this study was to examine the effects of authors’ name and gender on judges’ assessment of product creativity in 4 different domains (art, science, music, and poetry). A total of 119 participants divided into 5 groups assessed products signed with a fictional author's name (unique vs. typical, male vs. female) or in an anonymous condition. It was observed that depending on the domain, the uniqueness of the author's name and her or his gender was associated with the assessment of creativity of the product. A poem and painting signed with an unusual name and a piece of music whose authorship was attributed to a man with a unique name were assessed as especially creative. In case of scientific theory, works attributed to men were assessed as significantly more creative than those of women. The results are discussed in light of the attributional approach to creativity.     

Creativity in Men and Women: Threat,Other-Interest,and Self-Assessment

Previous research into gender and creativity has provided little evidence for consistent differences between men and women in creative performance. This research revisits this topic by proposing a person × situation approach, arguing that gender differences in creative performance only occur in certain contexts, but not others. Based on the assumption that men and women tend to differ in self versus other orientation, experimental instructions varied whether our participants’ (n = 169) creative efforts benefit the self or others, and whether creativity occurred under conditions of threat or not. In the absence of threat, women outperformed men in the originality of their creative efforts when the task was beneficial to others. This effect was eliminated in the presence of competitive threat. In contrast to some previous work, threat also increased creative performance under some circumstances. Results also revealed gender differences in self-assessment of creativity such that women seemed to be somewhat more attuned to the objective level of the originality of their creative performance than men. The discussion focuses on implications for research on gender differences in creativity, arguing that researchers must appreciate that gender differences in creativity, so far as they exist, are likely embedded in specific situational contexts.     

Examining Gender with General Creativity and Preferences for Creative Persons in College Students within the Sciences and the Arts

The purpose of the research was to investigate gender similarities and differences in general creativity constructs with their preferences for creative persons. Data were collected from 247 participants (87 engineering, 24 psychology students with a psychology major, 51 psychology students with a major other than psychology, 30 English, and 55 music students) from a large Mideastern Big 10 university. All participants completed measures of general creativity (creative personality, creative temperament and cognitive risk tolerance) and a demographic questionnaire with the request to list 10 creative persons and their given field. Results indicated that males and females tended to have similar levels of general creativity, yet the most frequently listed creative eminent persons tended to be male. The most frequently listed creative person selections were in science and art, with the three most frequently selected eminent persons being in the science domains. The most frequent creative person selections, consistently selected by at least 10 participants, were Caucasian males.     

The Impact of Affective States and Affective Shifts on Creative Ideation and Evaluation

This study aims to examine the impact of affective states and affective shifts on ideation and evaluation of creativity. Affects were induced by a two‐stage imagination procedure of recalling autobiographical experiences. Three periods of divergent thinking were measured to represent the participants’ creative ideation at different times. Creative evaluation was measured by estimating the originality of each response provided by the participants. The results indicate that (a) during the initial period of ideation, groups with positive affect obtain better creative ideation than the groups with neutral or negative affect. (b) The ideation in positive affect groups gradually decreases over time, while the ideation in negative affect groups gradually increases over time. (c) During the evaluation of originality, groups with negative affect have a higher proportion of over‐estimates and a lower proportion of under‐estimates than groups with positive affect. The viewpoints of cognitive tuning theory, which posit that the affective state influences creativity, are supported.     

Self‐reported differences in creativity by ethnicity and gender

Creativity assessment has been proposed as a supplement to intellectual testing, in part because of reduced differences by ethnicity; creativity testing might also specifically help reduce stereotype threat. Recent trends in creativity research point to a domain‐specific view challenging the more traditional generalist view. With these trends in mind, the current study assessed creative self‐perceptions of 3553 students and community members in 56 different possible domains distributed across five factors (as determined by principal components analysis). African Americans were less likely to fall prone to gender stereotypes in creativity. In addition, African Americans and Native Americans tended to rate themselves as more creative than other ethnicities. Specific trends in the factors and implications for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Taking the Focus Away from the Self: Low Individualism Mediates the Effect of Oxytocin on Creativity

Recently, it has been shown that the hormone oxytocin can enable creative cognition. The aim of this investigation was to examine the psychological mechanism via which oxytocin influences creativity. Two opposing explanatory approaches suggested by previous research were investigated: It was predicted that the effect of oxytocin on creativity would be determined by low versus high individualism, especially in people with low levels of anxiety. Participants filled out an anxiety questionnaire and intranasally administered oxytocin or a placebo. After a 40-min waiting period, they performed a creativity task and indicated their level of individualism. Participants with low levels of anxiety showed heightened creative potential under oxytocin, and this relationship was mediated by low individualism. The results could not be explained by changes in the participants’ affective state. The findings underscore the moderating role of dispositional factors and reveal an important factor to understand the role of oxytocin in human behavior.     

心理弹性如何影响员工创造力：心理安全感与创造力自我效能感的作用

摘 要 通过对350名知识型员工及其领导的配对问卷调查,探讨心理弹性对知识型员工创造力的作用机制。结果表明,心理弹性对心理安全感有显著的正向影响;心理安全感完全中介了心理弹性对创造力的影响;创造力自我效能感调节了心理安全感对创造力的正向作用;创造力自我效能感调节了心理安全感在心理弹性与创造力之间的中介作用。     

Relationship Between Acculturation and Attitudes Toward Gay Men and Lesbians in the Vietnamese American Community

We examined the impact of acculturation on attitudes toward gay men and lesbians in the Vietnamese American community. We recruited 114 Vietnamese American participants at a large community organization. The Suinn–Lew Asian Self‐Identity Acculturation Scale ( Suinn, 1992 ) was used to measure participants' acculturation levels, while the Attitudes Toward Lesbian and Gay Men Scale ( Herek, 2004 ) was used to measure participants' attitudes toward homosexuality. It was hypothesized that Vietnamese Americans with higher levels of acculturation would have more positive attitudes toward homosexuality. The results supported this hypothesis. Additionally, we found a complicated pattern of results explaining attitudes based on acculturation level, age, and gender.     

Culture and judgment of causal relevance

The authors hypothesized that because the causal theories of East Asians were more holistic and complex than those of Americans, the amount of information considered before making a final attribution would be larger for East Asians than for Americans. This hypothesis was supported through 4 studies. When participants attempted to explain a deviant behavior (Study 1) or a prosocial behavior (Study 2), Korean participants took into consideration a greater amount of information than did either American or Asian American participants. Study 3 replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 within each culture. Finally, Study 4 established a link between the present findings and past research on culture and attribution. Namely, Study 4 found that Koreans made more external attributions than Americans because Koreans considered more information than did Americans.     

Social Media Use and Creativity: Exploring the Influences on Ideational Behavior and Creative Activity

This study explored the relationship between social media (SM) use and creativity. The data collected from 407 participants included indicators such as time spent using SM, frequency of SM use, purposes for using SM, and the nature of SM use. The data involved two aspects of creativity: ideational behavior and creative activity and accomplishment. Correlational analyses indicate that SM use is positively related to both creativity measures. Overall, the active use of SM (e.g., sending a post) is more related to creativity than the passive use (e.g., reading others’ posts); and the link between creativity and SM use is more evident for certain platforms (i.e., Twitter) than others (e.g., Instagram). Ideational behavior and creative activity were also found to be higher among those who use SM primarily for expressing their ideas and opinions, gleaning information on topics to discuss and self‐education and learning compared with those who use it primarily for entertainment or relaxation. None of the creativity measures used was related to extraversion and excessive use of SM. Our findings indicate that SM is not necessarily a negative factor for creativity; it may even be a useful platform to support new ideas and projects.     

The Function of Ethnicity, Income Level, and Menstrual Taboos in Postmenarcheal Adolescents’ Understanding of Menarche and Menstruation

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in knowledge about menstruation, feelings of preparation for menarche, and menstrual attitudes of early adolescent girls from different ethnic groups and income levels. An interaction between ethnicity and income level was also investigated. Participants were 165 postmenarcheal adolescent girls’ (ages 11–15) from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, who were categorized into four groups: higher income European Americans, lower income European Americans, higher income African Americans, and lower income African Americans. It was predicted that African Americans, lower income participants, and lower income African Americans would score lower on a menstrual knowledge test, report feeling less prepared for menarche, and report more negative menstrual attitudes (i.e., fewer positive feelings about menstruation, more negative feelings about menstruation, and less openness toward menstruation) than European Americans, higher income participants, and any other income level and ethnicity grouping. Not all hypotheses were fully supported. Participants’ lacked accurate menstrual knowledge and felt unprepared for menarche, but menstrual attitudes were ambivalent. Ethnicity and income level alone did not play a substantial role in girls’ understanding of menarche and menstruation; however, they did interact. Overall, higher income European Americans fared better than the other participants. Theories and research regarding girls’ understanding of menarche and menstruation must take sociocultural factors into account.     

Relationships Between Bilingualism and Adaptive Creative Style,Innovative Creative Style,and Creative Strengths Among Korean American Students

The purpose of this study was to examine whether there is a relationship among different degrees of bilingualism and creativity (adaptive creative style, innovative creative style, creative strengths). A total of 116 Korean American students participated in this study. They consisted of 49 boys with the mean age of 11.8 and 65 girls with the mean age of 11.3. The Word Association Test and the Subjective Self Rating were used to determine the degrees of bilingualism, and the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking–Figural was used to measure creative potential. The results indicated that the degree of bilingualism was positively associated with creativity, and more specifically, with the adaptive creative style and creative strengths.     

Creative People Create Values: Creativity and Positive Arousal in Negotiations

Most negotiations are ill-structured situations, and the ability to identify novel options is likely to be crucial for success. This study, therefore, examined how creativity impacts negotiation processes and outcomes, and how this effect is moderated by positive arousal. The negotiators’ creative personality and their state of positive arousal were measured before they participated in a simulated negotiation, with the results demonstrating that the level of creativity in negotiation dyads was positively related to the negotiators’ joint outcome. Negotiators in high creativity dyads searched for more information by asking questions about priorities and were less narrowly focused by providing fewer single-issue offers than negotiators in low creativity dyads. Positive arousal did not affect outcome directly, but moderated the effect of creativity on joint outcomes; the effect of creativity was strongest under high levels of positive arousal. The discussion section emphasizes that future research may find creativity to have even more of a positive effect when negotiations become more complex.     

American and Chinese Similarities and Differences in Defining and Valuing Creative Products

This review of the literature explores how Americans and Chinese view creativity and what they expect from creative products. American and Chinese explicit beliefs about creativity (i.e., expert opinions) share many similarities. Implicit beliefs, however, show more divergence: Americans tend to value novelty and more “groundbreaking” types of creativity, whereas Chinese tend to appreciate creativity within constraints, such as reworking a traditional concept. The context of how people respond to creativity obviously varies by culture, although there are also some communal and universal creative ideals.     

Confucian Ideology and Creativity

The study examines an important philosophical root for the Chinese notion of creativity, that is, the Confucianism, and concludes that the Confucian ideology has shaped how Chinese have viewed creativity in the past, and may still have a great impact on how contemporary Chinese perceive creativity.     

The Moderating Role of Agreeableness in the Relationship between Experiencing Anger and Creative Performance

Previous studies regarding the effect of experiencing anger on creative performance have shown controversial findings. Some studies have reported that anger hampers creative performance, whereas others have shown that anger promotes cognitive motivation and improves creative performance. Anger is associated with hostility, threats, and conflict, states that are congruent with low agreeableness. In contrast, anger is incompatible with an agreeable individual's preference for harmony and peace. Experiencing this negative activating emotion should be demanding and stressful to them and thereby hamper creative task engagement. Accordingly, we conducted an experimental study to examine whether agreeableness moderated the association between anger and creative performance. A total of 128 undergraduates were randomly assigned to receive either induced anger or a neutral emotion and then completed a creativity task. We found that participants with lower levels of agreeableness showed better fluency, flexibility, and originality in creativity in the anger relative to the neutral-emotion condition, whereas participants with higher levels of agreeableness showed better creative performance in the neutral emotion relative to the anger condition. The present findings not only provide a viable account for integrating inconsistent findings regarding the facilitating effect of anger on creativity but also contribute to contingent strategies for promoting creative performance.     

Social identity,attribution, and emotion: Comparisons of Americans,Korean Americans,and Koreans

The social identity of another person, in addition to the social identity of self, can be an important factor affecting the types of attribution judgments and emotions that individuals indicate for the other person. In April 2007, the perpetrator of the shooting incident on the Virginia Tech University campus was identified as a person who emigrated to the USA from Korea at a young age. The current study compared non‐Korean Americans, Korean Americans, Koreans in the USA, and Koreans in Korea in terms of their attributions and emotions concerning the perpetrator and the shooting incident. Participants were asked to indicate (1) the extent to which they attributed the cause of the incident to either American society or the perpetrator, (2) their emotions (e.g., upset), and (3) the extent to which they categorized the perpetrator as an American, a Korean American, or a Korean. The results indicated that non‐Korean Americans were most likely to attribute the cause of the incident to the perpetrator as opposed to American society. Non‐Korean Americans, Korean Americans, and Koreans in the United States had more negative emotions (e.g., unhappy, sad, and upset) about the incident than Koreans in Korea did. The results also indicated that individuals differed in their attributions and emotions depending on how they categorized the perpetrator. For example, categorizing the perpetrator as being a Korean was positively related to Americans’ tendency to hold the perpetrator responsible, while categorizing the perpetrator as being an American was negatively related to the tendency to hold the perpetrator responsible among Koreans in Korea. The findings may imply that social identity theory, intergroup emotion theory, and cultural orientations (e.g., individualism and collectivism) can provide insights into people's reactions to a tragic incident.