Interactive Effects of Multicultural Experiences and Openness to Experience on Creative Potential

Extensiveness of multicultural experiences and Openness to Experience were used to predict European American undergraduates' performance on two measures of creative potential: (a) generation of unusual uses of garbage bags and (b) retrieval of nonprototypical or normatively inaccessible exemplars in the conceptual domain of occupation. The results showed that having extensive multicultural experiences predicted better performance on both measures of creative potential only among participants who were open to experience. Among those who were not open, having more extensive multicultural experiences was associated with a lower level of creative potential. Implications of these findings for promoting creativity in schools are discussed.     

Multicultural experience enhances creativity: the when and how

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.     

The Relationship of Promotion Focus,Need for Cognitive Closure,and Categorical Accessibility in American and Hong Kong Chinese University Students

Categorical accessibility is a cognitive factor that limits the extent of creative conceptual expansion. In the present study, we sought to establish the categorical accessibility norms in five conceptual domains among American and Hong Kong Chinese university students. In addition, we predicted that the tendency to access normatively inaccessible exemplars in a conceptual domain is positively related to the motivation to maximize the likelihood of attaining positive outcomes (promotion focus) and negatively related to the need for cognitive closure. We obtained the predicted relationships among both American and Hong Kong Chinese university students. These findings were discussed in terms of their implications for promoting creativity across cultures.     

What Constitutes a Good Life? Cultural Differences in the Role of Positive and Negative Affect in Subjective Well‐Being

ABSTRACT East Asians and Asian Americans report lower levels of subjective well-being than Europeans and European Americans. Three studies found support for the hypothesis that such differences may be due to the psychological meanings Eastern and Western cultures attach to positive and negative affect. Study 1 demonstrated that the desire to repeat a recent vacation was significantly predicted by recalled positive affect—but not recalled negative affect—for European Americans, whereas Asian Americans considered both positive and negative affect. Study 2 replicated this effect in judging satisfaction with a personal friendship. Study 3 linked changes in European Americans' life satisfaction to everyday positive events caused by the self (vs. others) and changes in Japanese life satisfaction to everyday negative events caused by others (vs. the self). Positive affect appears particularly meaningful for European Americans and negative affect for Asian Americans and Japanese when judging a satisfying vacation, friendship, or life.     

Cultural variations in pre-emptive effort downplaying

Pre-emptive effort downplaying (PED) occurs when people publicly downplay their effort expenditure on test preparation prior to taking a test for the sake of managing the social evaluation of the self in the face of a challenging performance task. Thirty Asian Americans and 29 European Americans had two opportunities to publicly report their effort expenditure on a practice exercise. They also completed measures of self-evaluations and concern for performance before working on the practice exercise, and the self-evaluation measure again at the completion of the actual test. Only European Americans showed PED. Additionally, concern for performance was positively associated with and mediated cultural variations in PED. The implications of these results are discussed.     

What do we learn from the Implicit Association Test about intergroup attitudes in Hong Kong? The case of social identification inclusiveness and need for closure

The current study tests an implication of the Associative-Propositional Evaluation model of implicit and explicit attitude measures in Hong Kong's intergroup context. We argued that the Implicit Association Test taps associative intergroup evaluations that are not necessarily consistent with the propositional implications of one's social identification inclusiveness and need for closure. In contrast, explicit intergroup attitude measures tap propositional evaluations resulting from validating the inferences drawn from pertinent propositional information in the evaluation context. Thus, explicit intergroup attitude should be consistent with the propositional implications of social identification inclusiveness and need for closure. We tested and found support for these hypotheses in a study of Hong Kong adolescents' ( N  = 65) perception of Hong Kong people and Mainland Chinese.     

Bicultural mind, self-construal, and self- and mother-reference effects: Consequences of cultural priming on recognition memory

Two experiments showed that American (vs. Chinese) culture priming influences Beijing Chinese undergraduates’ self-construal and its attendant memory strategies. Following American culture priming (vs. Chinese culture priming or control), the participants used relatively more independent self-statements and fewer interdependent self-statements to describe the self (Experiment 1). They also performed more poorly in a delayed recognition test if they had encoded the study materials (personality adjectives) with reference to the mother (Experiment 2). These results demonstrate the activation effect of culture on self-construal and its attendant memory processes. The results also show that biculturals can access different cultural conceptions of the self and change cognitive strategies flexibly in response to cues of changing cultural demands in the immediate context.     

Managing intergroup attitudes among Hong Kong adolescents: Effects of social category inclusiveness and time pressure

Previous research has shown a widespread bias among Hong Kong adolescents against Chinese Mainlanders. Based on social identity and social cognitive theories, we examined the effects of identity frame switching (situational induction of social category inclusiveness) and time pressure (environmental constraints on social information processing) on Hong Kong adolescents' attitudes toward Chinese Mainlanders. Results indicated that Hong Kong adolescents had acquired a habitual tendency to make social comparisons within an exclusive regional framework of reference. This habitual tendency might lead to negative judgment biases toward Chinese Mainlanders, particularly when the adolescents made social judgments under time pressure. In addition, switching to an inclusive national frame of reference for social comparison attenuated negative intergroup attitudes. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Chinese Cultural Collectivism and Work-Related Stress: Implications for Employment Counselors

The influence and damage of work-related stress on employees from different cultures may well be the same, but the form of stressors may not be so. Stress is influenced by cultural and social variables such as values, attitudes, and perceptions. The collectivism-individualism construct was suggested to measure cultural variables and attempt to explain the differences of some social behaviors between Eastern and Western people. Eastern cultures like the Chinese and the Japanese are collectivistic, whereas Western cultures such as the American and Canadian are individualistic. As members of an Asian collectivistic society, Hong Kong Chinese workers tend to interpret and handle work-related stress differently from Westerners, despite the fact that they have been exposed to western business practices. Like Asian Americans, they are often caught between their collectivistic tradition and an increasingly competetive individualistic market place. Employment counselors should take cultural issues into consideration as they provide consultation or counseling services to people who are searching for satisfying work environments.     

全球化背景下的文化排斥反应

全球化导致文化价值观的跨国界传播, 也可能因为侵蚀地方(local)传统文化使人感到恐慌。文化排斥现象就是人们对全球化过程的反应之一, 它是指人们为了使传统文化免遭污染而可能对外来文化表现出的排斥。文化排斥反应出现的前提是双文化启动效应, 即在两种或多种文化共同出现的情境中文化的类别属性被凸显出来。其中, 厌恶性情绪是双文化情境激发出文化排斥反应的中介机制。文化排斥反应具有的边界属性：内群体象征性文化被污染、人们感知到外来文化的入侵性、或存在性动机被唤起、具有较高认知需求、受类别化思维启动、对外来文化认同较低或对内群文化认同较高时, 人们更倾向于对外来文化表现出排斥性反应。未来研究将借鉴文化排斥研究范式探讨更广泛的群际关系问题。