Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

This special issue enriches the study of creativity and innovation as a cultural and social process. Authors of nine articles jointly contribute to a nuanced and systematical inquiry into the cultural perspective of creativity. Their topics of investigation include lay conceptions of creativity in different cultures, different natures and manifestations of creativity and innovation, the influence of cultural values, norms, and multiculturalism on creativity, and the dialogical coevolvement between culture and creativity. The collection of articles in this issue presents cutting-edge evidence and lays the groundwork for an active dialogue about integrating the study of culture and creativity.

Creativity and innovation have become critical organizational capabilities in today’s global environment, and leveraging creative potential of employees across various cultural contexts has become increasingly important. Although recognized among researchers, cross-cultural differences in creativity are not yet well understood. We contribute to this line of research by constructing a theoretical model that focuses on cultural differences in cognition (i.e., holistic vs. analytic thinking) that affect the evaluation of creative ideas. The cultural cognition perspective allows us to theorize about the interrelationship between an idea’s novelty and its usefulness. We propose that to the extent there is a trade-off between an idea’s novelty and usefulness, cultural differences in cognition will systematically influence the trade-off relationship such that Easterners will perceive a stronger trade-off between novelty and usefulness as compared with their Western counterparts. Such effects of cultural cognition, however, can be reduced by contextual factors of multicultural exposure, cognitive team diversity, and organizational climate for innovation. Our cultural cognition perspective complements the extant cultural value and social norms perspectives on cross-cultural differences in creativity and innovation.

The present study contributes to innovation research by distinguishing between national innovation in the knowledge and technology domain (knowledge and technology output) versus that in the creative industries (creative output), and examining how these two types of innovation would benefit from high-quality basic education in different cultural contexts. We argue that because creative output requires symbolic knowledge (i.e., negotiation of new meanings), it would benefit from a national context that has not only high-quality basic education but also favorable cultural values (low self-protective values or high self-expansion values). By contrast, knowledge and technology output requires analytic and synthetic knowledge mainly and thus would benefit from high-quality basic education regardless of cultural values. To test these ideas, we performed regression analyses using three archival datasets (the Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA], the Schwartz Value Survey, and the Global Innovation Index) of 32 nations. The results in general supported our predictions such that a high level of self-protective values dampens the positive relationship between quality of basic education and creative output only, but not knowledge and technology output. Implications of these findings were discussed.

The current study examines cultural value mediators of the relationship between culture and the relative weight placed on novelty versus usefulness when conceptualizing creativity. With a sample of Chinese and Caucasian Canadian undergraduate students, we found that uncertainty avoidance, but not power distance or individualism/collectivism, mediated the relationship between culture and preferences toward the novel versus useful dimensions of creativity. We replicated the effect of uncertainty avoidance in a second study with Chinese Canadians’ bicultural identity integration predicting focus on novelty versus usefulness in the predicted direction. We advance prior research by isolating a cultural value mechanism driving cultural variation in the conceptualization of creativity when considering novelty versus usefulness. We discuss theoretical contributions and implications for future research addressing additional creativity domains, situated cognition, and norm salience.

This study aims to examine why and how individuals’ self-reported engagement in creative work is separately and jointly influenced by dispositional, situational, and national-cultural factors worldwide. Using data abstracted from the World Value Survey, we proposed a multi-level model testing how the relationship between individuals’ creative value orientation and their self-reported creative work engagement is contingent on perceived job autonomy and how such interaction is further moderated by the dimension of national socialization for Self-Directedness in developing its human capital. Data provided by a total of 35,120 employees from 50 nations were included in our hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses. As hypothesized, the relationship between an employee’s creative value orientation and creative job engagement is moderated by job autonomy, such that the relationship is stronger when the job held is more autonomous rather than less. However, the relationship of this Person × Situation interaction to creative work engagement was not as extensive as expected—It is stronger in nations emphasizing Self-Directedness in socializing its children. Our findings thus offer conceptual guidelines and practical insights to national and firm leaders aspiring to effect actions for creativity using both personal and situational factors in a given national-cultural context.

Creativity plays an important role in the advancement of all societies around the world, yet the role of cultural influences on creativity is still unclear. Following systems theory, activity theory, and ecocultural theory, semistructured interviews with 30 renowned artists (writers, composers, and visual artists) from Cuba, Germany, and Russia were conducted to explore the complexity of the creative process and potential cultural differences. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using consensual qualitative research methodology. The following eight main domains resulted from the interviews: How I became an artist, What being an artist means to me, Creating as a cognitive process, Creating as an emotional process, Creating as a motivational process, Fostering factors of creativity, Hindering factors, and The role of culture in creating. Artists in the three countries similarly talked about creativity being a fluid process where ideas change, and elaborated on the role of intuition and the unconscious when creating art. Meaningful cross-cultural differences were seen among the artists of three cultural backgrounds in terms of attitudes about financial instability, in how they perceive themselves, in their art’s societal function, in the cognitive and in the emotional process of creating, and in terms of social connectedness. Results highlight (a) the complexity of the creative process going beyond cognitive factors and including motivational, emotional, and sociocultural factors, and (b) the cultural differences in the creative process. Results are beneficial for further developing a comprehensive theory of the creative process taking cultural differences into consideration.

This study examines how culture affects the normative processes implicated in cultural differences in creative behaviors. Western norms prioritize originality and Eastern norms usefulness. In a cross-cultural study, we found significant performance differences in terms of originality and usefulness between Americans and Taiwanese only when these norms were salient, as when the task required individuals to select ideas (vs. generate new ideas) or to work in a group (vs. work alone). Compared with Taiwanese, Americans generated more original ideas when they worked in a group or when the task required them to select ideas for further elaboration. When required to select ideas in a group, norms were most salient and Americans’ relative advantage over Taiwanese in originality was most pronounced. In contrast, compared with Americans, Taiwanese generated more useful ideas when they worked in a group or when the task required them to select ideas for further elaboration. When required to select ideas in a group, Taiwanese’s advantage over Americans in usefulness was most pronounced. Moreover, although Americans and Taiwanese were equally capable of generating original and useful ideas, Taiwanese teams tended to express useful ideas and hold back original ones in group discussion. In contrast, American teams tended to hold back useful ideas. The theoretical and future research implications of these findings are discussed.

We examine the multiculturalism–creativity link from the perspective of diversifying experiences research. Multicultural experiences can be construed as diversifying experiences—highly unusual and unexpected events or situations (e.g., unusual educational experiences, early life adversity) that push individuals outside the frameworks of their ordinary everyday lives, forcing them to embrace new and uncommon ideas. Our review identifies a range of diversifying experiences (e.g., multicultural exposure, unexpected adversity, violations of expectations) that have been found to influence creativity. We introduce the Diversifying Experience Model (DEM), where we argue for a curvilinear relationship between diversifying experiences and creativity, whereby creativity improves as a result of moderate (but not low or high) levels of diversifying experiences. We also propose adaptive personal resources as the key moderator, and threat and challenge appraisals as the key mediators of the diversifying experience–creativity relation. When adaptive resources are high, moderate diversifying experiences are appraised primarily as a challenge, facilitating creativity, whereas when adaptive resources are low, moderate diversifying experiences are appraised primarily as a threat, derailing creativity. This broad and parsimonious theoretical framework can help clarify and expand research on when and why various diversifying experiences (including multicultural experiences) facilitate creativity.

Past research shows that democracy is valued more in affluent societies with challenging climate than in other societies. Building on this finding, the present study examines how the amount of institutional and value support for cultural pluralism in a society is related to its climate and level of innovation performance. Cultural pluralism is defined as the societal condition in which minority groups within a society can maintain their distinctive cultural identities, values, and practices provided that they are consistent with the laws and values of the wider society. Institutions and values that support cultural pluralism include political democracy, tolerance for uncertainty, prioritization of secular-rational values, and openness to foreign cultures. I hypothesize that institutional and value support for cultural pluralism is stronger in societies with more challenging climate and higher innovation performance. I tested this hypothesis using society-level measures of harshness of climatic condition and innovation performance as predictors. The results showed that in societies with demanding climate and high innovation performance, their citizens tend to support democracy, are more tolerant of uncertainty, prioritize secular-rational values, and take more leisure trips outside of their home country. These results illustrate that innovation, through its moderation effect on climate, predicts the amount of institutional and value support for cultural pluralism, highlighting the reciprocal effects of culture and innovation.

This article presents a cross-cultural study on the mediating role of implicit theories of innovativeness in the relationship between basic values and specific attitudes toward innovation. Modernized samples (399 Russians from Moscow and Novokuznetsk) and more traditional samples (194 Chechens and Ingushs from North Caucasus and 200 Tuvins from the Tuva Republic) within the Russian Federation completed the Schwartz Value Survey (SVS), measures of attitudes toward innovation, and an Adjective Check List adapted for measuring implicit theories of innovativeness in the current samples. Main findings include (a) a split in individual and social aspects of implicit theories of innovativeness, (b) different mediation of the effects of Openness to Change and Conservation values, and (c) differences in mediation models between the two samples. Implications of these findings for cross-cultural studies on innovativeness are discussed.