Insead research shows living abroad linked to creativity

This research, published by the American Psychological Association, is the first of its kind to look at the link between living abroad and creativity.

'Gaining experience in foreign cultures has long been a classic prescription for artists interested in stimulating their imaginations or honing their crafts. But does living abroad actually make people more creative?' asks the study's lead author, William Maddux, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Insead. 'It's a longstanding question that we feel we've been able to begin answering through this research.'

Maddux and Adam Galinsky, PhD, from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, conducted five studies to test the idea that living abroad and creativity are linked. Across two studies, the pair made the following findings: students who'd spent more time abroad were more likely to work out how to affix a candle to a wall without the wax spilling and those who spent more time abroad were more likely to succeed in an awkward negotiation task that required a creative solution than were students primed to think about travelling abroad or the last time they went to a supermarket. In both studies, time spent travelling abroad did not matter; only living abroad was related to creativity.

Maddux and Galinsky then ran a follow-up study to see why living abroad was related to creativity. With a group of MBA students at Insead, they found that the more students had adapted themselves to the foreign cultures when they lived abroad, the more likely they were to solve the Duncker candle task.

Although the studies show a strong relationship between living abroad and creativity, they do not prove that living abroad and adapting to a new culture actually cause people to be more creative.

Maddux added:

"We just couldn't randomly assign people to live abroad while others stay in their own country."

In two experiments, they asked groups of undergraduate students at a University in Paris to recall and write about a time they had lived abroad or adapted to a new culture; other groups were asked to write about separate experiences, such as going to the supermarket, learning a new sport or simply observing but not adapting to a new culture.

The results showed that priming students to mentally recreate their past experiences living abroad or adapting to a new culture caused students, at least temporarily, to be more creative. For example, these students drew space aliens and solved word games more creatively than students primed to recall other experiences.

"This research may have something to say about the increasing impact of globalisation on the world, a fact that has been hammered home by the recent financial crisis, said Maddux.

"Knowing that experiences abroad are critical for creative output makes study abroad programs and job assignments in other cou'ntries that much more important, especially for people and companies that put a premium on creativity and innovation to stay competitive."

With the growth of the United Arab Emirates' population exceeding 300% in the past two decades, fuelled by the expatriate migration into the country, these findings carry interesting local relevance. According to Professor Phillip Anderson, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Academic Director at the Abu Dhabi Centre, "The UAE is increasingly regarded as the creative hub of the region, whether it is business innovation, architecture, advertising industry or so on. The combination of the UAE Nationals gaining exposure to the international marketplace and the skilled migratory expatriates can only be good news for boosting innovation and spurring creativity in the UAE."