Expat Creativity
Studies by William Maddux & Adam Galinsky (”Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers: The Relationship between Living Abroad and Creativity“) have proved that there is a link between creativity and living in a foreign country.
The researchers presented 150 US business students and 55 foreign ones studying in America with a test used by psychologists as a measure of creativity. Given a candle, some matches and a box of drawing pins, the students were asked to attach the candle to a cardboard wall so that no wax would drip on the floor when the candle was lit. (The solution is to use the box as a candleholder and fix it to the wall with the pins.) They found 60% of students who were either living abroad or had spent some time doing so, solved the problem, whereas only 42% of those who had not lived abroad did so.
A follow-up study with 72 Americans and 36 foreigners explored their creative negotiating skills. Pairs of students were asked to play the role of a seller of a gas station who then needed to get a job and a buyer who would need to hire staff to run the business. The two were likely to reach an impasse because the buyer had been told he could not afford what the seller was told was his minimum price. Where both negotiators had lived abroad 70% struck a deal in which the seller was offered a management job at the petrol station in return for a lower asking price. When neither of the negotiators had lived abroad, none was able to reach a deal.
When the researchers used statistical controls to filter out personality traits (such as openness to new experiences) that are known to predict creativity, the statistical relationship between living abroad and creativity remained. According to the researchers, this suggests that living in foreign parts that helps foster creativity, rather than the correlation being due to creative people’s penchant for moving to foreign countries.
“Expats at work, The Economist