Maddux and Galinsky (2009) have published a thought-provoking article reporting a significantly positive relationship between living abroad and creativity. The researchers wanted to answer the question:"does spending time in new cultures transform individuals into more creative beings?" Using five creative contexts to answer the question, the researchers said that in one test that involved a creative negotiation deal, the results indicated that "the amount of time spent living abroad, but not traveling abroad, significantly predicted whether a deal was reached even when [they] controlled for a variety of important personality and demographic factors. Openness to experience predicted creative deals . . . " Access to a greater number of novel ideas and concepts; ability to approach problems from different perspectives; and psychological readiness to accept and recruit ideas from unfamiliar sources -- which may lead to unconscious idea recombination and conceptual expansion, both being critical processes in the creative process, are among the elements that contribute to the creativity. I think this article will spawn a long list of research. It leads to many questions, some of which I can guess to be: Is there is a positive relationship between living in another culture, within a country, and creativity? For example, are Kambas who have lived in Nyanza more creative than those who never left Ukambani? If so, how long would they need to live in the alien culture to improve their creativity? What are the educational policy implications for educational institutions - does having a students spend a good amount of time in a foreign culture improve their creativity? At what age should one go abroad, and for how long, in order to improve their creativity? The complete citation for the article is: Maddux, William W. and Adam D. Galinsky. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 96, No. 5, pp. 1047-1061. Here is a link to the article: http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/psp9651047.pdf And a summary of the article is also here: http://www.apa.org/releases/creativity.html What do you think? I'd be interested in your take on the article. Best regards, DBL