Creativity And Diversity: How Exposure To Different People Affects Our Thinking

July 27, 2020 / 3:27 pm

There is great comfort in the familiar. It's one reason humans often flock to other people who share the same interests, laugh at the same jokes, hold the same political views. But familiar ground may not be the best place to cultivate creativity.

Social scientist Adam Galinsky has found that people who have deep relationships with someone from another country become more creative and score higher on routine creativity tests.

"There's something about deeply understanding and learning about another culture that's transformative," Adam says.

In one study, Adam and his colleagues tracked business school students during a 10-month MBA program. They tested the students using standard creativity measures at the beginning and end of the school term. They found that students who'd dated someone from another country during the term became more creative. In another study, Adam found that even the simple act of reflecting on one's deep relationship with a person from another country caused a temporary boost in creativity.

Adam's research outside the lab echoes these findings. In one of Adam's favorite projects, he looked at fashion lines presented by major fashion houses over 21 seasons. He found that the time fashion designers spent immersed in a different culture "predicted their entire fashion line creativity."

This week on Hidden Brain, we look at the powerful connection between the ideas we dream up and the people who surround us, and what it really takes to think outside the box.

Additional Resources:

Adam Galinsky is a professor of business at Columbia Business School. In addition to his research on diversity and creativity, he's co-author of the book Friend and Foe, which offers new ways of thinking about conflict and cooperation.

Harvard economics professor Richard Freeman has an interesting study on diversity in science. He found that published scientific research receives greater attention if the authors are ethnically diverse.

Cristina Pato is a Galician bagpiper, pianist and composer.