Live and Learn Abroad to Boost Creativity

You’ve been overseas and you’re back in the US looking for work. Not many job descriptions say that the “ideal candidate will have lived outside the US.” So what transferable qualities or skills have your experiences developed in you? How about adaptability, flexibility, resilience, and empathy?

Here’s something else you can add to your qualifications, and there’s research to back up the claim: creativity.

Finding the Relationship between Creativity and Living Cross-Culturally

A few years ago, William Maddux and Adam Galinsky conducted a series of experiments that demonstrate the link between living abroad and creativity.

In the first, the pair showed that the more time a subject had spent living (though not traveling) abroad, the more likely it was for him to solve a particular puzzle. But the cause-effect relationship wasn’t clear. What if it’s simply because creative people choose more often to live abroad?
The second experiment verified the results, this time using built-in controls for personality factors that are linked to creativity in order to isolate the effects of living abroad.
The third study had subjects who had previously lived abroad think and write about their experiences. They were then tested, showing a temporary increase in creativity.
Study number four looked at adaption to a new culture as the main driver of increased creativity. It showed that the more a person adapted, immersing herself in a culture, the higher the creativity.
And, finally, the fifth study followed up by showing that subjects with past living-abroad experience who then imagined and wrote about adapting to a foreign culture exhibited higher levels of creativity in a subsequent exercise.

(William Maddux and Adam Galinsky, “Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers: The Relationship between Living Abroad and Creativity,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, May 2009)

Wanting to Live Abroad Isn’t the Same

As described in a recent article in Pacific Standard, researchers at the University of Florida, Gainesville, further validated the idea that studying abroad increases creativity, rather than vice versa. The study, by Christine Lee, David Therriault, and Tracy Linderholm, looked at three groups of students: those who had studied abroad, those who were planning to study abroad, and those who had not nor were planning to study abroad. The first group scored higher than the other two in levels of creative thinking, suggesting that it’s the actual experience of living overseas, rather than a personality type that is inclined to do so.

(Tom Jacobs, “To Boost Creativity, Study Abroad,” Pacific Standard, August 6, 2012; Christine Lee, David Therriault, and Tracy Linderholm, abstract of “On the Cognitive Benefits of Cultural Experience: Exploring the Relationship between Studying Abroad and Creative Thinking,” Applied Cognitive Psychology, July 2012)

Diversification and Flexibility

In the abstract to their research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers from the Netherlands and California note that “past research has linked creativity to unusual and unexpected experiences, such as early parental loss or living abroad.” Their experiments suggest that it is the “diversifying” aspect of these experiences that brings about great “cognitive flexibility.”

(Simone Ritter, et al., abstract of “Diversifying Experiences Enhance Cognitive Flexibility,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2012)

Learning the Whys of Culture Helps Even More

Back to Maddux and Galinsky, this time joined by Hajo Adam. Working on the idea that adapting to a new culture brings about novel ways of thinking, the researchers asked, “What is it about adaptation to foreign environments that is critical for facilitating the creative process?” They hypothesized that it is learning about a foreign culture in a multicultural setting that boosts creativity, To test this, the researchers assembled a group of university students in Paris who had previously lived abroad. They then “primed” part of the group by having them think and write about a time when they had learned about another culture. Others in the group did the same about a time of learning about their own culture. As predicted, the first group scored higher in a followup test of creativity.

The three then focused on “functional learning,” or “learning about the underlying reasons for observed foreign rituals, rules, and behaviors.” Subsequent experiments showed that creativity increased even more when the priming focused on not only on learning something new about another culture but learning when the subjects were actually able to find out the reason behind the cultural differences.

(William Maddux, Hajo Adam, and Adam Galinsky, “When in Rome . . . Learn Why the Romans Do What They Do: How Multicultural Learning Experiences Facilitate Creativity,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, June 2010)

Boosting Your Resume in a Globalized World

So, in review, if you want to develop your creativity, here’s the plan:

live overseas
adapt to another culture
learn about that culture
and learn why a culture is the way it is

In an article posted by the Kellogg School of Management, Maddux tells the American Psychological Association that their research

may have something to say about the increasing impact of globalization on the world, a fact that has been hammered home by the recent financial crisis. Knowing that experiences abroad are critical for creative output makes study abroad programs and job assignments in other countries that much more important, especially for people and companies that put a premium on creativity and innovation to stay competitive.

(Audrey Hamilton, “Living Outside the Box: New Research by Kellogg Professor Adam Galinsky Suggests That Living Abroad Boosts Creativity,” Kellogg School of Management, April 23, 2009)

[photo: “Globeism,” by Joel Ormsby, used under a Creative Commons license]

Comfort vs Encouragement: Jesus’ Responses to Mary and Martha

The past few weeks have been kind of tough for my wife and me. Not long ago, we marked the one year anniversary of our return to the States after living in Taiwan for 10 years. We assumed that by this time we’d have this next stage of our life on track, but instead, we’ve got a lot of loose ends, still looking for full-time work and long-term housing. As Ruth Van Reken says (talking about Third Culture Kids, but it has broad applications), “Every time there’s transition, there is loss,” and then she adds that “where there’s loss, there’s grief.”

One of the ways I’ve dealt with our losses is by attending a “grief group.” While most of the other people in the meetings have lost loved ones, I have found it very helpful to hear their stories and learn general principles for dealing with grief.

The more I hear the experiences of those who are going through difficult times, the more I’m convinced that good listeners are hard to find—and I’m sure I don’t always fall into that category, myself. Too many people would rather offer quick-fix cliches than to share in another person’s grief. In fact, we even have a hard time accepting our own grief. Grief counselor Dr. Alan Wolfelt, in The Journey through Grief: Reflections on Healing, writes about the grieving process,

I must keep opening and changing through it all until I become the unique person who has transcended the pain and discovered self-compassion—a vulnerable yet grounded me who chooses to live again.

“Self-compassion” is an interesting concept, as compassion comes from the Latin com and pati, meaning “with” and “suffer,” respectively. So according to Wolfelt, we must discover how to “suffer with” ourselves.

In a previous post, I quoted Van Reken as saying,

There is a proper place for encouragement (“you’ll do fine,” “just think about others who have so much less,” etc.) but when it happens too soon, it can also abort the grieving process. Comfort is simply acknowledging the loss, validating its reality, and giving the person space to grieve properly before pushing him or her to move on or past it.

She elaborated on this idea in a presentation I heard her give several years ago, citing a wonderful example from the New Testament: When Jesus traveled to Bethany after the death of his friend Lazarus, Lazarus’s sister Martha came out to meet him:

“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

(John 11:221-27 NIV 1984)

This, says Van Reken, is an example of encouragement, given by Jesus because he knew the needs of Martha. But Van Reken sees herself more as a Mary, Lazarus’s other sister. According to Van Reken, Mary didn’t need encouragement, she needed comfort:

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.“Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

Jesus wept.

(John 11:32-35 NIV 1984)

While both sisters said the same thing to Jesus, he responded to them in different ways. Van Reken, in an e-mail discussion by the SIM AMK Task Force, says that while Jesus “appealed to [Martha’s] reason and gave her truth as information,” with Mary

Jesus entered into her experience with the truth of his compassion and comfort. Words to her would have bounced like icicles on her heart. Didn’t anyone CARE? And He showed, He cared. I love it that Jesus knows us well enough to meet us as the people He made us to be. I love it when He meets others in their way—but sometimes when they try to meet ME in their way, or I try to meet them in MY way, we can clash. I think they don’t care because they aren’t on the floor crying with me, and they think I’m a basket case who needs to look at the facts a little more clearly and I’ll be “just fine.”

I think that many of us are Marys. We need tears of compassion rather than words of reason. And I would suggest that, lacking the insight of the Son of God, we would do well to start with the kind of comfort that comes alongside those who are grieving, instead of trying to pull them out of their grief with our words or actions. There will be time for encouragement, when the griever is ready. For many of us, it’s not that we don’t understand the encouraging truths, it’s just that other truths, of loss and pain and sadness, are demanding our attention, and we push them away too soon at our own peril.

“My process has been hard at times because so much of our system of faith precludes the simplicity of the ‘Jesus wept’ verse,” says Van Reken. “And for whoever I am, those kinds of tears will change more for me than anything else. The problem with a quick spiritual answer is I actually KNOW the answer; I’m just not there yet.”

(Peter Katona, “More and More Americans Consider Themselves ‘Hidden Immigrants,’” Columbia News Service, February 27, 2007; Alan Wolfelt, The Journey through Grief: Reflections on Healing, Fort Collins: Companion Press, 1997, p 42; Ruth Van Reken, “Mary and Martha,” Simroots Open Dialogue)

[photo: “The Eye of Eliza,” by Augusto Serna, used under a Creative Commons license]

Why Your Accent Hurts Your Believability

I was recently wondering what kind of voice I’d like best on my GPS. I don’t really trust the computerized lady who currently gives me directions. She too often leads me down closed roads. If I had my choice (and by that, I mean if I were willing to pay for it), I’d like to have a nice, polite lady or gentleman from England telling me where to turn, and calmly repeating, “Recalculating,” with a proper British accent.

That got me to thinking about my response to people with “foreign” accents. Do my prejudices keep me from fully trusting non-native speakers of English? I would like to think, No, I’m a global citizen, and I don’t judge the truthfulness of what is said by how it is said. But research from the University of Chicago, published in 2010, suggests that I probably don’t know myself very well, and it all has little to do with prejudice.

Researchers Shiri Lev-Ari and Boaz Keysar conducted two experiments, testing their hypothesis that “processing difficulty,” or how hard it is to understand a spoken communication, plays a major role in judging the credibility of non-native speech. (The pair cite other examples of how “processing fluency” has been shown to influence believability, such as a phrase being chosen as more accurate because it rhymes, or judging a sentence more truthful because it is printed in an easy-to-read color.)

In the first experiment, Lev-Ari and Keysar had subjects listen to spoken trivia statements (e.g.: A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can) and then judge their truthfulness. Those speaking the statements were native-English speakers and non-native speakers with mild to heavy accents. In order to eliminate the effects of possible prejudice, the experimenters made it clear that the statements were not original to the speakers but that the speakers were simply reading out loud what had been given to them. As the researchers had predicted, the participants rated the statements spoken with an accent as less truthful, with the native speech producing the most credibility, and the heavily accented the least.

The second experiment furthered the results by testing whether the outcome would be affected if the participants were told up front that the exercise was studying the impact of accent on credibility. (In the first experiment, the subjects had been told that they were helping in the evaluation of “intuition in knowledge assessment.”) With this understanding, the participants tried to overcome the effects of processing difficulty, resulting in nearly identical rates of perceived truthfulness for statements spoken with native and mild accents. But when it came to heavily accented statements, even these enlightened participants rated them significantly less truthful.

So what does this tell us about communication between native and non-native speakers? First, difficulties in understanding play a major role in perceived credibility, even in the absence of prejudice. Second, even when we completely understand what is being said, an unnoticed difficulty in processing can impact our judgments of truthfulness. And third, a heavy accent can overcome even our best efforts at being fair and impartial.

This means that having no cultural prejudices (if that’s even possible) is not enough to eliminate unfair judgments. Maybe knowing this will give us a reason to show extra grace to the non-native speakers we encounter. And it can also help us better understand the inherent difficulties we face when attempting to communicate in another language: It’s just simply harder for our listeners to believe what we say when we say it with an accent. But we can take heart in this fact: It’s probably nothing personal.

(Shiri Lev-Ari and Boaz Keysar, “Why Don’t We Believe Non-Native Speakers? The Influence of Accent on Credibility,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, June 25, 2010)

[photo: “Incredulous Me,” by Toby Keller, used under a Creative Commons license]

An Adult Cross-Cultural Kid Creates “Home” in the “World’s Smallest House,” and You Can Too

When he was a child, Van Bo Le-Mentzel’s family relocated as refugees from Laos to Germany. Now an architect, he is redefining home.

“All my life,” Le-Mentzel tells CNN, “I was confronted with the question, What is home? Where do I belong to? Where is my home base? And where do I want to settle?”

One of his answers is his creation, the “one square meter house.” With it, he says, “I can settle wherever I want, because this is the one square meter that nobody is allowed to touch. It’s mine.”

Not only does he want do-it-yourselfers to build their own One SQM Houses, he also envisions them placed in public places in urban areas, each available as “one square meter of freedom,” a place to calm down, concentrate, pray, cry, or “whatever.”

Le-Mentzel is giving away plans for constructing his “world’s smallest house” (which, when completed costs about $300) at Hartz IV Möbel. The site also offers instructions on several other DIY projects, including the Berliner Hocker (Berlin Stool), shown in the video below. It’s a stackable modular bookshelf (a frugal man’s BrickBox?) that, with it’s asymmetrical design, can also serve as a desk, end table, and chair—I think he’s sitting on one inside his house in the video above.

Here’s to creativity spurred on by a cross-cultural life.

(Doug Gross, “Architect Designs ‘World’s Smallest House,'” CNN, July 25)

Can Grief and Joy Coexist?

There is a phrase in Mandarin Chinese, bei xi jiao ji (悲喜交集), meaning “mixed feelings of grief and joy.” Grief and joy aren’t commonly thought of as partners, but when faced with loss, cross-cultural workers need to understand that one doesn’t necessarily cancel the other one out.

Expressing Grief

Dr. Steve Sweatman, president and CEO of Mission Training International (MTI), says that the call to take the gospel of Christ to another culture “inevitably is a call to sacrifice, to losses, to things that you will have to leave behind or give up.” This sacrifice takes many forms, and MTI has identified five categories of loss experienced by Christian cross-cultural workers. They are

a stable home
identity
competence
support systems
a sense of safety

In an audio presentation at Member Care Radio (entitled “Good Grief“), Sweatman also discusses the differences between concrete and abstract losses felt by cross-cultural workers, with the latter being such things as the loss of dreams or hopes. He tells the story of a Christian worker named John who came to him for counseling. While serving in central Asia, John had experienced both concrete and abstract losses. He had lost his status and effectiveness as a youth pastor in the US. His wife had had two miscarriages. And he and the rest of his team had been forced to evacuate their host country with little hope of returning.

With painful honesty, John revealed:

I know that all things work together for the good. I know that the joy of the Lord should be my strength, but it’s not. I know that I’m going to see my unborn children in heaven. I don’t want to commit suicide, but I . . . um . . . wish that I wasn’t alive.

Sweatman went on to talk with John about the way his family had taught him to deal with grief as he grew up, and then helped him learn how to grieve in a healthier way. Healthy sadness, says Dr. Sweatman, is the “antidote to depression.” It includes two important steps: acknowledging our losses to God and expressing grief publicly to allow others to “be the arms of God.”

“How we handle loss,” says Sweatman, “determines a number of things. It determines the longevity of you in cross-cultural work, the depth of joy you will experience in your life, the wisdom that you will gain, and especially your closeness to God and your need for him.”

If this summary strikes a chord with you, please listen to Dr. Sweatman’s talk in its entirety. That way you’ll get to hear all that he has to say on this topic, and you’ll get to hear his heart as well as his words.

Redefining Joy

When John said, “I know that the joy of the Lord should be my strength . . .” he’s referring to a verse from Nehemiah 8. But we’re most familiar with the phrase “The joy of the Lord is my strength [clap, clap, clap]” from the peppy song of the same name. What happens when we don’t feel the Lord’s joy? James says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2). Can we be sad or afraid or confused, and still have joy?

There’s another song about joy that is familiar to those who’ve grown up in the church. It repeats over and over the line “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.” But what does that joy look like in the face of loss? Is it always a smile? What does that joy sound like in the midst of trials? It is always an upbeat song?

I’m so glad to have come across The Autumn Film’s rendition of “I’ve Got the Joy”/”Down in My Heart.” Tifah Phillips, the group’s vocalist writes on her blog how she wrote “Joy.” It happened the night of her father’s death, as she sat at the piano, “the only place that felt safe that night to me”:

I remembered my eyes were blurred with tears and I literally began to play the now familiar progression of Joy. I kept cycling through the progression and then, as if it had already been written, I began to sing a different melody to a song I sang in VBS as a child, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. . . .” The truth is that I was terribly and profoundly sad. The reality of grief had not even entirely hit me yet. But at the same moment I had a deep sense of peace. He was no longer in pain. He was no longer sick. He was free from all his ailments and restored. Although I still miss him, I know that God has weaved redemption through death into my father’s story. That brings me great joy. It was not until grief became a part of my story that I realized that joy is not simply an expression, but an attitude and acknowledgment of the deep peace of knowing a Savior.

Often when I’m grieving, my joy doesn’t show on the surface, even though I wish it did. But just because it’s not visible, doesn’t mean that I don’t have joy “down in my heart.” “Joy is not simply an expression, but an attitude and acknowledgment of the deep peace of knowing a Savior.” I like that. And I like the lines from the song that say,

I can’t understand
And I can’t pretend
That this will be all right in the end.
So I’ll try my best
And lift up my chest
To sing about this joy.

This really is a beautiful and meaningful song to me, heartbreaking and heartmending. I hope it speaks to you, too.

[photo by Blake Photoforia, used under a Creative Commons license]

The Asian Squat for the West of the World

If you’re a Westerner who’s traveled to Asia, you’ve probably marveled at the locals’ ability to relax in their preferred alternative to just standing around—the Asian squat. You’ve also probably brought back stories (and photos) of “squatty potties,” and you understand why the bathrooms in international airports have signs that read, “No Standing on the Toilet.”

But if all this is new to you and you see the need for more information, or if you’d like help in pulling off the squat yourself, I refer you to Daniel Hsia’s mockumentary, How to Do the Asian Squat. Watch it because you want to know the history behind the Asian squat. Watch it because you want to know the physics behind the Asian squat. Or watch it simply because “Each and every day, more and more tired-legged, stiff-backed Americans are discovering a new and exciting way to squat!”

And if you really want to get on board (pun intended), take a look at “Nature’s Platform” for how you can convert a Western toilet into your very own squatty potty. The site is complete with testimonials from physicians, anthropologists, and yoga instructors. Unfortunately, it looks as if the company is not accepting new orders at this time. But don’t be disheartened, you can go here for their instructions on how to create your own conversion kit from concrete blocks and plywood. Or as an alternative, you can visit Lillipad of New Zealand, where their trendy (?) looking “squatting platform” is on sale . . . and available. They sell plans for building your own, too. (But hurry, the plans are 50% off till the end of July.)

[photo: “Old Man Squatting on Steps,” by Lon&Queta, used under a Creative Commons license]

International Cities and International Schools, by the Numbers

What makes a city international? Is it the foreign cuisine? The languages spoken? The diverse cultures celebrated? One barometer is the number of foreign-born residents, and the top city, Dubai, is winning by a landslide. With 82% of its population born outside of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai is well ahead of the next city, Miami, which has 51% of its residents foreign born. Following is a list of the top-10. (All figures are dated 2002 or before.):

Dubai 82%
Miami 51%
Amsterdam 47%
Toronto 45%
Muscat 45%
Vancouver 39%
Auckland 39%
Geneva 38%
Mecca 38%
The Hague 37%

The authors note that 7 of the top 25 cities are in the Middle East, due to large guest workforces and the drawing power of religious centers. They also mention some “surprises,” mega-cities that didn’t make the top 25: Tokyo and Seoul, with about 2% each (ranked 92 and 96); Sao Paolo, 1% (100); Jakarta, .9% (105); and Mexico City, less than .5% (109).

Of course,the world’s expats include children, and while many attend typical, national schools, others get their education at international institutions. According to ISC Research, the number of international-school students worldwide has grown to over 3 million, attending over 6,000 institutions in 236 countries. Providing the education at these schools are over 290,000 staff. It’s probably not surprising that the country with the most international schools is the United Arab Emirates, as its national population mirrors that of Dubai, its largest city, with the country having 83.5% of its residents foreign born. Here’s a list of the top 10:

UAE, 372 schools
Pakistan, 349
China, 327
India, 317
Japan, 219
Spain, 183
Indonesia, 173
Germany, 170
Hong Kong, 165
Thailand, 161

The number of students attending international schools has tripled over the last 10 years, but not all of the current number are expats. In fact, the great majority, 80%, are local citizens. And as more and more people raise their children outside their passport countries, as more and more locals seek the best track for the world’s best universities, the demand for international schools is increasing. ISC Research’s prediction is that the number of international-school students will grow to 6 million in the next 10 years, and the number of schools will reach 10,000.

(Lisa Benton-Short, Marie Price, and Samantha Friedman, “Global Perspective on the Connections between Immigrants and World Cities,” part of a research project funded by the GW Center for the Study of Globalization; Andy Sambidge, “UAE Population Hits 6m, Emiratis Make Up 16.5%,” ArabianBusiness, October 7, 2009; Suzi Dixon, “International Schools: Now more than Three Million Children Get a Global Education,” The Telegraph, March 23, 2012)

[photo: “Flags,” by misskprimary, used under a Creative Commons license]

Can There Be Too Much Choice? It’s a Cultural Thing

I recently wrote about the trials of choosing cereal at Wal-Mart, and friend and fellow blogger MaDonna followed up with her own post calling the cereal aisle “one of the top 5 places expats hate to visit in the US.”

Sheena Iyengar, a professor at Columbia University and leading expert on choice, understands our pain. She writes in her book The Art of Choosing,

In 1994, the year I had my first inkling that there might be such a thing as too much choice, over 500,000 different consumer goods were already available in the United States. By 2003, the number had increased to nearly 700,000, an upward trend that shows no signs of letting up. Technological advances frequently introduce new categories of products into our lives. Some of them—cell phones, computers, digital cameras—become indispensable, and soon enough the options proliferate. Just as importantly, not only are there more goods on the market, there are more ways to get at them. The typical supermarket, which carried 3,750 different items in 1949, now boasts some 45,000 items. Walmart and other “big-box” retailers offer smorgasbords of over 100,000 products to Americans in just about every part of the country. And if you don’t find what you’re looking for within a few blocks, you’ll certainly find it with a few clicks. The Internet extends your reach well beyond local venues, providing access to the 100,000 DVDs on Netflix.com, 24 million books (and millions of other products) on Amazon.com, and 15 million singles on Match.com.

Following is a fascinating TedGlobal talk by Iyangar in which she discusses cultural differences in the valuing of choice. In her introduction to the video on her website, she says,

In America, choice is sacred. We believe in its limitless power and we worship it for the possibilities it offers. For Americans, choice is liberty, which is subordinate only to life itself in the Declaration of Independence. So it can be almost impossible to accept that not only are there countries and cultures that do not subscribe to the American ideal of choice, but that they wouldn’t necessarily be better off if more choice suddenly became available to them. I explore the great variation across the globe in beliefs about who should choose and when, how much choice should be available, and when choice is a burden rather than a pleasure.

Iyangar starts her presentation with an experience she had in a Japanese restaurant and ends in the US with a story of how her blindness affected how she chose the right fingernail polish. In between she shares research and anecdotes from around the world. Enjoy.

[photo: “Fi,” by Michael Hopkinsii, used under a Creative Commons license]

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: