Abstract
Creativity is a multi-faceted construct that encompasses research, theory, and applications in psychology and related fields. It is typically defined as the production of something that is useful and novel (Amabile, 1986). Creative productions involve qualitatively different stages—idea generation, idea selection, idea editing, and idea acceptance (Chiu & Kwan, 2010). A creative agent could be an individual or a team that may consist of culturally diverse members.
Creativity has been studied largely as an intrapersonal cognitive process (e.g., affective state and motivational state) that takes place within a social and cultural context (Li, Kwan, Liou, & Chiu, 2013). Nonetheless, an increasing amount of attention has been given to the issue of how cultural values and processes can facilitate or hinder creative performance (Leung, Maddux, Galinsky, & Chiu, 2008; Mahbubani, 2002; Ng, 2001). Recent cross-cultural research has also shown that different normative beliefs about creativity in Eastern and Western cultures can produce pronounced East–West differences in creative performance (Chiu & Kwan, 2010; Erez & Nouri, 2010; Liou & Nisbett, 2011; Morris & Leung, 2010). These recent theoretical and empirical advances in culture and creativity research provide the context for the proposed special issue.
The objective of this special issue is to bring together research insights from different disciplines into understanding the link among culture, creativity and innovation. We welcome theoretical and empirical analyses at different levels (individual, group, and both within- and across-cultures) that could explain when and how culture would influence knowledge creation, impact, and diffusion in different settings (educational, industrial, and societal) over the life span.
We invite both empirical and conceptual papers from psychology and cognate disciplines that will deepen our understanding of the cultural processes implicated in creativity and innovation. We welcome submissions that will address one or more of the following issues:
What are the reciprocal effects of culture and creativity at different stages of creative production (idea generation, idea selection, idea editing, and idea acceptance)?
What is the current status of linkages between creativity and intelligence from a cultural perspective?
How may culture affect individual and group creativity and or innovation?
What is the role of creativity and innovation in cultural change and how people react to innovation-enabled cultural changes?
How do multicultural experiences enhance creativity?
What are the individual differences and situational factors that would moderate the beneficial effects of multicultural experiences on creativity? Likewise, what individual differences and situational factors would moderate culturally motivated resistance to new and foreign ideas that could inspire creativity?
How does cultural diversity within a team affect the team’s creative performance, and what are the personality and situational variables that would moderate these effects?
How does cross-cultural and within-cultural comparison on the above topics help elucidate the creative processes?
We welcome contributions that use diverse methods, including historiometric analysis (Simonton & Ting, 2010), experimental methods, agent-based modeling, big data mining, and cross-cultural assessment, to address the above questions. We also welcome contributions that would introduce new methods for studying the link among culture, creativity and innovation.
To have your paper considered for inclusion in this special issue, please send a 2-page (single-spaced) extended abstract to Letty Kwan (E-mail:
Contributors should note that this call is open and competitive; submitted full papers will go through the journal’s regular peer-review processes, and only those that meet the journal publication criteria will be accepted for publication. Submitted papers must be original manuscripts that are not under consideration by any other outlets.