Showing papers by "Chi-Yue Chiu published in 2008"

Multicultural experience enhances creativity: the when and how.

Abstract: Many practices aimed at cultivating multicultural competence in educational and organizational settings (e.g., exchange programs, diversity education in college, diversity management at work) assume that multicultural experience fosters creativity. In line with this assumption, the research reported in this article is the first to empirically demonstrate that exposure to multiple cultures in and of itself can enhance creativity. Overall, the authors found that extensiveness of multicultural experiences was positively related to both creative performance (insight learning, remote association, and idea generation) and creativity-supporting cognitive processes (retrieval of unconventional knowledge, recruitment of ideas from unfamiliar cultures for creative idea expansion). Furthermore, their studies showed that the serendipitous creative benefits resulting from multicultural experiences may depend on the extent to which individuals open themselves to foreign cultures, and that creativity is facilitated in contexts that deemphasize the need for firm answers or existential concerns. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for promoting creativity in increasingly global learning and work environments.

Interactive Effects of Multicultural Experiences and Openness to Experience on Creative Potential

Abstract: Extensiveness of multicultural experiences and Openness to Experience were used to predict European American undergraduates' performance on two measures of creative potential: (a) generation of unusual uses of garbage bags and (b) retrieval of nonprototypical or normatively inaccessible exemplars in the conceptual domain of occupation. The results showed that having extensive multicultural experiences predicted better performance on both measures of creative potential only among participants who were open to experience. Among those who were not open, having more extensive multicultural experiences was associated with a lower level of creative potential. Implications of these findings for promoting creativity in schools are discussed.

Explaining self-esteem differences between Chinese and North Americans: Dialectical self (vs. self-consistency) or lack of positive self-regard

Abstract: Past studies showed that compared to North Americans, East Asians have lower self-esteem and their self-esteem scores do not predict self-esteem-related motivations and self-perceptions. These findings have been interpreted in terms of a lack of the need for positive self-regard in East Asian contexts. We posit that the East – West difference in self-esteem may arise from the popularity of the dialectical self (the idea that one can have both a positive and negative self) in East Asia and of the internally consistent self (the notion that having a positive self implies not having a negative one, and vice versa) in North America. Consistent with this idea, we found that the Chinese American difference in self-esteem level was driven primarily by Chinese participants' greater tendency to agree with negatively worded self-esteem items. Furthermore, because of the motivation to maintain consistent responses, North Americans' response pattern varied depending on whether the first item in the self-esteem measur...

On Being a Mindful Authoritarian: Is Need for Cognition Always Associated with Less Punitiveness?

Abstract: Previous research shows that the motivation to be mindful is associated with less intoler ance toward deviant and stigmatized groups. The present research examines authoritari anism as a possible moderator of this seemingly robust finding. We obtained consistent evidence from two studies that authoritarianism (right-wing authoritarianism, social domi nance orientation) moderates the relationship between needfor cognition and punitiveness. Among low authoritarians, need for cognition was negatively associated with punitiveness and dispositional attribution of crimes and positively associated with support for rehabili tation of criminals. However; among high authoritarians, the pattern reversed. These results are discussed in the context of some recent advances in the understanding of motivated social cognition.

Personal and Collective Culpability Judgment A Functional Analysis of East Asian—North American Differences

Abstract: This research takes a functional perspective and examines the psychological processes underlying personal and collective culpability judgments in European Americans and Chinese in mainland China (Experiment 1), and in European Americans and Asian Americans (Experiment 2). Results indicate that when determining personal culpability for negative events, all three cultural groups consider behavioral causality. However, Chinese and Asian American participants tend to make more extreme collective culpability judgments than do European American participants. Furthermore, activating the goal of delegated deterrence strengthens Chinese and Asian American participants' collective culpability judgments only, whereas activating the goal of group harmony increases the strength of collective culpability in all three cultural groups. These findings suggest that collective culpability serves different functions in different cultural contexts.

Psycho-Economics of Money and Social Support

Abstract: There has been a growing interest in the psychology of money (e.g., Rick, Cryder, & Loewenstein, 2008; Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 2006). In the target article, Zhou and Gao (this issue) offer a refreshing perspective on money and social support, maintaining that money and social support are substitutes of each other for alle viating pain. In a comprehensive review of the extant research literature, these authors found clear evidence for their view. Specifically, they found that (a) antici pation of pain heightens the desire for social support as well as the desire for money, (b) reminding people of social support and money can alleviate pain, and (c) so cial exclusion and monetary loss can cause pain. Zhou and Gao's innovative analysis suggests that money is not just a metric of utility attached to the goods and ser vices it can buy. Instead, money itself carries hedonic values through its (perceived) analgesic capability. In this commentary, we will expand Zhou and Gao's analysis by relating it to basic economic principles. We argue that because money and social support are sub stitutable analgesics, an individual's desire for them in concrete situations can be predicted from the shape of indifference curves relating the desirability of money and social support and the relative efficiency of pursu ing wealth and social support with limited resources. This psycho-economic analysis highlights the eco nomic rationality of optimizing the sedative utility or soothing comfort of money and social support. It orga nizes Zhou and Gao's ideas into a set of parsimonious and elegant propositions and brings out some broader implications that are not apparent in Zhou and Gao's theoretical narrative. In the last section of this com mentary, we go beyond optimization of soothing com fort and consider the value or utility people attach to identity signaling in materialistic consumption.

Cognitive Load, Need For Closure, and Socially Desirable Responding: Cognitively Constrained Versus Motivated Response Biases in Cross-Cultural Consumer Research

Abstract: Recent research reveals cultural differences in consumers’ tendency to engage in socially desirable responding. Specifically, individualist consumers are shown to be prone to self-deceptive enhancement (SDE), the tendency to hold exaggerated views of one’s skills and abilities, whereas collectivist consumers are shown to be prone to impression management (IM), the tendency to distort responses to appear normatively appropriate. We examine the divergent moderating effects of cognitive and motivational factors on these relationships. Across six studies, we find that depleting collectivists’ cognitive resources impairs their ability to engage in IM but does not influence individualists’ tendency to engage in SDE. In contrast, collectivists’ tendency to engage in IM and individualists’ tendency to engage in SDE are both seen to increase with high (vs. low) need for cognitive closure (NFC). Implications of these findings on theoretical and methodological research on SDR are highlighted.