•Living abroad enhances self-concept clarity.•The clarity gained by living abroad is due to self-discerning reflections.•Deep rather than broad foreign experiences increase self-concept clarity.•The ...boost in self-concept clarity predicts greater career decision-making clarity.
The current research explores the relationship between living abroad and self-concept clarity. We conducted six studies (N = 1,874) using different populations (online panels and MBA students), mixed methods (correlational and experimental), and complementary measures of self-concept clarity (self-report and self-other congruence through 360-degree ratings). Our results indicate that living abroad leads to a clearer sense of self because it prompts self-discerning reflections on whether parts of their identity truly define who they are or merely reflect their cultural upbringing. Furthermore, it is the depth (the length of time lived abroad) rather than the breadth (the number of foreign countries lived in) of living abroad experiences that enhances self-concept clarity. Finally, our results highlight an important consequence of the link between living abroad and self-concept clarity: career decision-making clarity. Our research suggests that going far from home can lead one closer to the self, with implications for significant life decisions.
A wealth of studies have revealed that foreign experiences affect various cognitive abilities. One well-established finding is that living abroad can increase creative thinking skills. However, there ...has been little research on the dark side of creativity. Here, we hypothesized that exposure to foreign experiences can also foster malevolent creativity, which refers to the deliberate application of original ideas to turn a profit at someone else's expense. Consistent with our hypotheses, Studies 1 and 2 found that student participants with foreign experiences showed greater malevolent creativity than those without such experiences. Relying on non-student adults, Study 3 replicated the findings of Study 1 using a different behavioral outcome of malevolent creativity. Study 4 found that participants who had decided to move overseas but had not yet done so demonstrated reduced levels of malevolent creativity compared to participants who had lived abroad, which minimized the possibility of reverse causality. Study 5 utilized an experimental design methodology and provided causal evidence for the effect of foreign experiences on malevolent creativity. These findings contribute to understanding about the range of effects that foreign experiences can have on different types of creativity.
About the Theory of Assimilation Processes: Construction of Slovak Minority Communities This contribution focuses on the problems of ethnic identity and assimilation processes in minority background, ...and concentrates on the problems of Slovak minorities. The author presents the classification of assimilation factors, which he designed on the basis of theoretical aspects of ethnicity. These assimilation factors have a vast influence on members of a minority in minority communities. This approach is guided by the results of the author’s field research and review of relevant literature, especially in the areas of the Republic of Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Croatia. The paper contains new information that can contribute to the theory of assimilation processes. The research of these issues and the outlined factors of ethnic assimilation and their contexts certainly cannot be considered definitive. O teorii procesów asymilacyjnych: Kształtowanie się Słowackiej mniejszości narodowej Artykuł koncentruje się na problematyce tożsamości etnicznej i procesów asymilacyjnych zachodzących na gruncie wspólnot mniejszościowych, skupiając uwagę na mniejszości słowackiej. Autor przedstawia swoją klasyfikację czynników asymilacyjnych, opierającą się na teorii etniczności. Pokazuje, jak sprzyjające czynniki asymilacji oddziałują na członków wspólnot mniejszościowych. W swoim ujęciu zagadnienia uwzględnia wyniki przeprowadzonych przez siebie badań terenowych oraz literaturę przedmiotu, zwłaszcza w odniesieniu do Słowacji, Węgier, Rumunii, Serbii i Chorwacji. Artykuł zawiera nowe dane, które mogą przyczynić się do poszerzenia teorii procesów asymilacyjnych. Badania autora oraz przedstawiony w artykule zarys czynników asymilacji etnicznej i ich kontekstów z całą pewnością nie mogą zostać uznane za definitywne.
This paper is a narrative that explores the experiences of two medical students, Annabel Ricci and Richard Rubin. At the age of 18, they each moved away to attend a rigorous program. Throughout the ...paper, they discuss how they have been affected by the stresses of attending an international medical school on a Caribbean island, and what they have each done to cope and strive to succeed personally and academically. They describe their experiences using a holistic theoretical framework.
Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers Maddux, William W; Galinsky, Adam D
Journal of personality and social psychology,
05/2009, Letnik:
96, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Despite abundant anecdotal evidence that creativity is associated with living in foreign countries, there is currently little empirical evidence for this relationship. Five studies employing a ...multimethod approach systematically explored the link between living abroad and creativity. Using both individual and dyadic creativity tasks, Studies 1 and 2 provided initial demonstrations that time spent living abroad (but not time spent traveling abroad) showed a positive relationship with creativity. Study 3 demonstrated that priming foreign living experiences temporarily enhanced creative tendencies for participants who had previously lived abroad. In Study 4, the degree to which individuals had adapted to different cultures while living abroad mediated the link between foreign living experience and creativity. Study 5 found that priming the experience of adapting to a foreign culture temporarily enhanced creativity for participants who had previously lived abroad. The relationship between living abroad and creativity was consistent across a number of creativity measures (including those measuring insight, association, and generation), as well as with masters of business administration and undergraduate samples, both in the United States and Europe, demonstrating the robustness of this phenomenon.
It is a common belief that travel allows us to grow, get inspired, and reach fulfillment. Travels offer a highly conducive combination of cognitive resource maximization, positive emotions, and, most ...importantly, new, out-of-ordinary experiences, enabling creativity to flourish. However, for travel to affect creativity in any way, some conditions must be met. Of key importance are characteristics of travel destinations and travelers’ Openness to experience. This study explores the creativity-traveling relationship by analyzing occurring interactive, mediating, and correlational effects. Also, it compares how traveling and living abroad predict creativity to address the ongoing debate. The analysis comprising 136 participants demonstrated that the traveling-creativity link is stronger among people low on the Openness trait. Further, an indirect effect of creative self-efficacy in the relationship between traveling and creativity was observed. These findings suggest the potential of facilitating creativity through traveling experiences among some groups, but at the same time, they call for more in-depth research on the topic.
The study aims to present the need to improve education at Slovak educational centres in Great Britain based on respondents’ opinions. The research sample consisted of 56 members of the teaching ...staff, 81 parents and 37 children from 13 centres. Data were gathered by an electronic questionnaire modified for each respondent group. Data were processed in the program Štatistika, evaluated by descriptive statistics and hypotheses by inference statistics. Research results indicated the need to increase the quality of instruction, mainly in the innovation of methods, provision of didactic aids, support for teachers and appropriateness of instruction to children’s language skills.
Research suggests that living in and adapting to foreign cultures facilitates creativity. The current research investigated whether one aspect of the adaptation process—multicultural learning—is a ...critical component of increased creativity. Experiments 1-3 found that recalling a multicultural learning experience: (a) facilitates idea flexibility (e.g., the ability to solve problems in multiple ways), (b) increases awareness of underlying connections and associations, and (c) helps overcome functional fixedness. Importantly, Experiments 2 and 3 specifically demonstrated that functional learning in a multicultural context (i.e., learning about the underlying meaning or function of behaviors in that context) is particularly important for facilitating creativity. Results showed that creativity was enhanced only when participants recalled a functional multicultural learning experience and only when participants had previously lived abroad. Overall, multicultural learning appears to be an important mechanism by which foreign living experiences lead to creative enhancement.
Research finds that going far from home has many positive psychological outcomes such as enhanced creative thinking, and research on creativity reveals that nonconformity can be a useful tool to ...stimulate innovation. Merging these findings, we theorise that foreign experiences increase nonconformist attitudes and behaviours. In Studies 1 and 2, surveys of Chinese university students and non-student adults consistently showed that multicultural experiences were negatively related to conformity tendencies. Study 3 found that American students who were studying in China demonstrated a lower conformity tendency than American students without multicultural experiences, which suggests that the multicultural experience - conformity link cannot be accounted for by the effects of culture. Results from Study 4 indicated that compared with participants who had planned to go abroad but had not left their home country yet, participants who had lived abroad reported lower levels of conformity. Lastly, experimentally manipulating a focus on foreign experiences (vs. home experiences) facilitates non-conforming ways of thinking in terms of product preference (Study 5). Together, these findings provide evidence that exposure to diverse cultures not only produces divergent psychological consequences as have been found by other researchers, but also leads to the emergence of nonconformity attitudes and behaviours.
In today’s world a considerable number of people for one reason or another live outside their (or their ancestors’) States of origin. In most cases they retain a sense of belonging to their Homeland ...and an interest in maintaining ties with it. In turn, States also seek to develop relations with compatriots living abroad. This direction of State activity in many countries is enshrined at the constitutional level; special laws determining the legal status of compatriots, directions and forms of interaction with them have been adopted; special State programs to support diasporas are being developed and implemented. In general, the policy of States toward compatriots living abroad aims to preserve their national (linguistic, cultural, and religious) identity and to involve them in their social, cultural, economic, and political life. For these purposes, States help compatriots living abroad to study their native language, introduce them to national culture and traditions, support diaspora organizations, develop their cooperation with public authorities, scientific and educational institutions, business communities, and non-profit organizations, encourage investment activity, and, if necessary, provide compatriots with social assistance. Foreign countries have accumulated a lot of positive experience in this regard, and its analysis and generalization is the subject of this article.
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