Acculturation Benefits Creativity when Personal Values Match Salient Norms

Exposure to multiple cultures and acculturation foster creativity, or the ability of generating novel ideas from the combinations of not obviously relevant concepts. Recent studies suggest that biculturals with highly integrated cultural frames (e.g., compatible self-construals or acculturation orientations) are more creative than less well-integrated biculturals (e.g., conflictual self-construals and acculturation orientations) but there are also studies evidencing the context-dependency of creativity. To reconcile these mixed findings, the present study tested the hypothesis that, compared with biculturals with less compatible cultural frames, biculturals with more compatible frames would be more creative if their personal values match to the salient norms of the immediate socio-cultural context. To put this hypothesis in test, we assessed the level of creativity among biculturals whose background culture traditionally emphasizes interdependence but who are also exposed to a culture of independence through indirect acculturation (Study 1, 122 Turkish university students in a modern Turkish city) and direct acculturation (Study 1, 44 Turkish university students in Western Europe). Participants’ creativity was assessed by independent raters based on responses to a tale test. Multiple regressions revealed that person-environment value match moderates the link between integrative biculturalism and creativity. As expected, biculturals with compatible cultural frames were more creative if they were high on conformity value in Turkey, but a high level of conformity hampered (and low conformity enhanced) creativity of such biculturals in Western Europe. These findings suggest that an integrative biculturalism is not invariably beneficial for creativity, but rather context-dependent.