Individualism and Collectivism as Predictors of Creative Potentials and Real-Life Creativity in China and US

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationships between culture and creativity from the perspective of individualism and collectivism (I/C). Specifically, we compared cultural differences in I/C as well as creativity between two major economies, namely China and the US. We also examined how specific dimensions of I/C are associated with indices of creativity in these two cultural contexts. Four hundred and thirty-four Chinese college students and four hundred and seventy-eight US college students were recruited to complete a measure of I/C, a test of creative potentials, and a real-life creativity inventory. A four-dimensional I/C measure which assesses participants’ horizontal individualistic (HI), vertical individualistic (VI), horizontal collectivistic (HC), and vertical collectivistic (VC) tendencies was employed. The results showed significant differences in all of the I/C and creativity indices between the two countries. In addition, across the two cultural contexts, 1) HI, VI, and HC were all positively related to creativity to some extent; and 2) VC was negatively associated with creativity to some extent. Most importantly, culture-specific links between VI and creativity, HC and creativity, and VC and creativity were found in the Chinese and US samples. The findings were discussed from a culturally contextualized perspective.