Abstract
The present study aimed to conduct a cross-cultural comparison of creative thinking among Chinese middle school students from the rice- and wheat-growing areas in China through the lens of the rice theory, which postulates that there are major psychological differences among the individuals in these agricultural regions. Differences in cultural mindsets and creativity between the rice group (n = 336) and the wheat group (n = 347) were identified using the Chinese version of (1) the Auckland Individualism and Collectivism Scale (AICS) and (2) the Test for Creative Thinking–Drawing Production (TCT–DP), respectively. Interesting findings were obtained. The results of latent mean analyses indicate that the rice group showed significantly more collectivism and adaptive creativity than the wheat group but less individualism and innovative and boundary-breaking creativity. However, the two groups showed no significant differences in their overall creative performance, as reflected in the TCT–DP composite score. Moreover, results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that collectivism was positively related to adaptive creativity but negatively related to innovative and boundary-breaking creativity; however, a reverse pattern was found for individualism. These findings enrich the discourse regarding the rice theory and shed important light on the effect of culture on creativity.
Highlights
Cultural differences in creativity have long been investigated, and in such studies, creativity has commonly been conceptualized as a combination of originality and appropriateness (Sternberg and Lubart, 1999)
Prior to testing the hypotheses, it was important to examine the construct validity of the AICS and the Test for Creative Thinking–Drawing Production (TCT–DP) in the sample of Chinese middle school students used in this study
Factor Structure of the Test for Creative Thinking–Drawing Production While the TCT–DP was developed based on a componential approach to creativity, which highlights the way that different components of creativity work together to contribute to the creative process (Urban and Jellen, 2010), previous studies have not shown consistent findings regarding the factor structure of this instrument
Summary
Cultural differences in creativity have long been investigated (see Shao et al, 2019), and in such studies, creativity has commonly been conceptualized as a combination of originality and appropriateness (Sternberg and Lubart, 1999). Cultural Differences in Creativity psychological differences among different agricultural regions in China (Talhelm et al, 2014; see English and Geeraert, 2020). While culture has commonly been thought to be bounded by national borders (Hofstede, 2001), there is a debate regarding this approach of equating cultures with nations (Tung and Alain, 2010; Taras et al, 2016). Joining this discourse, the rice theory articulates that there are large cultural differences between different regions across the wide territory of mainland China. China’s rice-growing regions show more collectivism (or interdependence culture) but less individualism (or independence culture) than its wheat-growing regions (Talhelm et al, 2014; see Talhelm et al, 2018; Zhu et al, 2019; English and Geeraert, 2020)
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