Suzanna J. Ramos
Creativity Ventures Pte. Ltd.
suzannaramos@gmail.com
Abstract
This paper explores the extent of influence of culture on implicit theories of creativity among laypeople from the United States and Singapore, as well as the ethnic Groups in Singapore, in regard to adaptive and innovative styles of creativity as well as their own conceptions of creativity. Laypersons from the United States and Singapore were asked to rate the creativity level for the descriptors of the Adaptor and Innovator derived from Kirton’s explicit theory of creativity. The laypersons were also asked to give words they believed associated with creativity. Analysis showed that there was an implicit belief that high creativity was associated with Kirton’s innovative style of creativity. Further, the words that were associated with creativity seemed to have an innovator bias. Implications of the extent of influence of culture on laypeople’s perceptions of creativity will be discussed.
About the Author
Suzanna Ramos is the Director of Creativity Ventures Pte. Ltd., which aims to facilitate creativity and innovation. Prior to this, she has been involved in education, where she served as Head of Department, Vice-Principal and Professional Development Officer at the Ministry of Education in Singapore. Her Areas of expertise are creative problem solving techniques in the fields of pedagogy, mentoring and professional development as well as cross-cultural creativity. She holds a Master of Science degree in Creative Studies and Change Leadership from the University of New York (College at Buffalo) and a Bachelor of Arts degree (Hons) from the National University of Singapore.
Introduction
For the purpose of this study, the following definition of culture is used: Culture is “the set of attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors, shared by a group of people, communicated from one generation to the next via language or some other means of communication” (Matsumoto, 1994, p. 4). From the definition, it is noted that culture allows us to define who we are and what is meaningful, as well as to manage our physical and social milieu. Our cultures have a tremendous influence on the way we think and feel, the way we view the world, the way we communicate, and the way we behave.
In fact, culture is now considered to be an important precursor and corollary of human behavior, especially in psychological studies. These studies are done, not with the intent of reshaping psychology, but rather, to add value to the discipline to make it expansive and all-encompassing (Adamopoulos & Lonner, 2001).
Rationale for This Study and Core Research Questions
The early research on creativity tended to adopt an individualistic perspective, where creativity was viewed as a process that occurred in the minds of individuals who possessed suitable personal characteristics and experiences (MacKinnon, 1965). It was only in the 1980s and 1990s that interest in the role of culture in creativity studies gained momentum, as it has been argued that “creative expression is a universal human phenomenon that is firmly grounded in culture and has its own profound effect on culture itself” (Rudowicz, 2003, p. 273).
This paper will provide further insight on how culture influences the conceptualization of creativity, where creativity is seen to be a mental process that cannot be divorced from the cultural system in which a particular individual functions. The results from this study can help in understanding what individuals in a given cultural group mean when referring to creativity. This in turn can be useful in formulating common cultural views of creativity as their conceptions of creativity are derived from their belief systems within that particular cultural setting.
Although there have been comparative studies between a Western culture and an Eastern culture (Li & Shallcross, 1992; Soh, 1999), there have not been studies done in regard to ethnic Groups within a particular national culture. In this study, Singapore, as a national culture, is multi-racial in nature because it comprises three main ethnic Groups – the Chinese, the Malays, and the Indians. Comparisons among these ethnic Groups will provide deeper insight as to whether issues of race and other cultural mores distinct in each ethnic group play a role in how creativity is conceived.
An application of a person-oriented psychometric method that is gaining new ground is the use of implicit theories. Unlike explicit theories where they are “opinions and views held by scientists” (Runco, 1999, p. 27) and typically based on “some psychological or scientific construct” (Runco, 1990, p. 236), implicit theories are tacit knowledge held by an individual and are often “personal rather than shared” (Runco, 1999, p. 27). This method has been used in investigations of implicit intelligence theories (Sternberg, 1985), but there have been very few studies of implicit theories of creativity (Plucker & Renzulli, 1999).
This study utilizes this method of inquiry to investigate if these implicit theories match explicit theories of creativity in the literature. In this case, the explicit theory of Kirton’s (1976) Adaption and Innovation Inventory (KAI), where he posits that individuals lie within a cognitive style continuum ranging from adaptive to innovative orientation, will be compared to laypeople’s implicit theories of creativity. This study will investigate whether laypeople’s implicit theories of creative style indicate that adaptors and innovators are equally creative and that the style of creativity is orthogonal to level of creativity as posited by Kirton.
On a broader perspective, the purpose of this research is to provide a clear understanding of the implicit theories of creativity in various cultures so that the meaning of creativity can be fully appreciated on a global basis. It permits us to question our understanding of creativity, which remains skewed, because it is based on studies where the role of culture has been marginalized. Perspectives on creativity can be extended when there is greater sensitivity to how different cultural societies conceive creativity in terms of the creative process and the forms and expressions of creativity.
The specific research questions that guided this study were as follows:
1. Using Kirton’s explicit theory of Adaption and Innovation to access laypeople’s implicit views of creativity, to what extent do laypeople from the United States and Singapore have similar views of Kirton’s contention that adaptors and innovators are equally creative?
2. Using Kirton’s explicit theory of Adaption and Innovation to access laypeople’s implicit views of creativity, to what extent do different ethnic Groups within Singapore (i.e. Chinese, Malays, and Indians) have similar views of Kirton’s contention that adaptors and innovators are equally creative?
3. When asked to define creativity in their own words, to what extent do laypeople from different national cultures in the United States and Singapore hold similar or different conceptions of creativity?
4. When asked to define creativity in their own words, to what extent do laypeople from different ethnic Groups in Singapore hold similar or different conceptions of creativity?
Methods and Procedures
Participants
There were three sets of samples that had to be sought. The first set was Sample A, which consisted of participants from the national culture of the United States. The second set was Sample B, which consisted of participants from the national culture of Singapore. As for the third set of Sample C, it consisted of Singaporean participants from the three main ethnic Groups, the Chinese, the Malays, and the Indians. All the participants were above 18 years of age from various walks of life. They had no formal training or background in creativity studies, as well as no prior knowledge of Kirton’s Adaption Innovation (KAI) theory.
Materials
This study utilized a questionnaire that contained a close-ended section and an open-ended section. In the close-ended section, the participants were given descriptions of two different people. The two descriptions were characteristics of the adaptor and innovator, which were directly taken from Kirton’s work (1994). The two sets of characteristics were labeled as Person A and Person B. Approximately half of the questionnaires had characteristics of the innovator and labeled as Person A, while the other half had characteristics of the innovator but labeled as Person B. This arrangement would help to suppress any bias and counter balance the effect of reading first one description and for that reason, rating one person higher than the other. A response scale ranged from 1 to 10 (one meaning ‘not at all creative’ and ten meaning ‘exceptionally creative’).
The questionnaire also included an open-ended question. The question was: “When you hear the word ‘creativity’, what words come into your mind? Please list below those words you associate with creativity”. Overall, the survey was designed to take less than ten minutes to complete.
Procedure
Participants were obtained through convenience sampling. A diversity of participants was sought, in terms of age Groups and occupational backgrounds.
Analysis
The first analysis of the close-ended questions in the questionnaire used t-tests to compare the participants’ ratings of the Adaptor and Innovator across the three samples. Further, inferential statistics were used to assess the differences between countries, gender, ethnic cultures, and the ordering of the questionnaires in terms of the characteristics of the adaptor written first and the characteristics of the innovator written second and vice versa.
The second analysis of the data involved the open-ended question where a qualitative analysis was done. The method of coded data was employed to sort the responses for the open-ended question (Huberman & Miles, 1994). In this study, all the responses from each sample were compiled and each response was assigned a category. A category was created as long as there was a minimum of two similar responses from each sample. For each category, the frequency of similar responses was noted. A ‘miscellaneous’ category was set up to include responses that did not fit into any assigned categories.
Presentation and Analysis of Data
Quantitative Analysis
Table 1.1 summarizes the descriptive statistics obtained for Sample A (United States), Sample B (Singapore), and Sample C (Chinese, Malay, and Indian Groups in Singapore). They indicate the minimum and maximum ages of participants from each sample, the minimum and maximum ratings of the adaptor and innovator styles, the mean adaptor and innovator ratings as well as the standard deviations of each sample.
Table 1.1
Descriptive Statistics for Samples A, B, and C
| N | Min. | Max. | Mean | SD | |
| Sample A – United States | 139 | ||||
| Age (years) | 18 | 75 | 43.5 | 11.7 | |
| Adaptor Rating | 1.0 | 10.0 | 4.6 | 2.2 | |
|
Innovator Rating |
1.0 | 10.0 | 7.3 | 1.9 | |
| Sample B – Singapore | 199 | ||||
| Age (years) | 18 | 62 | 36.4 | 10.1 | |
| Adaptor Rating | 1.0 | 10.0 | 4.8 | 1.9 | |
|
Innovator Rating |
1.0 | 10.0 | 7.1 | 2.0 | |
| Sample C – Singapore (including Chinese, Malay, and Indian ethnic Groups) | 185 | ||||
| Age (years) | 18 | 60 | 31.7 | 12.2 | |
| Adaptor Rating | 1.0 | 10.0 | 4.9 | 1.9 | |
|
Innovator Rating |
1.0 | 10.0 | 7.3 | 2.0 |
As can be noted from Table 1.1, the minimum age of the participants from all the three samples was 18 years while the maximum age ranged from 60 to 75 years. The mean ages are 43.5 years for the United States sample, 36.4 years for the Singaporean sample, and 31.7 years for the Singaporean sample with the three ethnic Groups. Thus, the sample from the United States consists of laypeople that are comparatively older than the laypeople from the two Singaporean samples. The mean rating for the adaptive style ranged from 4.6 to 4.9 while the mean rating for the innovative style ranged from 7.1 to 7.3. In all the three samples, the innovative style received higher ratings for creativity. It is also noted that both the adaptor and innovator styles received ratings across the full continuum; that is, both the adaptor and innovator styles were rated as 1 (not at all creative) and 10 (exceptionally creative).
Since Sample C comprised the three ethnic Groups in Singapore (i.e. the Chinese, the Malays, and the Indians), descriptive statistics for these specific sub-Groups are shown in Table 1.2.
Table 1.2
Descriptive Statistics for Sample C - Chinese, Malays, Indians
| N | Min. | Max. | Mean | SD | |
| Chinese | 84 | ||||
| Age (years) | 18 | 60 | 33.4 | 13.7 | |
| Adaptor Rating | 1.0 | 9.0 | 4.9 | 1.7 | |
|
Innovator Rating |
2.0 | 10.0 | 7.5 | 1.6 | |
| Malays | 54 | ||||
| Age (years) | 18 | 50 | 36.4 | 9.8 | |
| Adaptor Rating | 1.0 | 10.0 | 4.8 | 1.9 | |
|
Innovator Rating |
1.0 | 10.0 | 7.1 | 2.2 | |
| Indians | 47 | ||||
| Age (years) | 18 | 56 | 31.7 | 10.9 | |
| Adaptor Rating | 1.0 | 9.0 | 4.9 | 2.2 | |
|
Innovator Rating |
2.0 | 10.0 | 7.3 | 2.1 |
In Table 1.2, the minimum age of the participants from all the three ethnic groups was 18 years while the maximum age ranged from 50 to 60 years. The mean ages are 33.4 years for the Chinese group, 27.9 years for the Malay group, and 33.0 years for the Indian group. Thus, it can be noted that the Malay group comprises laypeople that are relatively younger than the other two ethnic groups. The mean rating for the adaptive style ranged from 4.5 to 5.4 while the mean rating for the innovative style ranged from 6.9 to 7.5. Just like Table 1.1, the innovative style received higher ratings for creativity. However, it is also noted that only the Malay group had both the adaptor and innovator styles receive ratings across the full continuum; that is, both the adaptor and innovator styles were rated as 1 (not at all creative) and 10 (exceptionally creative).
Next,t tests were used to analyze the significance of differences between mean ratings for adaptors and innovators for Samples A, B, and C combined. Table 2.1 shows the test analysis of the mean ratings of the adaptor and innovator for the total number of participants from all the three samples combined.
Table 2.1
Implicit Perceptions of Adaptor-Innovator Creativity (across all samples)
| Sample | N | Mean | SD | t | p |
| A, B, and C | 523 | ||||
| Adaptor Rating | 4.85 | 2.03 | -19.51 | .00 | |
| Annovator Rating | 7.28 | 1.99 |
Table 2.1 indicates that there is a significant difference between mean ratings for adaptors and innovators of all the participants involved in this study (n=523) with a p-value less than .00.
The t test was also used to analyze the significance of difference between mean ratings for adaptors and innovators for each individual sample - Samples A, B, and C. Since Sample B and Sample C comprised Singaporean participants, these two samples were collapsed as one group. The results are noted in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2
Samples’ Implicit Perceptions of Adaptor-Innovator Creativity
| Sample | Variable | M | SD | t | p |
| Sample A – United States (n = 139) | Adaptor Rating | 4.6 | 2.2 | -10.7 | .00 |
| Innovator Rating | 7.3 | 1.9 | |||
| Sample B and Sample C - Singapore (n = 384) | Adaptor Rating | 4.9 | 1.9 | -16.3 | .00 |
| Innovator Rating | 7.2 | 2.0 | |||
From Table 2.2, it is noted that that there is a significant difference between mean ratings for adaptors and innovators in both samples, Sample A and Samples B and C combined. When Sample C was broken down into the three ethnic groups – the Chinese, the Malays, and the Indians, a significant difference between the mean ratings of the adaptor and innovator was also noted (p<.00). Table 2.3 shows the breakdown of the analyses.
Table 2.3
Chinese, Malay, and Indian (Sample C) Implicit Perceptions of Adaptor-Innovator Creativity
| Sample | Variable | M | SD | t | p |
| Chinese (n = 84) | Adaptor Rating | 4.9 | 1.7 | -10.0 | .00 |
| Innovator Rating | 7.5 | 1.6 | |||
| Malays (n = 54) | Adaptor Rating | 5.4 | 1.9 | -4.6 | .00 |
| Innovator Rating | 7.3 | 2.2 | |||
| Indians ( n = 47) | Adaptor Rating | 4.5 | 2.2 | -5.3 | .00 |
| Innovator Rating | 6.9 | 2.1 |
A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine if there was a significant difference among the mean ratings of the adaptor and innovator from all the three samples; Sample A, Sample B, and Sample C. The results are shown in Table 3.1.
Table 3
One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) across Samples A, B, and C
| Sample | Variable | F | p |
| Sample A, Sample B, and Sample C | Adaptor Rating | 0.94 | 0.39 |
| Innovator Rating | 1.06 | 0.34 | |
| 7.28 | 1.99 |
Table 3 shows that there is no significant difference among the mean ratings of the adaptor and innovator. Thus, adaptors were perceived in similar ways across all three samples, and the lack of significant difference found for the innovative style also indicates no difference in perception for this creativity style across the three samples.
For the open-ended question, all the responses from each sample were compiled and each response was assigned a category.A total of 87 categories including the ‘Miscellaneous’ category, were formed. Table 4.1 shows the top categories from Sample A and Sample B.
Table 4.1
Top Categories Reported From Sample A and Sample B
| Sample | Category | Frequency | % |
| Sample A – United States (n = 139) | |||
|
Total number of responses = 879 |
1) Arts/Artistic |
90 |
10.2 |
| Total | 404 | 45.9 | |
| Sample B – Singapore (n = 199) | |||
|
Total number of responses= 871 |
1) New |
100 |
11.4 |
| Total | 424 | 48.6 |
It can be noted that in Table 4.1, the top categories accounted for 404 responses (45.2%) out of a total of 879 responses. The top category for Sample A is ‘arts/artistic’, which accounted for 10.2% of all the responses. In Sample B, the top categories accounted for 424 responses (48.3%) out of a total of 871 responses. The top category was ‘new’, which accounted for 11.4% of all the responses. Both samples have ‘think out of the box’ as the category with the second highest number of responses.
It is interesting to note that while the category ‘arts/artistic’ is the top category for the American sample (Sample A) with 10.2% of the total responses, this category was placed in the seventh position for the Singaporean sample (Sample B), where it accounted for only 4.1% of the total responses. Another observation is that Sample A had categories like ‘open’ and ‘flexible’, which were clearly absent in Sample B. On the other hand, Sample B had ‘bold’ and this was not evident in the categories in Sample A.
Since Sample C consists of the three ethnic groups, a breakdown of categories from each ethnic group is provided in Table 4.2.
Table 4.2
Top Categories Reported From Each Ethnic Group in Sample C (Singapore)
| Sample | Category | Frequency | % |
| Chinese (n = 84) | |||
|
Total number of responses = 415 |
1) Think outside the box |
54 |
13.0 |
| Total | 248 | 59.7 | |
| Malays (n = 54) | |||
|
Total number of responses= 299 |
1) Arts/Artistic |
28 |
9.3 |
| Total | 119 | 39.7 | |
| Indians (n = 47) | |||
|
Total number of responses= 259 |
1) New |
28 |
9.3 |
| Total | 135 | 52.1 |
In Table 4.2, the top category for the Chinese group is ‘think outside the box’, which accounted for 13.0% of all the responses. The top category for the Malay group was ‘arts/artistic’ which accounted for 9.3% of all the responses while the top category for the Indian group was ‘new’, which accounted for 8.8% of all the responses. Also, the Chinese had two categories, ‘bold’ and ‘interesting’, which were absent from the Malay and Indian samples. It is also noted that in all the three ethnic groups, a new category, ‘abnormal/weird’ is found. This category is absent in Sample A (United States) and Sample B (Singapore).
Discussion
One clear pattern that emerged from the mean ratings of the adaptor and innovator was that the participants in the United States and Singapore indicated an implicit belief that a high level of creativity was more associated with Kirton’s (1976) innovative style of creativity. There was a consistent higher mean rating to the innovator than the adaptor. If a generalization of these findings can be made, there seems to be a perceptual bias towards the innovator being more creative than the adaptor. This is in direct contention with Kirton’s (1976) explicit theory where he has stated that the adaptors are equally creative as the innovators, at least with regard to laypeople.
Studies by Puccio and Chimento (2001), Gonzalez (2003), as well as Muneyoshi and Kagawa (2004) have noted similar findings where the innovator was rated as more creative than the adaptor. Puccio and Chimento (2001) believe that culture could have played a role in influencing the perception of the innovator style as being more creative since ‘innovation’ is highly valued, marketed, publicized, and sought after. Furthermore, they suggested that, “the popular phrase often used to describe creativity, ‘out-of-the-box-thinking’, seems to reflect a bias towards the paradigm-breaking style associated with Kirton’s innovator” (p. 679).
Another possible explanation is that in the case of the United States, Western values on creativity are dominated by the American ideology, whereby creativity is viewed as creating new and useful objects and ideas that significantly depart from existing ones (Weiner, 2000). Also, because of a strong emphasis on freedom of expression, individualism, and democracy as reinforced by a political system that protects freedom and protesting rights, Americans are imbibed in a culture where they are encouraged to go beyond the existing frontiers (Weiner, 2000). This implies that breaking paradigms and questioning the norms are hallmarks of a creative society, and these in turn seem to reflect the innovator style of creativity.
A similar situation is also found in the Singaporean samples. Although Singapore is an Asian country that is considered to be more collectivist in nature (Hofstede, 1984), the innovator style is deemed more creative, not unlike the participants in the American sample. One possible reason could be the overt importance of creativity for the survival of the country since the 1980s. For example, there have been calls by the government to intensify the drive to foster creative thinking in students by having innovative curriculum and pedagogy as well as emphasizing the importance of creativity in the economy (Lim & Gopinathan, 1990).
Even within the national culture of Singapore, the three ethnic groups registered a similar implicit belief that high creativity is associated with the innovative style of creativity. It can be noted that the largest difference in the mean ratings can be seen in the Chinese group, where the mean rating for the adaptor was 4.9 and the mean rating for the innovator was 7.5. There was a difference of a mean rating of 2.6. The Indians followed after, with a difference of 2.4 (adaptor rating=4.5, innovator rating=6.9), and then the Malays with the smallest difference of 1.9 (adaptor rating=5.4, innovator rating=7.3).
One possibility could be is that the Malay group is more homogeneous than the other participants in the Chinese and Indian groups. For example, the Chinese group had various dialect groups like the Hokkiens, Teochews, and Hakkas, and different religions like Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, and ‘free thinker’ (a euphemism used in Singapore when an individual does not embrace any particular faith). In the case of the Indian group, there were Sikhs and Punjabis apart from those of South Indian origin. Also, this group registered various religious backgrounds that included Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. Compared to these groups, the Malay group was relatively homogeneous as all Malays are by constitutional definition Muslims (Chua, 1998). Although grossly simplified, this could provide a reason why there was a small difference between the mean rating of the adaptor and innovator in the Malay group.
However, a major point to note is that despite these differences, the fact remains that there is a significant difference between the mean ratings of the adaptor and innovator (p ≤ 0), where the innovator was perceived to be more creative than the adaptor across the three ethnic groups.
When laypeople from the United States and Singapore were asked to define creativity in their own words, both the American and Singaporean samples yielded 879 and 871 responses respectively. In view of this, direct comparisons can be made. One clear similarity between the samples was that most of the top categories of responses seemed to have an innovator bias in the laypeople’s implicit theory of creativity. For example, words like (a) think out of the box, (b) new, (c) innovative, (d) unusual, and (e) different were some of the top categories from each national culture. This finding further corroborates the participants’ implicit belief that creativity is more associated with the innovative style of creativity rather than the adaptive style.
However, some differences can also be noted. The top category from the American sample was ‘arts/artistic’ which accounted for 10.2% of all the responses while this category accounted for only 4.1% of the Singaporean sample. This indicates that being involved in the arts or being artistic is one of the main hallmarks of creativity in this sample of participants and that artistic creative expression is one of the clear indicators of a creative individual. As Leung, Au, and Leung (2004) have noted, “In the West, creativity is often viewed as an individual activity, and that may be why creativity is typically associated with artists or scientists” (p. 121). If generalizable, this confirms the individualistic nature of the American society, with an Individualism Index (IDV) of 91 compared to Singapore, with an IDV of 20 (Hofstede, 1984).
Also, the top response from the Singaporean sample was ‘new’, which accounted for 11.4% of the responses compared to the American sample, with 4.5%. Further, the two other top categories for the Singaporean sample were ‘think out of the box’ and ‘innovative’. Not only do they indicate an innovator bias, but these responses reflect the country’s desire to incorporate creativity and innovation in all spheres of the economy.
In terms of the three ethnic groups, one similarity that can be noted is that again, most of the categories indicate a perceptual bias towards the innovator style. For example, words like (a) think out of the box, (b) new, (c) innovative, (d) unusual, and (e) different were some of the top categories from each ethnic group. However, one category that seemed to be absent from the two national cultures of the United States and Singapore was ‘abnormal/weird’. Words in this category included (a) crazy, (b) irrational, (c) eccentric, and (d) wacky. Thus, it seems that creativity is associated with ideas, behaviors or products that are out of the norm or particular paradigm. This again reinforces the idea that creativity is more associated with the innovative style of creativity rather than the adaptive style.
Furthermore, it can be noted that the categories ‘new’ and ‘think out of the box’ are within the top two categories for the Chinese (25.7%) and Indian samples (16.9%). As mentioned earlier, Singapore’s emphasis on breakthrough thinking and innovation as part of raising the intellectual capital of its people could have had an impact on how laypeople perceive creativity. Furthermore, a conversation with Dr. Hui Ming Fai, an education specialist from Hong Kong, indicated that in the Chinese language, the Chinese character, ‘create’, connotes producing something new or producing something that did not exist before (personal communication, February 8, 2005). Together with Singapore’s emphasis on breakthrough thinking and innovation, it could shed some light as to why the categories ‘think outside the box’ and ‘new’ are prominent in the Chinese and Indian perceptions of creativity.
However, the Malay sample, although part of the national culture of Singapore, revealed that the categories of ‘new’ and ‘think outside the box’ have a lower percentage (9.6%) than the Chinese and Indian samples. In fact, the top category for the Malay sample is similar to the American sample, where ‘arts/artistic’ is the top category, which accounted for 9.3% of the responses. One common conception is that the Malays are highly artistic and thus, would think of creativity in this respect. However, it can be argued that the Chinese and Indians also have deep roots in their own cultures, traditions, and the arts. As pointed out by Professor Lily Kong, Vice-Provost of the National University of Singapore and one of the leading cultural geography researchers in Singapore, “this might be rather essentialist in approach” (personal communication, 3 July, 2005). Instead, she provides the following conjecture:
…It is true that the Chinese and Indian populations in Singapore are largely migrant populations of the working class, rather than the literati and
upper classes with their artistic and cultural traditions. One might therefore argue that these groups (both the early migrants and their later descendents) do not share the same cultural "ancestry" of others [Malays] in their race in the homelands. (personal communication, 3 July, 2005).
Although this is pure conjecture, the main implication here is that there could be cultural factors at work in regard to the different conceptions of creativity for migrant populations like the Chinese and the Indians, compared to the Malays, who are considered regionally indigenous.
Implications
Results revealed that the research participants’ perceptions in all the samples indicate an implicit belief that high creativity is more clearly associated with Kirton’s innovative style of creativity. The conclusion is that laypeople’s implicit theories of creativity have been contrary to Kirton’s explicit theory of creativity styles. This finding confirms other research studies using Kirton’s explicit theory of Adaption and Innovation to access laypeople’s implicit theories of creativity (Gonzalez, 2003; Muneyoshi & Kagawa, 2004; Puccio & Chimento, 2001). These three very distinct cultures – Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Asian, consistently gave higher scores to the innovator. If these results can be generalized, then this indicates a perceptual bias across various types of cultures towards the innovator style of creativity, which is in direct contention to Kirton’s theoretical position.
In the case of Singapore, the innovator style of creativity is considered to be a style to strive for if the nation is to be globally competitive. The innovative style of creativity is considered to be the type of creativity that should be fostered and nurtured in every student so that they will be highly creative and innovative workers who will be at the forefront of ideas and scientific breakthroughs. Also, in the area of business, the key source of economic growth is the ability of businesses to seek out new ideas, knowledge, practices, and technologies that can steer them one step ahead of others. All these connote the demand for the innovative style of creativity, where tangential thinking and working out of the paradigm are required.
In the light of this, the adaptive style of creativity, where working within a paradigm and improving upon it, is implicitly viewed to stymie the progress of the nation trying to brace itself for a future of intense competition and where technologies and concepts are replaced at an escalating pace. In the United States as well as in Singapore, the adaptive style of creativity is not considered as creative as the innovative style as the assumption is that this style does not produce innovative solutions to problems that are inherent in a knowledge-based economy.
A Western or Eastern culture is not entirely homogeneous. These are very broad terms that do not allude to a myriad of sub-cultures within a particular national culture. The vast historical and sociopolitical differences in the Western and Eastern cultures simply do not justify treating these groups as uniform entities. Thus, the findings from this study imply that research in Western and Eastern conceptions of creativity should give way to more research within a particular national culture so as to unearth the richness of how creativity is conceived in various sub-cultures within a larger entity. Perhaps instead of coming up with a common definition of creativity that can cross all cultures, the complexities of how creativity is conceived in various cultures should be recognized.
In conclusion, it can be noted from the discussion that an explicit theory cannot be assumed to have a shared global understanding of its concepts and ideas. Perhaps this can pave the way for more research in creativity on implicit theories, where there can be a deeper appreciation of how creativity is viewed all over the globe. Also, any explicit theory on a psychological construct can incorporate testing it on the general population by way of implicit theories so as to add more rigor and acceptance within a given society.
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