

Living abroad gives you a creative edge - __
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13643981

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cia_plant
This article, like many other science articles, follows this template:

People have long suspected that <extremely general conclusion involving
vaguely-defined terms with complex meanings, like 'intelligence', 'love',
'creativity', 'belief'>. But now scientists have proved it. <Description of
experiment, in which some simple test is used as a substitute for the trait in
question - either a psych test, or an MRI, or something - and middle class
North Americans are used as a substitute for humanity>.

I find these articles really tiresome.

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pj
There's a creative edge of a person who decides to live abroad in the first
place. There may be correlation, but what is the causation?

~~~
ojbyrne
Living abroad? Going outside your comfort zone, experiencing new places,
languages, cultures?

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vomjom
"To check that they had not merely discovered that creative people are more
likely to choose to live abroad, Dr Maddux and Dr Galinsky identified and
measured personality traits, such as openness to new experiences, that are
known to predict creativity."

Is this what passes for controls these days? It'd be much smarter to test
people right before they're about to go abroad.

~~~
ojbyrne
Social sciences generally can't manage the strict experimental methods we're
taught in science so they rely on quasi-experimentation (and are fully aware
that that is less rigorous). The control you suggest would be confounded by
the problem of age. What if people get more (or less) creative just through
the passage of time?

Not that I'm defending this study, though it may be extremely rigorous, it's
really impossible to know from an economist article.

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patrickg-zill
People who live outside the country are already outliers to begin with. Only
20% of Americans even have a passport.

(I knew a woman who was in her mid-30s that had never been outside the state
of Pennsylvania; her first trip to NYC was at the age of 33.)

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anamax
> Only 20% of Americans even have a passport.

Yes, but there is far more diversity in the US than in other regions, let
alone other countries.

For example, there's more diversity south of the Tehachapis than there is in
Western Europe. (It would be mean to point out the diversity within 50 miles
of Disneyland.)

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jasonkester
Are you sure about that? I lived in Pamplona for a year, and I noticed a lot
more cultural difference between the local Basques, the French Basques across
the border, the Spaniards to the South and the Catalans to the East than I
ever saw between LA, NYC and Nebraska.

That's one 50 mile circle. Europe has dozens of similar examples.

~~~
anamax
Thais, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Columbians,
Armenians, Turks, Iraqis, Israelis, and so on, And yes, I'm ignoring the
differences in each and I haven't even mentioned the Europeans.

~~~
jasonkester
I think I see now what you're using to define diversity. America certainly
does have plenty of immigration, and plenty of "little wherever"s, but really
they don't make much of a dent in the Monoculture.

~~~
anamax
If you're going to argue that Northern Basque communities near Southern
Basques communities is diversity, then a "little Korea" next to "little
Manila", each with more people, qualifies.

It's not a "monoculture" so much as a dominant one. Yes, one can live within
the monoculture, but the ability to make that choice doesn't mean that one
could choose to live in a large number of cultures within the US.

And, both monoculture and dominant culture overstates things significantly.
Even if one thinks that NYC is one culture, it's not the same as upstate NY's
culture, let any of the ones in Texas.

Yes, there are lots of places in the US where one can find very similar
cultures, but again, that's a choice. (Ever hear the term "don't Californicate
Colorado/Oregon/Arizona"?)

You'd think that folks who claim to value diversity would actually practice it
given the choice.

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swombat
Ok, they filtered out for some known factors that encourage creativity... but
we barely know how creativity works, so how can they know for sure they've
filtered for all the factors?

To me, it seems that it's as likely there's a factor they don't know about, as
that their hypothesis holds (i.e. living abroad causes creativity).

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billswift
The article sounds more like reaching a predetermined conclusion, rather than
research.

"Nevertheless, where both negotiators had lived abroad 70% struck a deal in
which the seller was offered a management job at the petrol station in return
for a lower asking price. When neither of the negotiators had lived abroad,
none was able to reach a deal."

Struck me as incredibly obvious, in the few seconds between the presentation
of the situation and the solution, and I have never lived abroad, and don't
usually consider myself all that creative.

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jasonkester
Living abroad gave me a suntan and a bit of perspective, but honestly, I don't
feel any more creative than when I left the States.

That said, it's pretty good out here and the dollar is crazy strong right now.
I'd hop a flight if I were you!

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tigerthink
This isn't a very good study. What if the foreign students were simply smarter
to begin with? I imagine they faced higher barriers to entry.

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Ardit20
However, although this article itself might not prove much, when I was doing
some research I came across this study which had found a link between eminent
scientists and immigrants. I think it might be the cultural shock which
perhaps forces the individual to once more learn the basics, i.e. customs,
traditions, how to behave and of course language.

