WEIHUA NIU

ROBERT STERNBERG

Contemporary Studies on
the Concept of Creativity:
the East and the West

269

ABSTRACT

This article reviews contemporary studies on the concept of

creativity across two culturesEastern (Asian) cultures and
Western (American and European) cultures by examining
two bodies of literature. One is on peoples implicit theories of
creativity across different cultures and the other is on crosscultural studies of creativity. Studies on implicit theories of creativity in the East suggest that many Asians have similar but
not identical conceptions of creativity to many people in the
West. Cross-cultural studies of creativity reveal that Easterners and Westerners differ, on average, in their divergent-thinking performance and creative expressions. A view of creativity
as relatively culture-specific is presented and the appropriateness of using divergent-thinking tests to measure creativity is
discussed.

INTRODUCTION

You may never see a more beautiful movie and certainly no

more majestic film has yet been made. William Gallagher,
BBC NEWS.
One of the best adventure movies of the last decade,
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is also gravely and eerily
beautiful; poetic and moving in ways that we usually dont
associate with violent genre film. Micheal Wilmington,
CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, director Ang Lee has
produced the least interesting film of his career. He hesitated
and then lost in his choices of pursuing either artistic or
commercial success, expressing either romance or action, and
attracting either Chinese or Western audiences. XINSILU
NEWS

Volume 36

Number 4

Fourth Quarter 2002

Contemporary Studies

It is obvious that the movie was made for Western audiences. It intended to introduce them to Chinese values, but
was not successful. For example, the movie attempted to
emphasize the value of forgiveness, but you cannot feel this
forgiveness from watching it. XingGuo Xue, NEW CENTURY
CHINA
The film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was screened
worldwide in 2001. The above texts were selected from two
film critique websites, one American, and the other Chinese.
The film was recognized as a big success in the Western society; however, it was strongly criticized by its Chinese audiences.
What one audience saw as creative, another saw as pedestrian.
Observing this controversy, we, as psychologists, can ask ourselves whether there is such a thing as a truly global concept
of creativity.
One controversy in the creativity literature concerns whether
or not the concept of creativity is universally meaningful
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1997, Plucker & Mark, 1998). There are two
camps of researchers. One camp suggests that people in different cultures perceive creativity somewhat differently (Frank,
2001; Lubart & Sternberg, 1998; Niu, 2001; Niu & Sternberg,
2001; Rudowicz & Hui, 1997). The other believes that there is a
universal understanding of this concept (Guilford, 1975; Plucker
& Mark, 1998). Some major theories of creativity have been
established based on the latter viewpoint. However, after examining historical documents in different human civilizations,
some researchers have suggested that there are multiple roots
for peoples conceptions of creativity and that each has a different philosophical base (Albert & Runco, 1999; Lubart, 1999;
Niu, 2001).
In the West, there are two origins for the concept of creativity: One is the Biblical idea of Gods creation, and the other is
the ancient Greek expression of the inspiration from the
Muses (Albert & Runco, 1999; Niu, 2001; Weiner, 2000). In
China, the concept of creativity emanates from the idea of
the endless producing and renewing changes of nature the
dao, Tai-ji, or yin-yang changes (Berthrong, 1998; Hang, 1986;
Niu, 2001).
Ancient views of creativity across different cultures share
some common features; for example, creativity was perceived
as endless producing and renewing as well as goodness by
both ancient Chinese and Greeks; the two civilizations differed,
however, in some core characteristics; for example, the ancient
Greeks emphasized the feature of novelty, whereas the ancient

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Chinese emphasized social values (Niu, 2001). In contrast to

these ancient societies, modern societies tend to have more
interactions across cultures; however, people in different cultures may have different social values and attitudes that deeply
affect their motivations, attitudes, emotions, and thinking
(Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan,
2001). Because creativity is an important concept of human
cognition, and its value is becoming more and more important in modern societies, it is worthwhile to investigate how
culture influences modern peoples conceptions of creativity
and these peoples creative performances.
In psychology, there are two conventional approaches to
studying the concept of creativity (Sternberg, 1985a). One
approach is to study peoples explicit theories of creativity, in
which psychologists or other experts test their own hypotheses
using some assessments of creativity (e.g. Amabile, 1996;
Sternberg & Lubart, 1995; Torrance, 1966). The second approach is to study implicit theories of creativity. In studies of
implicit theories, psychologists, teachers, laypersons, or others are asked about their views of creativity. Typically, participants in such studies describe the characteristics of creative
individuals or rate the importance of particular personal characteristics potentially relevant to creativity (e.g. Gough, 1961/
1980). Both methods are useful and important in investigating the nature of creativity. In fact, they complement each other
to provide a broad understanding of the concept of creativity.
In this article, we will examine the current literature in studying the concept of creativity across different cultures mainly
the cultures of the East (Asian cultures) and the West (American and European cultures) to investigate whether the concept of creativity is universally meaningful, and whether it is
the same concept across cultures. We will organize our presentation along the lines of the two main approaches to studying creativity. First, we examine research studying implicit
theories of creativity of people in the West and the East, and
then we examine studies comparing peoples creative performances cross-culturally. Based on these reviews, we offer our
own view of the concept of creativity.
IMPLICIT THEORIES OF
CREATIVITY
Creativity in the West:
Research on American
and European
Populations

271

Most studies that examine peoples theories of creativity have

been conducted in Western societies, particularly in American
society (Connell, 1994; Runco, 1990a, 1990b; Runco &
Bahleda, 1986; Sternberg, 1985b).
In an earlier study, Sternberg (1985b) asked both experts

Contemporary Studies

(such as professors in the fields of art, business, philosophy,

and physics) and laypeople about the characteristics of an ideally intelligent, creative, or wise person. He found that peoples
conceptions of creativity overlapped with those of intelligence
and wisdom; however, there emerged some distinctive characteristics of creativity that do not necessarily exist in conceptions of intelligence and wisdom, such as imagination, aesthetic
taste, intuition and inquisitiveness, freedom of spirit, and an
unwillingness to be bound by the rules of society.
In another study, Runco and Bahleda (1986) surveyed undergraduate students and a group of artists by asking them to
list the characteristics of three different kinds of creativity,
namely, artistic, scientific, and everyday creativity. The results
suggest that the core characteristics of creativity as perceived
by laypeople are very similar to the core characteristics as found
in explicit theories reported by psychologists in the creativity
literature. For example, both laypeople and psychologists who
study creativity describe creative individuals as being imaginative, confident, independent, intelligent, and having intrinsic motivations. Another important finding of this study
suggests that peoples conceptions of creativity are domainspecific. Although creative individuals in different domains may
share some core characteristics, they differ in other characteristics. For example, being logical and willing to experiment are
important in scientific creativity but not in artistic and everyday creativity; likewise, expressiveness and emotionality seem
to be necessary only in artistic creativity, and helpfulness is
necessary only in everyday creativity.
Following the mid-80s, there have been increasingly more
investigations studying implicit theories of creativity across
different social and age groups of people, such as elementary
and high school teachers (Lesser, 1995; Westby & Dawson,
1995), parents and teachers of elementary school students
(Runco, 1989; Runco & Diane, 1993), artists (Runco, McCarthy,
& Stevenson, 1994), managers in major companies in Canada
(Kercz, 1993), and laypeople across various ages and professions in Western populations (Hoskens & deBoeck, 1991; Katz,
1987; Knight & Parr, 1999; Puccio & Chimento, 2001). Cumulative evidence has suggested that at least eight characteristics are important in the West in peoples conceptions of
creativity. These eight characteristics are innovation/imagination, intrinsic motivation, independence, risk taking, a wide
range of interests, intelligence, high levels of activity/energy,
and a sense of humor.

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Creativity in the
East: Research on
Asian Populations

273

Research on implicit theories of creativity in the East is

sparse. Here, we select four distinct Asian cultures, namely,
Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Korean, to examine how Asians
perceive creativity.
Chinese. Studies that have examined Chinese peoples implicit theories of creativity have been conducted only recently.
In one study, Rudowicz and Hui (1997) found that, similar to
the Western conception of creativity, Chinese conceptions tend
to include the following characteristics: innovative ideas,
imagination, intelligence, independence, and high levels of activity/energy. However, the characteristics of sense
of humor and aesthetic taste were missing in their sample,
and there were at least two characteristics (inspirational, and
contributing to the progress of society) included in the Chinese conception of creativity that are not reported in the U.S.
studies. Thus, Rudowicz and Huis (1997) study suggests that
the concept of creativity is at least partially culture-specific.
This finding suggests that studies of creativity should take the
factor of culture into consideration.
At the same time, several other studies have been conducted
to investigate peoples implicit theories of creativity in various
subgroups of the Chinese population, such as primary and
secondary school teachers in Hong Kong (Chan & Chan, 1999,
Lau & Li, 1996), college students in Mainland China, Hong
Kong, and Taiwan (Rudowicz & Yue, 2000; in press; Yue &
Rudowicz, 2002), primary school teachers in Singapore
(Cheng, 1999), and laypersons in Taiwan (Wu, 1994). Like
Rudowicz and Hui (1997), these researchers have found that
Chinese people from different subgroups share their core concept of creativity with Western people.
One unique component in the Chinese conception, seen in
most of these aforementioned studies and that is uniformly
missing in the Western conception, is the moral component of
creativity. For example, Wu (1994) found that creativity in the
Taiwanese Chinese conception involved some ethical standard.
Interestingly, this moral component also has been found in
Taiwanese conceptions of intelligence (Yang & Sternberg,
1997b; see also Yang & Sternberg, 1997a). At the same time,
some Chinese researchers have also found some components
of creativity important in the Western conception to be missing in the Chinese conception, such as aesthetic appreciation and humor (Rudowicz & Yue, 2000).
Several explanations have been offered for the cultural
differences between Chinese and Western people in their

Contemporary Studies

conceptions of creativity. Chan and Chan (1999) argued that

Chinese culture has a more collectivist orientation than does
the West; thus, group interest seems more important than do
the interests of individuals. Rudowicz and Yue (2000) offered
another possibility that the Chinese are more inclined to
emphasize the role a person must perform in life than are
people in the West. As a result, Chinese culture emphasizes
more the importance of group values or morality in understanding of the concept of individual creativity than does Western
culture.
Whereas some studies have emphasized differences across
Chinese and Western conceptions of creativity, other studies
have focused on the differences in subgroups of the Chinese
population. For example, Rudowicz and Yue (2000) found that
Taiwanese college students value more the characteristic of
enjoying life in judging a creative person than do their Hong
Kong and Mainland counterparts. Mainland college students
value more the characteristic of independence or individualism in evaluating a persons creativity than do their Hong Kong
and Taiwan counterparts. However, beyond these minor differences, overall, there appears to be a shared core concept of
creativity among all Chinese populations.
Indian. Very few studies have directly addressed the modern Indian concept of creativity. Two studies available in
English caught our attention. One study focuses on scientific
creativity and the other focuses on artistic creativity.
In one study, Kapur, Subramanyam, and Shah (1997) interviewed 20 Indian scientists about their ideas regarding creativity. The interview addressed questions such as the concept of
creativity, personality traits of creative individuals, the situation of Indian science in the world, and the factors influencing
the development of Indian scientific creativity. The study yielded
several interesting findings. First, in defining the concept of
creativity, Indian scientists referred to two different abilities
the ability to contribute something new and the ability to synthesize and integrate both of which distinguished creative
scientists from merely productive scientists. Indian scientists
also expressed the belief that the processes involved in artistic
and scientific creativity are different: To them, scientific creativity required more logic and rules and seemed to have a
greater impact on society than did artistic creativity. Second,
when describing the personality traits of the creative individual,
Indian scientists believed that there were certain characteristics shared by creative individuals, such as curiosity, self-

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motivation, absorption, risk-taking behavior, open-mindedness,

as well as broad interests and aesthetic taste. All these traits
also were found in the Western view of creativity. Finally, all
interviewed scientists considered themselves to be less creative
than were their colleagues in the Western world. They attributed this lack of creativity to the cultural influence of Indian
society, in which the obedience, religion, superstition, and
social etiquette required for diverse hierarchical relationships
are encouraged more than individual development. Indian
people, they felt, were also very context-sensitive, allowing them
to tolerate a great deal of dissociation and detachment from
objects. As a result, Indian scientists felt they lacked the ability
to synthesize and integrate information, skills they believed
were important to creativity. They also believed that they
excessively emphasize emotional connection to one another,
resulting in less independence. The authors concluded that all
the aforementioned factors in Indian societies depressed scientific creativity, but might nurture Indian artistic creativity in
forms different from the West, a conclusion that was only suggested but not fully investigated by this study.
In an earlier study, researchers outside psychology tried to
investigate how Indian artists understood creativity (Maduro,
1976). In this study, a group of traditional Indian painters were
interviewed about their views regarding artistic creativity. The
results showed that, compared with Westerners, Indians tended
to emphasize the integration of new ideas and old ideas. Therefore, to be creative, an Indian person should experience recreation or reactivation of what already exists in his or her mind.
The above two studies provide important information on how
Indian experts in two different domains think about creativity.
It seems that the cultural specificity of creativity in the Indian
context is also domain-specific: In the domain of art, a domain
in which traditional norms and values might be more relevant,
Indian artists tend to diverge from Western views. In the
domain of science, Indian scientists have views similar to those
of Western scientists.
It is worth noticing that the above two studies used qualitative methods rather than quantitative methods. There are some
quantitative studies that have attempted to study Indian creativity using a more typical population, such as college students. However, these studies did not directly address how
Indian people perceive creativity; rather, they were focused on
how people perceive themselves as creative, and thus they are
less comparable to other studies covered in this article. For

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example, over almost two decades, Khatena and his colleagues

(Khatena & Raina, 1977; Palaniappan, 1996) examined how
people across different cultures perceive their own creativity.
They believed that if a person rated herself or himself highly in
traits related to creativity, she or he would be more likely to
think and behave creatively than would an average person
(Palaniappan, 1996, p. 96). Their results did show a cultural
difference in peoples self-evaluations. In the comparison between these two samples American vs. Indian Indians
tended to rate themselves highly on the traits of initiative (the
ability to direct, produce, and bring about changes in procedures and organization), individuality (the ability to critique
others and the characteristics of preferring working alone), and
artistry (the ability to produce artistic or literary pieces),
whereas Americans tended to rate themselves highly on the
traits of environmental sensitivity (traits such as openness to
others idea and sensitivity to meaningful relations), selfstrength (traits such as self-confidence, versatility, and willingness to take risks), and intellectuality (the ability to self-explore
and enjoy challenging tasks). However, Khatena and his colleagues did not further interpret their results nor did they
relate their findings to more general cultural differences
between India and the U.S.
Japanese. Similar to studies of Indian creativity, studies of
Japanese creativity are very few and Japanese psychologists
have adopted different methodologies from American psychologists (Miller, 1997; Petkus, 1994; Shigemasu, Yokoyama,
Stern, & Komazaki, 1993). For example, Petkus (1994) examined the literatures of Japanese martial arts and ancient Japanese philosophy. He found that creativity in a Japanese context
is different from creativity in a Western context. He suggested
that Japanese people perceive creativity as an understanding
of, and a sensitivity to, the fundamental dynamics of nature,
and practicing martial arts can develop a humans ability to
be acutely aware of the existence of him or herself in the world.
Korean. Similar to the research in other Asian societies,
research on Korean creativity is very sparse (only 11 entries
have been found from PsycINFO). In a recent study, Lim and
Plucker (2001) studied Korean laypeoples conceptions of creativity and compared them with those of an American sample.
The results of this study suggest that Koreans have similar but
not identical views of creativity with respect to Americans. Both
Koreans and Americans perceive creativity in terms of a set
of four factors, including the factors of (1) personality and

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Comparison
between the West
and the East

EXPLICIT THEORIES
OF CREATIVITY
ACROSS CULTURES

Research Based on
the Notion of
Creativity as
Universal

277

general creativity, (2) perseverance, (3) independence and

deviance, and (4) cognition and motivation. However, the concept of creativity is viewed more favorably by Americans than
by Koreans. More specifically, Koreans see the creator as a
loner whereas Americans see the creator as a leader.
With few reported investigations of peoples implicit theories among Asian populations, it is hard to draw conclusions
about the differences in what constitutes creativity in the West
and the East. However, we can begin to see evidence supporting the view that peoples views of creativity in the East are not
identical to those in the West. There might be some universal
core characteristics of creativity shared by people in all societies, such as originality, imagination, intelligence, independence,
and possibly high activity and energy levels. However, people
in Eastern societies seem to emphasize the social and moral
components of creativity, whereas people in Western societies
appear to emphasize some individual characteristics such as
humor and aesthetic tastes. This difference might reflect the
different worldviews held by people from these two cultures.
Whereas an individualistic Westerner sees more of the value
of personal success as a creator, a collectivistic Asian might
see more of the social and moral value an individual can bring
to the society.
The primary goal of cross-cultural studies based on explicit
theories of creativity has not been to examine the conception
of creativity cross-culturally, but rather to investigate differences
in creative performance and expression across cultures. These
studies have adopted either of two different kinds of views of
creativity, based on two opposing assumptions about creativity (e.g., Colligan, 1983; Jaquish & Ripple, 1985; Misra, 1987;
Rudowicz, Lok, & Kitto, 1995; Saeki, Fan, & Van Dusen, 2001;
Shigemasu, Yokoyama, Stern, & Komazaki, 1993). The first
assumption is that there is a universal concept of creativity
that can be measured by a standardized or a universally meaningful test. The second assumption is that the concept of creativity is relatively culture-specific and domain-specific, and
thus any measurement of this psychological construct should
take into account the factors of culture and domain.
Most cross-cultural studies on creativity are based on the
first assumptionthat the concept of creativity is universal.
Creativity often is further understood as divergent thinking
and as being measured through various divergent-thinking
tests, such as Guilfords Unusual Uses Test (Guilford, 1960,

Contemporary Studies

1984, 1986), the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT)

(Torrance, 1966), and the Test for Creative Thinking Drawing Production (TCT-DP) (Jellen & Klaus, 1989). Among these
tests, the TTCT is by far the most widely employed, especially
for school aged-children.
Many researchers (e.g., Amabile, 1996; Plucker, 1998;
Sternberg, 1995) have challenged the validity and usefulness
of divergent-thinking tests for the study of creativity. The two
main criticisms are that: (a) divergent-thinking tests measure
only a superficial level of creativity and that (b) performance
on these tests has only a weak relationship to real-life creativity. Nonetheless, given their ease of administration and their
standardized procedures, many studies examining creativity
cross-culturally have used divergent-thinking tests as their sole
measures of creativity.
Using divergent thinking tests to compare peoples creative
performance between the West and the East started as early
as the late 1960s. Societies under investigation as counterparts
with American society were mainly Asian societies such as
Chinese (e.g., Jaquish & Ripple, 1985; Rudowicz, Lok, & Kitto,
1995;Wang & Wu 1975), Indian (e.g., Sraus & Straus, 1968),
Japanese (e.g., Saeki, Fan & Van Dusen, 2001; Takano &
Ryuichi, 1989; Torrance & Sato, 1979), and Arab-Islamic societies (Khaleefa, Erdos, & Ashria, 1996; Mari, 1976, 1983).
Cross-cultural studies of creativity based on explicit theories have yielded different, and sometimes, contradictory results. Two divergent results have been obtained. One suggests
that, as compared to Westerners, Asians tend to perform less
well on divergent-thinking tests. In contrast, other studies suggest the opposite. Various explanations have been proposed
by both sets of researchers.
Results that favor Westerners. Many cross-cultural studies
have shown that Asians tend not to perform as well as their
Western counterparts on various divergent-thinking tests. Several explanations have been proposed, one of which suggests
that this cultural disparity is due to the different levels of modernization as well as freedom of expression that exist in both
societies. According to this argument, the greater the degrees
of modernization and freedom of expression in a society, the
more creative its members are likely to be. For example, in an
earlier study, Straus and Straus (1968) asked both Indian and
American children to generate ideas to solve puzzles. The quantity and quality of the ideas generated were calculated to represent childrens creativity. The results showed that Indian

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participants performed worse than did their American counterparts on this task. The results also showed that Indian girls
performed significant worse than did Indian boys on this test,
and the gender difference of Indian sample was larger than
that of an American sample. They attributed their result to the
fact that that Indian society is more restrictive and normative
than is American society. Its restriction seems to have had stronger effects on Indian girls than on Indian boys.
Over a period of two decades, Mari (1971, 1983), using
the TTCT, conducted a series of studies to compare students
creative performance between American youths and their counterparts in Arabic societies. He found that American youths
performed better on the TTCT than did their Arabic peers. He
also compared Arabic participants across different religious
backgrounds (Christian vs. Druze) and geographic areas
(urban vs. rural and the Israel vs. the West Bank), and he
found that modernization could influence peoples creative
performance; In general, the more modern the group, the
higher its members were found to score on the TTCT (Mari,
1983).
However, the level of modernization and freedom of expression in a society does not always well predict the societys
creative potential. By extension, the different levels of modernization and freedom of expression between two societies do
not always explain the observed differences in creative performance in these two societies. For example, several studies that
attempted to compare the creativity of Westerners with Asians
who are living in modernized societies with a high level of intellectual freedom such as Japan (e.g., Kobayashi, 1978; Saeki,
Fen & Dusen, 2001), Hong Kong (Jaquish & Ripple, 1985),
Taiwan (Wang & Wu, 1975, cited in Rudowicz et al., 1985) and
maybe Singapore (Torrance, Gowan, Wu, & Aliotti, 1970),
found the same disparity in creative level, that is, Westerners
were found to be significantly more creative than were Asians
living in these modernized societies.
In explaining these results, the researchers in these studies
argued that the norms and values of the two cultures the
West and the East play a critical role in influencing an
individuals creativity. Overall, a collectivistic Asian culture,
which tends to encourage conformity and obedience, generally does not favor the development of creativity. In contrast,
the more individualistic culture of the West tends to encourage
self-exploration in favor of blanket conformity to the societys
norms.

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Results that favor Asians. Not all studies show Asians to

be inferior in divergent-thinking tests in comparison with Westerners. In fact, a number of studies have found Asian students
to score higher on divergent-thinking tests than do their Western counterparts. For example, Torrance and Sato (1979) found
that Japanese students tend to do better than do Americans in
the dimensions of flexibility, originality, and elaboration on the
figure form of the TTCT. Also using the figural form of the TTCT,
Rudowicz, Lok, and Kitto (1995) found that, on average, Hong
Kong Chinese children performed significantly better than did
their American counterparts.
In Mainland China, Zha and her colleague did a series of
studies comparing Chinese and German childrens creative
performances (Shi, Zha, & Zhou, 1995; Zha, 1986, 1998). They
found that Chinese children performed better than did their
German counterparts on divergent-thinking tests that required
the application of knowledge of mathematics and physics such
as listing possible equations using given numbers (Zha, 1998,
p.52). However, the German children performed better than
did their Chinese counterparts on items that required practical
knowledge, such as listing uses of a brick.
To explain these results, some researchers propose that the
figural form of the divergent- thinking tests generally favor
Eastern Asian children because of their exposure to the graphical characters of the Chinese language (e.g., Rudowicz et al.
1995). It is argued that perhaps the graphical characters of the
Chinese language, more so than the English alphabet system,
enhance the users general spatial-figural ability. Other researchers point to the differences in educational system in explaining these results. They argue that creativity is a highly
domain-specific ability, and as such, different educational exposure may lead to the individuals being more creative in certain domains. For example, Zha (1998) believes that Chinese
education places a lot of emphasis on mathematics and the
natural sciences, but not on other domains, such as language,
history, the humanities, or domains that require practical social skills. As a result, Chinese students tend to perform better
in mathematical form of creativity tests, whereas Western students tend to shine on other forms of creativity tests (e.g., Zha,
1998), such as generating creative uses for a common object.
However, Zhas explanation does not account for all the results
that favor Asian students creative performance. For example,
Asian students sometimes do better on figural form of the
TTCT, which does not require domain-specific knowledge.

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Research Based on
the Assumption of
Culture Specificity

281

Careful examination of these studies has yielded conflicting information about the differences between the creativity of
Asians and Westerners. At this point, it is unclear how much of
this conflict can be attributed to differences in the divergentthinking tests used in the studies, and how much to historical
or social situational factors that may serve as confounding
variables. Furthermore, there is an inherent problem involving
the internal validity of these creative-thinking tests, in that the
tests of divergent thinking may not test the full range of peoples
creative thinking. Of course, another confounding factor is the
fact that the tests tend to be of Western origin.
One noteworthy thing is that all of aforementioned studies
generally have adopted the modern Western concept of creativity (in particular, the idea of divergent thinking) in studying the creativity of the Chinese population. There is convincing
evidence, however, that Asians hold a somewhat different view
of creativity than do Westerners. This discrepancy is found in
both laypersons and researchers. Hence, using the same set
of tests to compare Eastern and Western creativity may not be
appropriate. As many researchers have suggested (e.g.
Csikszentmihalyi, 1997), creativity should not be just a matter
of an individual psychological construct, but also a quality that
is recognized in a certain domain and by a particular group of
people. Using product-orientated tasks and consensual assessment in studying creativity is thus regarded as a better way to
investigate creativity, especially in cross-cultural studies (Niu
& Sternberg, 2001).
The primary feature of product-oriented tasks and consensual measurement of creativity is to ask participants to create
a product such as a poem, an art design, or a scientific invention during the experiment. A group of judges (either experts
in the test domain or laypersons) is then asked to rate and
compare the quality and creativity level of each participants
products with the quality and creativity level of all the other
products. Amabile (1979) first suggested using this method to
measure creativity when she studied the effects of situational
factors, such as motivation, on peoples creative performance.
Instead of using conventional divergent-thinking tests, Amabile
gave her participants heuristic tasks, such as writing short essays or making collages. Because this method involves tasks
that correspond more closely to those of real-life creativity than
do conventional divergent-thinking tests, it can be regarded as
probably more valid and hence more nearly adequate
(Amabile, 1996; Lubart & Sternberg, 1988; Sternberg & Lubart,

Contemporary Studies

1995). Although many recent studies of creativity have

employed this tool in place of more conventional divergentthinking tests, very few studies have been conducted to compare creativity between Western and Eastern populations.
In a recent study, Niu and Sternberg (2001) asked college
students from China and the United States to participate in
two art activitiescollage making and pencil drawing. At the
start of the experiment, participants were either primed or not
primed to be creative either with or without the instruction of
being creative. At the end of the experiment, all the artworks
that the participants created were then scanned into a computer file, so that the artwork could remain anonymous and
judges could evaluate and compare them in a random fashion. Two groups of judges, one comprising nine Chinese and
the other comprising nine American graduate students in
psychology, evaluated the qualities of aesthetic appeal, appropriateness, and creativity of these artworks independently,
based on their subjective interpretations. They were not given
specific guidelines or rules about how to interpret or evaluate
these qualities.
This study yielded several findings. First, it was found that
American students tended to produce more creative and aesthetically pleasing artworks than did their Chinese counterparts.
Second, this difference in performance was based on ratings
of both American and Chinese judges. Third, the study demonstrated that the criteria used by the American and Chinese
judges were only slightly different, which implies that there may
be an underlying common concept of creativity. Fourth, the
study revealed that compared with that of American students,
the artistic creativity of Chinese students was negatively affected by restrictive task constraints, or the absence of explicit
instructions to be creative. Overall, these findings seem to be
consistent with the notion that an individualistic culture (e.g.,
that of U.S.) may be more supportive of the development of
individual artistic creativity than is a collectivistic culture (e.g.,
that of China).
One central finding of this study was that both American
and Chinese raters shared a similar concept of creativity, although there was a greater consensus among the Chinese
judges regarding what constitutes creativity than there was
among the American judges. This finding indicates that there
may be a common understanding of the construct of creativity. The judges were graduate students in psychology, however,
and thus may not constitute representative samples of the

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Chinese or the American population. Therefore, it cannot be

assumed that the Chinese people have, in general, adopted
the Western conception of creativity. Research on implicit theories of creativity has shown that there is a difference between
the Chinese and Western concepts. Perhaps Chinese scholars,
particularly the psychology students who served as raters, have
assimilated the Western concept of creativity.
CONCLUSION

283

There are two major questions addressed in this article. First,

do Asians and Westerners understand the concept of creativity differently? That is, are their implicit theories of creativity
different? Second, will studies based on explicit theories show
differences in peoples creative performance across these two
kinds of cultures? Speaking more broadly, is the contemporary concept of creativity universally meaningful, or is it culturally specific?
In answering the first question, we reviewed research on
implicit theories of creativity in the East and the West, and we
found that contemporary Eastern people hold similar, although
not identical conceptions of creativity to those of Western populations. In brief, compared with people in the West, Easterners
are more likely to view creativity as having social and moral
values, and they value more the connection between the new
and the old than do Westerners. In contrast, Westerners tend
to focus more on some special individual characteristics of
creative individuals than do Easterners. We believe that this
cultural difference in peoples conceptions of creativity is consistent with the current literature regarding the relationship
between culture and cognition (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, &
Norenzayan, 2001). Peoples worldviews can affect their
understanding and evaluation of what constitutes creativity.
To address the second question, we reviewed cross-cultural
research on peoples creativity, and the results seem to suggest that Asians perform somewhat differently from Westerners in tasks requiring creativity. This difference might not be
due entirely to differences in peoples conceptions of creativity. Social values, education, degree of modernization, and
other factors might account for differences in peoples creative
performance (Niu & Sternberg, in press). However, in terms of
measurement, we are seriously concerned about the ecological validity of divergent-thinking tests. Given that there are different focuses between Westerners and Easterners in judging
creativity, and that all divergent thinking tests are based on
Western ideas of creativity, we believe that these tests should

Contemporary Studies

not be used as sole measures of creativity. Use of a productorientated measurement to study creativity, and especially
having people from different cultures for product evaluation,
should be built into the designs of more studies on creativity.
Based upon current literature, we believe that at least in certain domains, such as the domains of art and literature, people
from the West and the East have different understandings about
what constitutes creativity. This difference in viewing creativity might be rooted in the difference of norms and values between these two cultures. The Westerners idea of a universal
concept of creativity can underestimate the creative contribution of the Eastern societies, and may create a new stereotype
of Easterners and therefore depress Easterners creativity.
We hope this review will generate more studies in the field
of culture and creativity. Here, we suggest two lines of research
useful to reveal the nature of creativity and its relationship to
culture. One is to study peoples implicit theories of creativity
in those populations that are the least assimilated to Western
cultures, such as those in the rural areas of India and China.
The other is to investigate the creative process of people in
different cultures, especially in the domains that have more
connection with their cultural background.
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AUTHOR NOTE

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This project was supported under the Javits Act program (Grant No.
R206R00001) as administered by the Office of Education Research and
Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. Support of this research does
not indicate agreement with any of the positions in the article, and no such
agreement should be inferred.
We thank Xuexin Zhang, Tina Newman and Lim How and two anonymous
reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.