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Difficult differences: a socio-cultural analysis of how diversity can enable and inhibit creativity

Hana Hawlina, Alex Gillespie & Tania Zittoun

Abstract The relationship between diversity and creativity can be seen as paradoxical. A diversity of perspectives should be advantageous for collaborative creativity, yet its benefits are often offset by adverse social processes. One suggestion for overcoming these negative effects is perspective taking. We compared four dyads with low scores on trait perspective taking with four dyads who were high on trait perspective taking on a brainstorming task followed by reconstructive interviews. Trait‐based perspective taking was strongly associated with greater creativity. However, contrary with expectation, interactional perspective taking behaviors (including questioning, signaling understanding, repairing) were associated with lesser creativity. The dyads that generated the fewest ideas were most likely to get stuck within ideational domains, struggling to understand one‐another, having to elaborate and justify their ideas more. In contrast, the dyads that generated many ideas were more likely to recognize each other's ideas as valuable without extensive justification or negotiation. We suggest that perspective taking is crucially important for mediating diversity in the generation of new ideas not only because it enables understanding the perspective of the other, but because it entails an atmosphere of tolerance, playfulness, and mutual recognition.
   
Keywords creativity; diversity; perspective taking; mutual recognition; interaction
   
Citation Hawlina, H., Gillespie, A., & Zittoun, T. (2019). Difficult differences: a socio-cultural analysis of how diversity can enable and inhibit creativity. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 53(2), 133-144.
   
Type Journal article (English)
Date of appearance 24-7-2019
Journal The Journal of Creative Behavior
Volume 53
Issue 2
Pages 133-144
URL https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.182
Related project Imagination