Living abroad improves flexible, multi-perspective problem-solving

Evidence

Seeing problems from multiple perspectives is exactly the sort of insight that was necessary to solve the Duncker candle problem used in several of our studies; the insight that a box of tacks could be used for a purpose it is not typically intended for (a candleholder) is more likely to occur if individuals had lived abroad. The same sort of insight, that money is not the only way to come to a deal in a negotiation over the sale price of a gas station, was also more likely to occur for those who had lived abroad (Maddux & Galinsky, 2009, study 2). And a similar flexible problem-solving ability may have been at work in the word fragment task, which demanded the ability to produce multiple solutions to the same word fragments (Maddux et al., 2010, experiment 1). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2264

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Milgrom work on institutions filling information/knowledge gaps — both about what experiences and structures enable capabilities absent in homogeneous settings. — connects to: Motivational reluctance, not cognitive limits, blocks cross-cultural perspective taking — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 79