Transformative growth can occur in ordinary places, not only exotic ones

Evidence

In many ways, my five years as Marilynn’s graduate student at Ohio State were my own sort of “Paris years,” a time when my intellect and abilities as a fledgling social psychologist were stretched to the limit … and then well beyond. Although my time in Columbus, Ohio, was sandwiched between stints living in much more exotic locales—four years in Japan and now four-plus years and counting in France—the experience shaped me and stayed with me just as much as, if not more so than being an American expatriate, living in Asia or Europe. So, perhaps being a Marilynn Brewer student was just the sort of transformational life experience—one that some of us were lucky enough to discover in fairly prosaic places like southern California and central Ohio—that we are now finding makes people more creative and productive. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2275

Categorization

• QUESTION: Implication: if prosaic environments can be equally transformational, what distinguishes a transformational experience from a mere change of scenery? The mechanism is under-specified.