Vicarious cross-cultural learning may substitute for lived foreign experience to aid creativity.

Evidence

In addition, because all of our previous priming studies included only participants who had previously lived abroad, we also tested whether it is necessary to have actually had the experience of living abroad for our priming manipulations to have an effect. On the one hand, it is possible that when participants have not lived abroad and are asked to reflect on a functional multicultural learning experience, they will extrapolate from whatever cross-cultural experience they have had (e.g., via others’ experiences, or from books, movies, music, research, or travel) to simulate such an experience, which could potentially impact creativity. On the other hand, it is also possible that a concrete and highly impactful foreign experience (such as actually having lived in a foreign country) in which learning of underlying functions occurred is necessary for enhanced creativity. This hypothesis is based on the distinction between mental availability and accessibility: for a process to be made accessible, it must first be available in memory (e.g., Higgins, 1996). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2245

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does vicarious cross-cultural learning (fiction, media, research) have the same de-categorizing power for prejudice as lived experience does? The experiment tests creativity, not intergroup attitudes, leaving the extension untested.
• XREF: Connects to the Allport reassessment thread on whether ‘contact’ must be firsthand (live contact hypothesis) or whether parasocial/vicarious contact can alter outgroup cognition. — connects to: Imagining cultures built on alternative root metaphors teaches students that current ones are chosen. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 649; A friend can become one’s gateway into a foreign world of art — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs: A Guide to Making It in Show…, 205
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2245