Whether romantic, social or professional, intercultural relationships born of deep associations can have a significantly positive cumulative effect on individuals.
The study, “Going Out” of the Box: Close Intercultural Friendships and Romantic Relationships Spark Creativity, Workplace Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, conducted by researchers at INSEAD and Columbia Business School, shows that ‘intercultural relationships can provide the cultural learning that shapes the content and the processes of creative cognition’.
Andy Hafenbrack of Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics, co-author of the research, says intercultural ties not only facilitate the flow of new information from intercultural partners, but also signal general open-mindedness to observers from the home culture, who in turn are more likely to share content with the subject.
Shallow or superficial inter-cultural relationships or interactions do not lead to the same effect, says the study.
Hafenbrack pointed out that the notion that intercultural relationships can expand an individual’s creative capacity is also supported by the self-expansion theory.
“The [self-expansion] theory suggests that the shared experiences afforded by social relationships can lead individuals to integrate the perspectives, traits, and identities of their counterparts into their own self-concepts,” he says.
The research also concludes that individuals looking to improve their creativity should actively seek opportunities that allow them ‘to step outside their cultural comfort zone.’
While workplace intercultural connections may run deep or remain shallow, one area where interculturalism develops strong roots is in mixed marriages.
With more than 200 nationalities in the UAE, multicultural couples are increasingly common in the country as many families reach out to embrace values such as tolerance, understanding and bi-culturalism.
Dr Jamila Motala, clinical psychologist at Light House Arabia in Dubai, describes multicultural families as ‘a fusion of diversity, represented by different features such as nationality, religion, language, social customs, behaviour and values.’
In a mixed marriage, for instance, there are high chances of the children growing up bilingual.
Research has identified that bilingual people show an increased ability to shift attention, shift between tasks and solve problems more easily. This is believed to be due to the efficiency of the executive control functioning of the brain.
I do agree that people who had deep connections with someone from another culture experience growth in creativity.
So we are quite lucky then in this giant blender of cultures that is the UAE and Bahrain, where we can form deep bonds with people from other cultures, faiths and nationalities, allowing us to learn more as people and grow kinder and more understanding as humans.