Creative Performance and Identity Integration

In two studies drawing from social identity theory and the creative-cognition approach, we found that higher levels of identity integration—perceived compatibility between two social identities—predict higher levels of creative performance in tasks that draw on both identity-relevant knowledge domains. Study 1 showed that Asian Americans with higher identity integration were more creative in developing new dishes using a given set of ingredients, but only when both Asian and American ingredients were available. Study 2 showed that female engineers with higher identity integration were more creative in designing a product, but only when the product was targeted to female users. These findings suggest that the psychological management of multiple social identities may be related to accessibility of multiple knowledge domains, which in turn influences creativity. Creativity, typically defined as the ability to generate ideas that are both original and feasible, is often essential for personal and professional success. The antecedents of creative performance have long been of interest to behavioral scientists (Amabile, 1983; Paulus & Nijstad, 2003; Royce, 1898; Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). A dominant psychological approach to understanding creativity, the creative-cognition approach, suggests that accessibility of different knowledge systems is critical to the generation of creative ideas (see Smith,Ward, & Finke, 1995, for a review). This view is consistent with the notion that creative performance is a process of recombining existing knowledge sets that initially appear unrelated or irrelevant to one another (Guilford, 1950; Koestler, 1964; Merton, 1973; Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe 2007). The underlying logic is that exposure to different sets of knowledge equips individuals with the requisite knowledge sets for certain creative tasks. But will individuals make use of the diverse knowledge they have acquired? Imagine an Asian American chef having to create an innovative dish using Asian and American ingredients. Will he or she make use of both sets of knowledge tied to these two distinct cultural identities? We suggest that the answer to this question lies in the chef’s ability to integrate the two cultural identities. Drawing on both the social identity and the creative-cognition literatures, we suggest that greater perceived integration of one’s multiple social identities increases the accessibility of multiple identity-relevant knowledge domains, and that this accessibility, in turn, improves creative performance on tasks drawing on these knowledge domains. KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS AND SOCIAL IDENTITIES Knowledge systems—attributes, behaviors, and information that are characteristic of a specific social category—are bundled with social identities (see Devine & Monteith, 1999, for a review). Social identities refer to aspects of the self that are based on memberships in important social groups (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Individuals may have many social identities, and depending on which social identity is being activated, different knowledge systems are made accessible for use (Fiske, 1998; Higgins, 1996). For example, when Asian Americans’ Asian identity is activated (through exposure to Asian primes), they exhibit a prototypical Asian inferential behavior (i.e., making more situational than personal attributions), whereas when their American identity is activated, they exhibit the opposite behavior (i.e., making more personal than situational attributions; Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-Martı́nez, 2000). Similarly, activating gender identity among Asian women increases gender-stereotypic performance on academic tests (doing worse on math tests and better on verbal tests). However, activating Asian women’s Asian identity increases culturally stereotypic performance on these same tests (doing worse on verbal tests and better on math tests; Shih, Pittinsky, & Ambady, 1999). This stream of research shows that even though one might theoretically possess the expertise or know-how to solve a problem, Address correspondence to Chi-Ying Cheng, School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University, Level 4, 90 Stamford Rd., Singapore, 178903, Republic of Singapore, e-mail: cycheng@ smu.edu.sg. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 1178 Volume 19—Number 11 Copyright r 2008 Association for Psychological Science at UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN on April 11, 2012 pss.sagepub.com Downloaded from certain knowledge systems may not be accessible at a given time because the relevant social identity is not activated. MULTIPLE IDENTITIES AND IDENTITY INTEGRATION Although individuals belong to different social groups simultaneously, how multiple social identities are managed is not well understood (Deaux, 1996). Early perspectives on this process emerged from research exploring immigrants’ perceptions of their ‘‘dominant’’ and ‘‘ethnic’’ identities (e.g., Berry, 1990). Recently, Roccas and Brewer (2002) proposed four strategies individuals use to manage multiple social identities: intersection (a White Christian identifies only with other White Christians), dominance (a White Christian with a dominant religious identity identifies with other Christians), compartmentalization (a white Christian identifies with either Whites or Christians depending on the situation), and merger (a White Christian identities with both Whites and Christians). Roccas and Brewer (2002) suggested that the specific strategy people employ depends in part on individual differences in the perceived compatibility between different social identities. Evidence supporting this notion indicates that bicultural individuals vary on identity integration, an individual difference construct describing the degree to which two cultural identities are perceived as compatible with or in opposition to each other (Benet-Martı́nez & Haritatos, 2005). Specifically, bicultural individuals with high identity integration perceive their two cultural identities as largely compatible and complementary, and do not find it problematic to identify with both cultural groups at the same time (an approach similar to the merger strategy). However, bicultural individuals with low identity integration feel caught between the two identities and prefer to keep them separate, believing they can identify with each cultural group at particular times or in particular contexts, but cannot identify with both cultural groups at the same time (an approach similar to the compartmentalization strategy). IDENTITY INTEGRATION AND CREATIVITY We propose that individual differences in identity integration predict creative performance in specific domains. To the extent that individuals with higher levels of identity integration are better at simultaneously activating multiple social identities, they should be better at accessing knowledge systems associated with these social identities, and thus show better creative performance in tasks that require applying those knowledge systems. Thus, identity integration and type of task (single identity relevant vs. multiple identities relevant) should interact in predicting creative performance. Specifically, we propose that individuals with high identity integration will exhibit higher levels of creativity than individuals with low identity integration in tasks relevant to both identity-related knowledge domains, but not in tasks relevant to the knowledge domain of a single social identity.