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Multicultural Psychology Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Multicultural Psychology

Meta-Knowledge Of Culture Promotes Cultural Competence, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Sau-Lai Lee, Chi-Yue Chiu Jun 2014

Meta-Knowledge Of Culture Promotes Cultural Competence, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Sau-Lai Lee, Chi-Yue Chiu

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

A behavioral signature of cross-cultural competence is discriminative use of culturally appropriate behavioral strategies in different cultural contexts. Given the central role communication plays in cross-cultural adjustment and adaptation, the present investigation examines how meta-knowledge of culture—defined as knowledge of what members of a certain culture know—affects culturally competent cross-cultural communication. We reported two studies that examined display of discriminative, culturally sensitive use of cross-cultural communication strategies by bicultural Hong Kong Chinese (Study 1), Chinese students in the United States and European Americans (Study 2). Results showed that individuals formulating a communicative message for a member of a certain culture …


Revisiting The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Effects Of Cultural Distance And Comparison Mindset, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K.-Y. Leung May 2013

Revisiting The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Effects Of Cultural Distance And Comparison Mindset, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K.-Y. Leung

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

A growing literature provides evidence for the multicultural experience-creativity link such that exposure to the juxtaposition of two cultures facilitates individual creativity. The underlying mechanisms for this relationship, however, are still far from being well explored. Drawing upon the novel perspective of motivated cognition, we hypothesize that two factors interact to affect creative outcomes: (a) perceived cultural distance between the two juxtaposed cultures, and (b) comparison mind-sets. Specifically, we argue that individuals’ creative performance will be increased only when a difference mind-set is employed to process the cultural stimuli that are sufficiently different from each other. In two studies, individuals …


Cultural Construction Of Success And Epistemic Motives Moderate American-Chinese Differences In Reward Allocation Biases, Angela K. Y. Leung, Young-Hoon Kim, Zhi-Xue Zhang, Kim-Pong Tam, Chi-Yue Chiu May 2013

Cultural Construction Of Success And Epistemic Motives Moderate American-Chinese Differences In Reward Allocation Biases, Angela K. Y. Leung, Young-Hoon Kim, Zhi-Xue Zhang, Kim-Pong Tam, Chi-Yue Chiu

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

When the relative contribution of the self and the group to a group success is unclear, Americans tend to exhibit a self-serving bias (rewarding the self more than what the self deserves), whereas the Chinese tend to exhibit an other-serving bias (rewarding the group more than the group deserves). In a study comparing the reward allocation biases of Americans and Chinese in different group outcome conditions, the authors showed that the abovementioned cultural difference is found (a) only for culturally congruent success experience (attaining approach goals for Americans and avoidance goals for Chinese) and (b) among individuals who are motivated …


The Better-Than-Average Effect In Hong Kong And The United States: The Role Of Personal Trait Importance And Cultural Trait Importance, Kim-Pong Tam, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Young-Hoon Kim, Chi-Yue Chiu, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Al K. C. Au Apr 2013

The Better-Than-Average Effect In Hong Kong And The United States: The Role Of Personal Trait Importance And Cultural Trait Importance, Kim-Pong Tam, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Young-Hoon Kim, Chi-Yue Chiu, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Al K. C. Au

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

People tend to make self-aggrandizing social comparisons on traits that are important to the self. However, existing research on the better-than-average effect (BTAE) and trait importance does not distinguish between personal trait importance (participants’ ratings of the importance of certain traits to themselves) and cultural trait importance (participants’ perceptions of the importance of the traits to the cultural group to which they belong). We demonstrated the utility of this distinction by examining the joint effects of personal importance and cultural importance on the BTAE among Hong Kong Chinese and American participants. Results showed that the BTAE was more pronounced for …


Going Beyond The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Mediating Role Of Emotions, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Tsung-Yu Wu Aug 2012

Going Beyond The Multicultural Experience-Creativity Link: The Mediating Role Of Emotions, Chi-Ying Cheng, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Tsung-Yu Wu

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

This research examines the mediating role of emotions implicated in the multicultural experience—creativity link. We propose that when individuals are dealing with apparent cultural contradictions upon encountering two cultures simultaneously, mentally juxtaposing dissonant cultural stimuli could lower positive affect or increase negative affect, which could in turn induce a deeper level of cognitive processing of cultural discrepancies and inspire creativity. Two studies compared dual cultural exposure versus single cultural exposure among bicultural Singaporeans (Study 1) and compared self-relevant (jointly presenting local and foreign cultures) versus self-irrelevant (jointly presenting foreign cultures only) dual cultural exposure among monocultural Taiwanese (Study 2). As …


Multicultural Experience, Idea Receptiveness, And Creativity, Angela K. Y. Leung, Chi-Yue Chiu Jan 2012

Multicultural Experience, Idea Receptiveness, And Creativity, Angela K. Y. Leung, Chi-Yue Chiu

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

Inspired by recent advances in creative cognition research, the authors examined in the current research some creative benefits of multicultural experiences. Study 1 showed that European American undergraduates had better creative performance immediately after being exposed to American and Chinese cultures or to a hybrid culture formed by fusing American and Chinese cultures; this effect was also observed 5 to 7 days after the initial exposure. Studies 2 and 3 showed that exposure to multicultural experiences is positively related to the likelihood of engaging in some creativity-supporting processes—generation of unconventional ideas (Study 2) and receptiveness to ideas originated from foreign …