MULTICULTURAL EXPERIENCES: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND NEW THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

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r Academy of Management Annals
2021, Vol. 15, No. 2, 345–376.
https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2019.0138

                              MULTICULTURAL EXPERIENCES: A SYSTEMATIC
                              REVIEW AND NEW THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
                                                                WILLIAM W. MADDUX
                                                      University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

                                                                    JACKSON G. LU
                                                           Massachusetts Institute of Technology

                                                                    SALVATORE J. AFFINITO
                                                                      Harvard University

                                                                         ADAM D. GALINSKY
                                                                         Columbia University

                          As globalization has become a defining issue for business and society, an increasing
                          amount of research has examined how multicultural experiences affect a variety of psy-
                          chological and organizational outcomes. We define “multicultural experiences” as expo-
                          sure to or interactions with elements or members of a different culture(s). We then
                          provide a comprehensive review of the literature and detail how multicultural experien-
                          ces impact intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational outcomes, including crea-
                          tivity, psychological adjustment, intergroup bias, trust, morality, leadership
                          effectiveness, and individual or firm performance, exploring key mechanisms and
                          boundary conditions that have also emerged. We then present a new theoretical frame-
                          work—the “Structure–Appraisal Model of Multicultural Experiences”—that organizes
                          the overall pattern of findings and provides a roadmap for future research. The structure
                          part of our model proposes that deeper multicultural experiences produce integrative
                          processes that transform intrapersonal cognition, whereas broader multicultural experi-
                          ences activate comparative processes that influence interpersonal attitudes and behav-
                          iors. The appraisal part of our model suggests that these intrapersonal and
                          interpersonal effects are only likely to occur when appraisals of one’s multicultural ex-
                          periences are positive rather than negative. We conclude by discussing practical impli-
                          cations for individuals and organizations, as well as future directions for researchers to
                          consider exploring.

                                                                                                    Globalization is perhaps the defining issue for
                                                                                                  business and society in the 21st century. Techno-
   The current article as well as some of the empirical re-
                                                                                                  logical advances have made it as easy to connect
search reviewed herein was supported by many people
and organizations. In particular, the authors would like to                                       with someone halfway across the world as with
thank Jeanne Brett and her Dispute Resolution Research                                            someone halfway down the hall. Increasing con-
Center at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwest-                                            tact with people from other cultures, and the in-
ern University, for supporting the initial stages of this re-                                     herent interdependence of the modern world,
search program, and for creating an ideal intellectual                                            means that globalization is transforming how we
environment during her decades of leadership at the                                               think about business, society, and even our basic
DRRC. Thanks also to the INSEAD Research and Develop-                                             humanity as fellow denizens of a single shared
ment Committee and to the INSEAD Social Science Re-                                               planet. Ongoing global challenges like climate
search Center. We appreciate the financial assistance of                                          change, international trade wars, race relations,
the Edward M. O’Herron family and the Kenan–Flagler
                                                                                                  and pandemics highlight the fundamentally inter-
Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel
                                                                                                  connected nature of society for individuals,
Hill, during the writing of this article. We also thank Peter
Jin, Mingyue Pan, and Tianfang Yang for their research                                            groups, and organizations. Even the various forms
assistance.                                                                                       of backlash to globalization from politicians and
                                                                                         345
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346                                         Academy of Management Annals                                        July

governments over the past several years have only             Even more often, researchers have not chosen to de-
served to underscore how quickly the world is be-             fine the construct at all. One reason may be that,
coming “flatter” with each passing year (Friedman,            given the inchoate nature of the growing literature,
2005).                                                        different papers have focused on different aspects
   Luckily, social science research is rising to the          of multicultural experiences (e.g., living abroad,
challenge of needing to adopt a fundamentally global          bicultural identity, cultural diversity of one’s
perspective to understand the growing complexities            professional network) that were not necessarily
of the world. In particular, there has been a growing         conceptualized as part of a larger overarching con-
body of research examining the potential effects of           struct of multicultural experiences. In addition, re-
multicultural experiences on a variety of individual          searchers (including ourselves) may intuitively
and organizational outcomes. Spurred on by an intro-          view the construct quite broadly. At the end of the
ductory paper on the topic published more than a de-          day, we believe that scholars are interested in any
cade ago, one that outlined emerging research                 and all ways in which experiences with other cul-
showing that multicultural experiences can lead to            tures can have a reliable impact on important psy-
higher levels of creativity (Leung, Maddux, Galin-            chological and organizational outcomes. In other
sky, & Chiu, 2008), this fast-growing area of research        words, researchers seem to have implicitly agreed
has now been taken up by scholars across                      to an approach allowing explorations of whatever
myriad disciplines, including social psychology, in-          aspects of multicultural experiences might be of
dustrial–organizational psychology, developmental             academic and practical interest—an inductive ap-
psychology, management, international business,               proach to construct definition that is often found
entrepreneurship, and strategy. No longer focused             at the beginning stages of research programs
exclusively on creativity, this research has now              (McGuire, 1997).
explored how multicultural experiences affect                    In their original paper on multicultural experien-
innovation and entrepreneurship, psychological                ces, Leung and colleagues (2008: 169) provided an
adjustment, group and team dynamics, moral deci-              initial definition of the construct of multicultural
sion-making, personality and self-concept change,             experiences, which they termed “all direct and in-
interpersonal trust, leadership ability, intergroup           direct experiences of encountering or interacting
bias, and multinational firm performance. This range          with the elements or members of foreign cultures.”
of inquiry across both topics and levels of analysis          Similarly, a decade later, Tadmor, Hong, Chao, and
highlights the increasing importance of multicultur-          Cohen (2018: 398) defined the construct as
al experiences for psychological and organizational           “experiences in which individuals interact with
researchers.                                                  people and/or elements of foreign cultures,” while
   The remainder of this article is structured as fol-        Vora, Martin, Fitzsimmons, Pekerti, Lakshman,
lows. First, we examine and update the definition of          and Raheem (2019: 500) conceptualized it as “the
“multicultural experiences” and explain its relevance         degree to which someone has knowledge of, identi-
for past and future work. Second, we review key em-           fication with, and internalization of more than one
pirical findings across intrapersonal, interpersonal,         societal culture.” Given the scope of the findings
and organizational outcomes, including critical medi-         that have now emerged, one goal of the present arti-
ators and moderators. Third, we distill key themes            cle was to revisit these definitions in light of what
across this growing literature and present a new theo-        we know about the construct looking back over the
retical model—the Structure–Appraisal Model of                totality of findings across more than a decade of
Multicultural Experiences—that helps explain wheth-           new research. In particular, we wanted to ensure
er, when, why, and how multicultural experiences              the current definition of the construct was inclu-
shape individual and organizational outcomes. Final-          sive of the variety of work done across different
ly, we discuss practical implications of existing find-       disciplines and the myriad empirical instantia-
ings and suggest directions for future research.              tions of the construct to date, while also being like-
                                                              ly to include relevant future work on the topic as
                                                              well.
  THE INS AND OUTS OF MULTICULTURAL
                                                                 Based on the literature reviewed herein, we de-
        EXPERIENCES: DEFINITIONS,
                                                              fine multicultural experiences as exposure to or
  OPERATIONALIZATIONS, AND OUTCOMES
                                                              interactions with elements or members of a differ-
  To date, scholars have defined the construct of             ent culture(s). This definition is similar to prior
“multicultural experiences” fairly inclusively.               definitions, with a few notable differences. First,
2021                                         Maddux, Lu, Affinito, and Galinsky                                           347

and as we elaborate on more toward the end of the                 term “polycultural” because researchers have typ-
paper, we chose the phrase “different cultures” in-               ically referred to this construct as an ideological
stead of foreign or societal cultures because the                 approach to diversity that emphasizes the mixing
relevant culture that makes a given experience                    together or integration of multiple cultures on
“multicultural” could exist both inside and out-                  identity and knowledge (and is contrasted with
side national boundaries, and thus need not be                    colorblindness and multiculturalism as other
conventionally considered “foreign” or need not                   ideological approaches to diversity; Morris, Chiu,
involve another “societal culture.” Second, we                    & Liu, 2015). In addition, to our knowledge,
omitted the phrase “direct and indirect” that was                 “polycultural” has not been used to describe spe-
used in Leung et al.’s (2008) definition because                  cific types of experiences with other cultures.1 Fi-
we are unaware of any extant research that has                    nally, we did not select the term “foreign culture”
differentiated multicultural experiences in terms                 because foreign cultures represent only one type
of directness. We also do not include the terms                   of cultural experience, which potentially pre-
“identification” or “internalization” in our con-                 cludes experiences with different cultures that ex-
ceptualization as Vora and colleagues (2019) did,                 ist within national boundaries. Importantly, and
because each term could be conceived as either an                 as we discuss in more detail toward the end of the
outcome variable or moderator variable, rather                    paper, we believe that some of the outcomes and
than a defining feature of multicultural experien-                mechanisms reviewed here may apply across a va-
ces. Finally, instead of “knowledge,” used by Vora                riety of contexts involving different cultures as
et al. (2019), we chose the word “exposure” be-                   well as different ingroups and outgroups, includ-
cause the multicultural experiences studied to                    ing those involving different races, genders, reli-
date have involved an individual’s or an organiza-                gions, organizations, as well as different cultural
tion’s own experiences with different cultures,                   regions within a single country.
and it is not yet clear whether secondhand knowl-                    We believe that the term “multicultural experi-
edge of another culture is sufficiently meaningful                ences” also inclusively and accurately captures the
enough to produce meaningful psychological or                     range of operationalizations used in the literature to
organizational consequences.                                      date, including but not limited to the following:
   We also took the opportunity to reexamine the                  (a) speaking two or more languages (e.g., Lambert,
term “multicultural experiences” itself. As we began              Tucker, & d’Anglejan, 1973; Simonton, 2000); (b)
this review, we considered possible alternative                   psychologically identifying with two or more coun-
terms, including “foreign cultural,” “cross-cultural,”            tries or cultures (e.g., Cheng, Sanchez-Burks, & Lee,
and “culturally diversifying” experiences. We decid-              2008; Nguyen & Benet-Martınez, 2013; Tadmor et al.,
ed to maintain the term “multicultural experiences,”              2012); (c) having various types of experiences in dif-
for several reasons. First, the word “multi,” by defini-          ferent countries or cultures (e.g., Cao, Galinsky, &
tion, means more than one (Merriam-Webster, n.d.),                Maddux, 2014; de Bloom, Ritter, K€   uhnel, Reinders,
and a “multicultural experience” fundamentally
                                                                  & Geurts, 2014; Godart, Maddux, Shipilov, & Galin-
involves, at minimum, the interaction of one’s
                                                                  sky, 2015; Lu, Quoidbach, Gino, Chakroff, Maddux,
own culture with individuals or elements of a dif-
                                                                  & Galinsky, 2017; Lu, Swaab, Galinsky, in press;
ferent culture. For example, even a simple experi-
                                                                  Maddux & Galinsky, 2009; Yamakawa, Khavul,
ence like an American traveling to India involves
                                                                  Peng, & Deeds, 2013); (d) having relationships
the interaction of two different cultures: the trav-
                                                                  with individuals (Lu, Hafenbrack, Eastwick,
eler’s home culture (the United States), which is
                                                                  Wang, Maddux, & Galinsky, 2017) or alliance part-
the cultural lens through which the experiences is
                                                                  ners (Fernhaber, McDougall-Covin, & Shepherd,
interpreted; and the host culture the traveler is vis-
iting (India), which represents a different cultural
environment that is being subjectively experi-
                                                                    1
                                                                      It is important to differentiate the term “multicultural
                                                                  experiences” from “multicultural ideology,” which is a
enced. We also chose not to use the term “cross-
                                                                  term used in the intergroup relations literature to refer to
cultural” because this term is usually used in a
                                                                  a mindset of recognizing and appreciating cultural differ-
comparative fashion and typically involves con-                   ences across (especially racial) groups (e.g., Wolsko, Park,
structs that differentiate national cultures, such as             Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2000), usually as opposed to a
the different average levels of individualism ver-                “colorblind ideology,” which is a strategy of ignoring cul-
sus collectivism in different cultures (e.g., Hof-                tural group differences (especially those involving racial
stede, 1980). Furthermore, we chose not to use the                differences).
348                                          Academy of Management Annals                                           July

2009) from foreign countries; (e) being a part of mul-         experience” OR “travel experience” OR “cross-cul-
ticultural social or professional networks (Chua,              tural experience” OR “intercultural experience”
2018; Shipilov, Godart, & Clement, 2017; Wang,                 OR “working abroad” OR “living abroad” OR
2015); (f) working in multicultural teams (Jang,               “traveling abroad” OR “studying abroad” OR
2017; Tadmor, Satterstrom, Jang, & Polzer, 2012);              “intercultural relationship.” This query returned
(g) being exposed to contrasting cultural primes               about 20,000 results, with the most relevant article
(e.g., Chang, Cheng, Wu, Wang, & Hung, 2017;                   (sorted by Google Scholar) being Leung et al.’s
Cheng & Leung, 2013; Cheng, Leung, & Wu, 2011;                 (2008) review.
Leung & Chiu, 2010); (h) being a firm with experi-                We then narrowed down the set of articles based
ence in foreign markets (e.g., Barkema & Shvyrkov,             on the following criteria. First, we mostly limited
2007); and (i) the sum of different aspects of multi-          our review to articles published since 2008, as it is
cultural experiences, such as having parents from              common practice to bound a review around the pub-
different cultures and appreciating foreign food or            lication of a seminal article (e.g., Clough, Fang, Vissa,
music (Leung & Chiu, 2010; Tadmor et al. 2018;                 & Wu, 2019). Second, we targeted our focus on re-
Tadmor, Hong, Chao, Wiruchnipawan, & Wang,                     search published in the top journals across a variety
2012).                                                         of fields, including but not limited to management
   In terms of the effects of multicultural experiences,       (e.g., Academy of Management Journal, Administra-
the most widely studied outcome continues to be                tive Science Quarterly, Organization Science),
creativity and its conceptual cousins, innovation              applied psychology (e.g., Journal of Applied Psy-
and entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, scholars have              chology, Organizational Behavior and Human
also examined a host of other outcomes, including              Decision Processes, Personnel Psychology), cross-
psychological adjustment (e.g., Demes & Geeraert,              cultural psychology (e.g., Journal of Cross-Cultural
2015; Geeraert & Demoulin, 2013), self-concept clari-          Psychology), social psychology (e.g., Journal of Ex-
ty (Adam, Obodaru, Lu, Maddux, & Galinsky, 2018a,              perimental Social Psychology, Journal of Personality
2018b), personality change (Greischel, Noack, &                and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psy-
Neyer, 2016; Zimmermann & Neyer, 2013), moral de-              chology Bulletin), general psychology (e.g., Psycho-
cision-making (Lu, Quoidbach, et al., 2017), general-          logical Science), sociology (e.g., American Journal of
ized trust (Cao et al., 2014), leadership effectiveness        Sociology), and strategic management (e.g., Strategic
(Lu et al., in press), intergroup bias (Affinito, Mad-         Entrepreneurship Journal, Strategic Management
dux, Antoine, & Gray, 2020; Tadmor et al., 2018;               Journal). We also examined highly cited articles
Tadmor, Hong, et al., 2012), and firm internationali-          within this initial set to ensure that our search had
zation (e.g., Fernhaber et al., 2009; Yamakawa et al.,         not missed any significant work. Third, we removed
2013).                                                         most articles that were not empirical and kept only
   What is now clear, compared to when this re-                those theoretically relevant to the scope of this re-
search started in earnest more than a decade ago, is           view. Fourth, we removed articles that did not actu-
that there are many different types of multicultural           ally measure or theorize about multicultural
experiences that affect a wide range of individual             experiences or were not relevant to our proposed re-
and organizational outcomes. In the next section,              view upon closer inspection. Last, we supplemented
we turn our attention to a systematic review of                this initial search process with a periodic Google
these findings.                                                Scholar search to be able to identify new papers ap-
                                                               pearing during the drafting of this article. This search
                                                               left us with 145 articles for formal review.
               LITERATURE REVIEW
                                                                  To provide the clearest possible picture of how
  Prior to conducting our review, we sought to                 multicultural experiences affect different outcomes,
identify the appropriate collection of articles rele-          we decided to organize outcome variables across
vant to understanding the current state of the liter-          three levels of analysis: intrapersonal, interpersonal,
ature. To do so, we based our review process on                and organizational. This structure allowed us to ex-
existing recommendations for systematic reviews                amine emergent empirical and theoretical themes
of a particular scholarly literature (Aguinis, Rama-           within and across these different outcomes, which
ni, & Alabduljader, 2018). We started by using                 was particularly useful in allowing us to construct a
Google Scholar to search for articles that contained           novel theoretical model, which we present toward
search terms most related to our main construct of             the end of the paper. Table 1 presents a summary of
interest: “multicultural experience” OR “foreign               articles included in our review.
2021                                          Maddux, Lu, Affinito, and Galinsky                                       349

                                                 TABLE 1
                          Summary of Empirical Studies on Multicultural Experiences
                                                             Aspects of Multicultural
                          Outcomes                                Experiences                         Citation(s)

Intrapersonal   Creativity, innovation, and               International experiences         Cho & Morris (2015)
                  entrepreneurship                                                            Fee & Gray (2012)
                                                                                              Godart et al. (2015)
                                                                                              Maddux, Adam, & Galinsky
                                                                                              (2010)
                                                                                              Maddux & Galinsky (2009)
                                                                                              Tadmor et al. (2012)
                                                          Multicultural background or       Chang, Hsu, Shih, & Chen
                                                           identities                         (2014)
                                                                                              Cheng et al. (2008)
                                                                                              Mok & Morris (2010b)
                                                                                              Puente-Diaz, Toptas,
                                                                                              Cavazos-Arroyo,
                                                                                              Wimschneider, & Brem
                                                                                              (2020)
                                                                                              Saad, Damian, Benet-
                                                                                              Martınez, Moons, & Robins
                                                                                              (2013)
                                                                                              Tadmor et al. (2012)
                                                                                              Tadmor, Satterstrom, et al.
                                                                                              (2012)
                                                          Multilingualism                   Kharkhurin (2010)
                                                                                              Krizman, Marian, Shook,
                                                                                              Skoe, & Kraus (2012)
                                                                                              Lee & Kim (2011)
                                                                                              Leikin & Tovli (2014)
                                                                                              Onysko (2016)
                                                          Multicultural relationships and   Chua (2013)
                                                           networks                           Chua (2018)
                                                                                              Chua & Jin (2020)
                                                                                              Lu, Hafenbrack, et al. (2017)
                                                                                              Perry-Smith & Shalley
                                                                                              (2014)
                                                                                              Qin & Estrin (2015)
                                                                                              Shipilov et al. (2017)
                                                          Multicultural groups              Jang (2017)
                                                                                              Tadmor, Satterstrom, et al.
                                                                                              (2012)
                                                          Organizational multicultural      Godart et al. (2015)
                                                             experiences                      Wrede & Dauth (2020)
                Psychological adjustment                  International experiences         Adam et al. (2018b)
                                                                                              Demes & Geeraert (2014,
                                                                                              2015)
                                                                                              Firth, Chen, Kirkman, & Kim
                                                                                              (2014)
                                                                                              Fisher & Hutchings (2013)
                                                                                              Geeraert & Demoulin (2013)
                                                                                              Geeraert, Li, Ward, Gelfand,
                                                                                              & Demes (2019)
                                                                                              Greischel, Noack, & Neyer
                                                                                              (2019)
                                                                                              Hong, Fang, Yang, & Phua
                                                                                              (2013)
                                                                                              Takeuchi, Wang, Marinova,
                                                                                              & Yao (2009)
350                                        Academy of Management Annals                                           July

                                                    TABLE 1
                                                   (Continued)
                                                        Aspects of Multicultural
                           Outcomes                          Experiences                         Citation(s)

                                                     Multicultural background or       Abe (2018)
                                                      identities                         Ward, Tseung-Wong, Szabo,
                                                                                         Qumseya, & Bhowon (2018)
                                                     Multicultural relationships and   Repke & Benet-Martınez (2018)
                                                        networks
                Personality, self, and               International experiences         Biemann and Braakmann (2013)
                  individual performance                                                 Georgakakis, Dauth, &
                                                                                         Ruigrok (2016)
                                                                                         Greischel et al. (2016)
                                                                                         L€
                                                                                          udtke, Roberts, Trautwein, &
                                                                                         Nagy (2011)
                                                                                         Maddux et al. (2014)
                                                                                         Moal-Ulvoas & Taylor (2014)
                                                                                         Tadmor et al. (2012)
                                                                                         Wolff & Borzikowsky (2018)
                                                                                         Zhu, Wanberg, Harrison, &
                                                                                         Diehn (2016)
                                                                                         Zimmermann & Neyer (2013)
                                                     Multicultural background or       Abe (2018)
                                                      identities                         Chen & Bond (2010)
                                                                                         Mok & Morris (2009)
                                                                                         Mok & Morris (2010a)
                                                     Multilingualism                   Gao, Zika, Rogers, & Thierry
                                                                                         (2015)
                                                                                         Keysar, Hayakawa, & An (2012)
                                                                                         Krizman et al. (2012)
                                                     Multicultural groups              Brodbeck, Guillaume, & Lee
                                                                                         (2011)
Interpersonal   Trust                                International experiences         Cao et al. (2014)
                                                     Multicultural background or       Chua et al. (2012)
                                                        identities
                                                     Multicultural groups              Mortensen & Neeley (2012)
                                                                                         Tenzer, Pudelko, & Harzing
                                                                                         (2014)
                Communication competence             Multicultural background or       Backmann, Kanitz, Tian,
                                                      identities                         Hoffmann, & Hoegl (2020)
                                                                                         Jang (2017)
                                                                                         Lu et al. (in press)
                Morality                             International experiences         Lu, Quoidbach, et al. (2017)
                                                     Multilingualism                   Costa et al. (2014)
                                                                                         Geipel, Hadjichristidis, &
                                                                                         Surian (2015)
                                                                                         Geipel, Hadjichristidis, &
                                                                                         Surian (2016)
                Intergroup bias                      International experiences         Affinito et al. (2020)
                                                                                         Tadmor et al. (2018)
                                                                                         Tadmor, Hong, et al. (2012)
                                                     Multicultural relationships and   Barlow et al. (2012)
                                                      networks
                                                     Multicultural background or       Huff, Lee, & Hong (2017)
                                                      identities                         Saleem, Dubow, Lee, &
                                                                                         Huesmann (2018)
                                                                                         Tadmor, Berger, Brenick, Abu-
                                                                                         Raiya, & Benatov (2017)
                                                                                         Tadmor et al. (2018)
                                                                                         Tadmor, Hong, et al. (2012)
                                                     Multilingualism                   Singh, Quinn, Qian, & Lee (2020)
2021                                         Maddux, Lu, Affinito, and Galinsky                                          351

                                                        TABLE 1
                                                       (Continued)
                                                              Aspects of Multicultural
                               Outcomes                            Experiences                          Citation(s)

                    Leadership                             International experiences         Carpenter, Sanders, &
                                                                                               Gregersen (2001)
                                                                                               Dragoni, Oh, Tesluk, Moore,
                                                                                               VanKatwyk, & Hazucha
                                                                                               (2014)
                                                                                               Lu (2018)
                                                                                               Lu et al. (in press)
                                                                                               Roth (1995)
Organizational      Internationalization                   International experiences         Barkema & Shvyrkov (2007)
                                                                                               Bruneel, Yli-Renko, &
                                                                                               Clarysse (2010)
                                                                                               Fernhaber et al. (2009)
                                                                                               Li, Yi, & Cui (2017)
                                                                                               Xia, Boal, & Delios (2009)
                                                                                               Yamakawa et al. (2013)
                    Foreign acquisition or                 International experiences         Garcıa-Canal and Guillen (2008)
                      investment                                                               Matta & Beamish (2008)
                                                                                               Zhou & Guill  en (2015)
                    Performance                            International experiences         Godart et al. (2015)
                                                                                               Kulchina (2017)
                                                                                               Li, Zhang, Li, Zhou, & Zhang
                                                                                               (2012)
                                                                                               Oldroyd, Morris, & Dotson
                                                                                               (2019)
                                                                                               Reuber & Fischer (1997)
                                                                                               Salomon & Martin (2008)
                                                                                               Wrede & Dauth (2020)
                                                                                               Yang, Li, & Delios (2015)
                                                           Multicultural groups              Gong (2006)
                                                                                               Haas & N€   uesch (2012)
                                                                                               Kirkman, Cordery, Mathieu,
                                                                                               Rosen, & Kukenberger (2013)
                                                                                               Kearney, Gebert, & Voelpel
                                                                                               (2009)
                                                                                               Kilduff, Angelmar, & Mehra
                                                                                               (2000)
                                                                                               Lo, Wang, & Zhan (2020)
                                                                                               Lu et al. (in press)
                                                                                               Nielsen & Nielsen (2013)
                                                                                               Wrede & Dauth (2020)

           INTRAPERSONAL OUTCOMES                                  basic idea at the same time—that a variety of differ-
                                                                   ent types of multicultural experiences might stimu-
The Effects of Multicultural Experiences on
                                                                   late creativity. In retrospect, creativity was an
Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
                                                                   obvious topic of interest given the widespread but
  The research on multicultural experiences was                    empirically untested assumption in a variety of
jumpstarted by an introductory article on how multi-               fields—art, education, business—that multicultural
cultural experiences affect creative processes and                 experiences were important for various types of
outputs (Leung et al., 2008). This article was a collab-           skills and abilities. For example, many educational
oration between two independent research teams                     institutions have implemented study-abroad pro-
that coincidentally had been examining the same                    grams for decades; multinational companies
352                                            Academy of Management Annals                                          July

regularly send their employees on international as-              can enhance creativity. For example, watching back-
signments; and artists in many fields implicitly as-             to-back slideshows comparing Chinese and American
sume that it is necessary to spend a year abroad in              cultures can lead participants to exhibit more creativi-
Paris or Rome or Buenos Aires or Kyoto to enhance                ty than those watching slideshows depicting only one
one’s creative development in music composition,                 culture (Cheng & Leung, 2013; Cheng et al., 2011;
painting, or writing (Leung et al., 2008; Lu, Martin,            Leung & Chiu, 2010).
Usova, & Galinsky, 2019).                                           Other research has focused on more specific types
   Thus, the Leung et al. (2008) introduction initiated          of multicultural experiences. For example, a variety
a long-overdue empirical investigation into the un-              of studies now shows that creativity increases when
derlying assumption behind these claims. To under-               individuals live abroad (Fee & Gray, 2012; Maddux
stand how different aspects of multicultural                     et al., 2010; Maddux & Galinsky, 2009), work abroad
experiences could lead to higher levels of individual            (Godart et al., 2015), and, in some cases, study
creativity, the authors leveraged the “creative cogni-           abroad (Cho & Morris, 2015) or travel abroad (de
tion approach” (Ward, Finke, & Smith, 1995), a theo-             Bloom et al., 2014). For example, Maddux and Ga-
retical framework that suggested that creativity                 linsky (2009) found that the amount of time MBA
could be studied and understood by examining the spe-            students lived outside their home country predicted
cific inputs and outputs to the process. After reviewing         creativity on a variety of tasks assessing insight, di-
the literature on creativity, Leung and colleagues (2008)        vergent thinking, and convergent thinking, and this
postulated that multicultural experiences might acti-            effect was mediated by the level of cultural adapta-
vate a variety of psychological processes that would be          tion participants engaged in during their time in the
important for the creative process, in particular by             host country. Follow-up research by Maddux et al.
stimulating a willingness to seek out new ideas,                 (2010) found that deep learning about the new cul-
providing exposure to new concepts, inspiring the                ture was also a key driver of increased creativity fol-
development of new insights, and encouraging a re-               lowing living abroad experiences. Longitudinal
examination of one’s own cultural beliefs. With                  research subsequently found increases in creativity
dozens of relevant papers published in the interven-             for expatriate workers following stints working
ing years, these predictions have now generally                  abroad (Fee & Gray, 2012). These effects of living
been supported, and we now have a much deeper                    abroad also extend to institutional creativity. For ex-
understanding about the specific individual and                  ample, in the context of the global fashion industry,
contextual factors that facilitate or hinder creativity          Godart and colleagues (2015) found that the more
during and following different types of multicultur-             time creative directors—the de facto leaders of the
al experiences.                                                  world’s top fashion houses—had spent working
   Effects of foreign experiences on creativity.                 abroad in their careers, the more creative their com-
“Creativity” is defined as the production of ideas that          panies’ fashion collections were rated to be by in-
are novel and useful (Amabile, 1983), and a number of            dustry experts.
findings now suggest that creativity reliably increases             The evidence for enhanced creativity is more
when individuals are exposed to multicultural ideas,             mixed when examining foreign travel. For example,
people, or environments. One of the first empirical in-          Maddux and Galinsky (2009) did not find a signifi-
vestigations into this possibility involved the develop-         cant effect of time traveled abroad on creativity, pre-
ment of the Multicultural Experience Survey (Leung &             sumably because higher levels of cultural adaptation
Chiu, 2010), which measures a variety of different as-           and learning about the host culture are more likely to
pects of multicultural experiences, including time               occur during living abroad experiences rather than
spent outside one’s home country, general level of ex-           during foreign travel (Maddux et al., 2010; Maddux
posure to foreign cultures, number of foreign lan-               & Galinsky, 2009). However, other work has found a
guages spoken, parents’ birthplaces, and the country             positive impact of foreign travel on creativity (de
of origin of participants’ five favorite cuisines, friends,      Bloom et al., 2014). As will become clearer when we
and musicians. To date, multiple studies have shown              review mechanisms and boundary conditions be-
that individuals who score higher on this scale (or a            low, what appears to be more important than the dis-
similar scale; Narvaez, Endicott, & Hill, 2017), exhibit         tinction between whether one is technically living
more creativity (Leung & Chiu, 2010; Puente-Diaz                 versus traveling abroad is the particular psychologi-
et al., 2020; Tadmor, Satterstrom, et al., 2012). Further-       cal orientation individuals adopt while abroad, and
more, researchers have shown that even a relatively              the specific details of the cultural context individu-
brief time contrasting elements from different cultures          als encounter during their time in another country.
2021                                         Maddux, Lu, Affinito, and Galinsky                                        353

   Effects of multicultural identities on creativity.             endorsing “polyculturalism” (the ethos of fostering in-
Multicultural experiences tend to have a strong effect            tercultural interaction; Morris et al., 2015) has been
on creativity when they lead individuals to incorpo-              found to promote higher levels of creativity compared
rate two or more cultural identities into their over-             to “multiculturalism” (the ethos of preserving separate
all self-concept. Sometimes called “biculturalism”                cultural traditions; Cho, Tadmor, & Morris, 2018).
or “multicultural identity integration” (e.g., Berry,                Effects of multilingualism on creativity. Some of
Phinney, Sam, & Vedder, 2006; Nguyen & Benet-                     the earliest work on whether multicultural experien-
Martınez, 2013), this process involves psychologically           ces affect creativity involved bilingualism or multilin-
identifying with both home culture and host cultures,             gualism, and a range of findings continues to suggest
and making explicit connections between those iden-               that speaking two or more languages is associated
tities. And a variety of work now shows that creativity           with creativity (Chang et al., 2014; Kharkhurin, 2010;
is enhanced when these different cultural identities              Lambert et al., 1973; Lee & Kim, 2011; Onysko, 2016;
are more rather than less psychologically integrated              Simonton, 2000). Indeed, the empirical link between
(Saad et al., 2013; Tadmor et al., 2012).                         multilingualism and creativity was one of the reasons
   The effects of multicultural identity integration              that scholars initially postulated that other types of
are often most apparent on tasks specifically relevant            multicultural experiences might also be important for
to cultural identities (Cheng et al., 2008; Mok &                 creativity. Recent work suggests that the creative bene-
Morris, 2010a). For example, when Cheng and col-                  fits of speaking multiple languages can be explained
leagues (2008) gave food ingredients to different                 by broadly enhanced executive functioning in the
participants and asked them to come up with crea-                 brain that has an array of downstream consequences
tive dishes, Asian American biculturals displayed                 for basic cognitive abilities such as attention, percep-
more creativity on the task, but only when the ingre-             tion, and memory (van Dijk, Kroesbergen, Blom, &
dients were related to Asian and American cultures.               Leseman, 2019; cf. Nichols, Wild, Stojanoski, Battista, &
The creativity of biculturals may also depend on                  Owen, 2020). In addition, bilingualism seems to
which particular cultural identity is salient at the              produce enhanced creativity as soon as early child-
time, and whether that cultural identity is associated            hood (Leikin & Tovli, 2014), although it may de-
with higher levels of creativity (Mok & Morris,                   pend on the specific task and cultural context
2010a).                                                           (Kharkhurin, 2010) and the specific type of creative
   Other evidence indicates that an integrated bicultur-          thinking involved. Although findings examining
al identity—one in which individuals retain strong                specific types of creativity, such as divergent and
psychological connections to both home and host cul-              convergent creativity, are somewhat mixed across
tures—can positively impact creativity in general,                these studies, the overall effect of multilingualism
rather than being limited to creativity in domains spe-           being associated with higher levels of creativity cur-
cifically relevant to one’s cultural knowledge. For ex-           rently appears to be reasonably robust.
ample, Tadmor et al. (2012) found that MBA students                  Effects of multicultural relationships and net-
who strongly identified with two different countries              works on creativity. Research has also established
showed enhanced creativity on a variety of general                that the creative benefits of multicultural experien-
creativity tasks that did not depend on specific                  ces extend to close interpersonal relationships, in-
cultural knowledge—an effect that was mediated                    cluding romantic, platonic, and work relationships
by integrative complexity (Tadmor & Tetlock, 2006;                with people from other cultures. Using a longitudi-
Tetlock, 1983). The positive effect on creativity also            nal design over a 10-month MBA program, Lu,
extends to multiple social identities across a variety of         Hafenbrack, and colleagues (2017) found that MBA
different social groups beyond just national groups               students who dated students from other cultures
(Steffens, Gocłowska, Cruwys, & Galinsky, 2016). In-              exhibited increased creativity at the end of the pro-
terestingly, some theoretical work has postulated that            gram, even after controlling for personality and
these effects will occur more strongly when the inte-             demographic variables. In another study examining
grated identities are more inconsistent with one anoth-           2,226 professional repatriates who had previously
er because integrating those inconsistencies requires             worked in the United States, frequency of contact
more effort and more integrative complexity, leading              with American friends following repatriation posi-
to more lasting psychological changes (Gocłowska &                tively predicted workplace innovations and entre-
Crisp, 2014).                                                     preneurial entry (Lu, Hafenbrack, et al., 2017).
   Endorsing ideologies that promote identity integra-               Individuals embedded in more culturally diverse
tion also leads to enhanced creativity. For example,              social networks also tend to be more creative than
354                                         Academy of Management Annals                                          July

those in less diverse networks, although this rela-           through their communication deficits across mem-
tionship is stronger in culturally relevant domains           bers (Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt, & Jonsen, 2010).
than more general domains (Chua, 2018). Network                  Effects of multicultural experiences on organi-
ties outside teams and organizations are also impor-          zational creativity and innovation. Extant research
tant. In a study of 82 MBA project teams, culturally          at the organizational level is also relatively limited,
diverse network ties outside of the team were found           but some work has found that multicultural experi-
to facilitate team-level creativity, presumably be-           ences can increase a firm’s capacity to create and in-
cause team members were able to draw on more var-             novate. For example, Barkema and Shvyrkov (2007)
ied ideas and inputs coming from external sources to          analyzed over 30 years of data on 25 Dutch firms and
their team (Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2014). Interesting-        found that a firm’s international experience (as mea-
ly, employee attrition can contribute to company cre-         sured by its number of prior foreign expansions) was
ativity if the departing employees relocate to a              positively tied to its strategic innovation (as mea-
foreign competitor, presumably because the left-be-           sured by firm investment in novel geographic loca-
hind employees now have professional networks                 tions). Similarly, examining a sample of large
that are more multicultural (Shipilov et al., 2017).          German stock-listed firms, Wrede and Dauth (2020)
   Conversely, situations involving interpersonal ten-        showed that firms whose top management teams
sion or conflict—which some researchers have termed           were more international—in terms of nationality, ed-
“ambient cultural disharmony” (Chua, 2013)—can                ucation, work experience, or board appointments—
have a negative effect on subsequent creativity, an           showed higher levels of firm innovativeness
effect that is mediated by the belief that ideas from         compared to firms with less top management
different cultures are incompatible. Other work has           team internationalization. And, as noted above,
shown that the negative effect of different types of          when creative directors of international fashion
interpersonal conflict on creativity may depend on            houses had more multicultural experiences,
the particular gender makeup of the interpersonal             their firms produced more creative fashion col-
dyads. One study showed that, whereas relation-               lections (Godart et al., 2015).
ship conflict negatively affected both male and fe-              Moderating variables. Despite the seemingly
male intercultural dyads, task conflict increased             robust effects of multicultural experiences on crea-
creativity in female intercultural dyads, but de-             tivity, multicultural experiences do not lead to in-
creased creativity for male intercultural dyads               creased creativity in all instances, and researchers
(Chua & Jin, 2020).                                           have identified a number of moderating variables
                                                              that determine whether and how multicultural expe-
   Effects of multicultural experiences on team cre-          riences will affect creativity. Perhaps not surprising-
ativity. To date, only a limited amount of research           ly, given its robust relationship to the creative
has focused on multicultural experiences in team              process in general, openness to experience (e.g.,
contexts. One study has found that the multicultural          McCrae, 1987) is a key moderator for the link be-
experiences of individual members can have a                  tween multicultural experiences and creativity
“superadditive effect” on team-level creative output          (Chen, Leung, Yang, Chiu, Li, & Cheng, 2016; Cho &
(Tadmor, Satterstrom, et al., 2012). In a study involv-       Morris, 2015; Leung & Chiu, 2008). For example,
ing Caucasian–Asian dyads, those dyads with high              Leung and Chiu (2008) found that the strongest link
levels of multicultural experience overall (as mea-           between multicultural experiences and creativity oc-
sured by the Multicultural Experience Survey;                 curred for individuals high in openness to experi-
Leung & Chiu, 2010) demonstrated higher creativity            ence. Similarly, Chen and colleagues (2016) found
on a group task. This effect held even when control-          that individuals low in openness performed signifi-
ling for individual levels of creativity, suggesting an       cantly worse on creative tasks in situations involving
additional effect of having multiple multiculturally          cultural threat. Likewise, Cho and Morris (2015)
experienced individuals interact in teams. The effect         found the most positive effects of study abroad on
of multiculturally experienced individuals within             creativity for individuals high in openness to experi-
teams may play a facilitative role in enhancing team          ence and when freedom of choice was high.
creativity, especially for larger multicultural teams            Cultural metacognition also seems to play an impor-
across longer periods of time. Because individuals            tant role in moderating the effects of multicultural ex-
with multicultural experiences have more flexible             periences, and higher levels of the metacognitive
communication skills (Lu et al., in press), they may          component of the cultural intelligence scale (Earley &
have enhanced abilities to guide multicultural teams          Ang, 2003) have been shown to lead to greater idea
2021                                         Maddux, Lu, Affinito, and Galinsky                                          355

sharing and creative performance in multicultural                 deep experiences abroad did not (Godart et al.,
teams (Chua, Morris, & Mor, 2012). For example, in                2015). Thus, “depth” (the amount of time worked
one study involving creative collaborations of food               outside directors’ home countries) had the stron-
recipes, Chua and colleagues (2012) found that, when              gest impact on creativity, whereas “breadth” (the
at least one member of a two-person team had relative-            number of countries worked in) and cultural dis-
ly high levels of cultural metacognition, this predicted          tance were somewhat less important, although
overall team-level creativity, an effect mediated by              both could act as substitutes for boosting creativity
higher levels of affect-based trust. By contrast, the             in the absence of high levels of depth.
“need for cognitive closure” (Webster & Kruglanski,
1994), which involves a strong cognitive preference               The Effects of Multicultural Experiences on
for stability and certainty, weakens the link between             Psychological Adjustment
multicultural experiences and creativity (Leung &
Chiu, 2010). In a similar vein, some studies have found              Although the primary focus of multicultural experi-
that individuals high in need for cognitive closure feel          ence research has been on creativity, multicultural ex-
less favorably toward products involving cultural fu-             periences have been found to have other important
sion (De keersmaecker, Van Assche, & Roets, 2016).                effects as well. Probably the next most common area of
   Research also shows that the specific aspects of               investigation has involved effects on “psychological
the particular environment in which the multicul-                 adjustment,” a general term used to describe a host of
tural experience takes place are important in deter-              interrelated outcomes including individuals’ levels of
mining whether creative benefits eventually accrue.               stress, well-being, positive affect and health, life satis-
For example, multicultural experiences do not in-                 faction, and resilience (e.g., Nguyen & Benet-Martınez,
crease creativity when they involve time in a foreign             2013; Ward & Kennedy, 1994). Although the results
culture that is either overly similar to, or very differ-         are not entirely consistent across studies, several pa-
ent from, one’s home culture (Cheng & Leung, 2013;                pers have demonstrated positive effects of multicul-
Godart et al., 2015), when the experience is inter-               tural experiences on psychological adjustment, both
preted as threatening to one’s own culture (Chen                  during and following experiences abroad. These posi-
et al., 2016), or when it is associated with conflict-            tive effects occur despite the “culture shock” of being
oriented relationships or environments (Chua, 2013;               in a different culture, which has the potential to in-
cf. Cheng et al., 2011). In addition, individuals from            crease rather than reduce stress (Ward, Bochner, &
tight cultures (Gelfand et al., 2011) have been found             Furnham, 2001).
to be less likely to engage in or succeed at foreign cre-            For example, a recent meta-analysis revealed that,
ativity tasks—an effect that increases when the cul-              compared to monocultural individuals, bicultural
tural distance between countries increases (Chua,                 individuals demonstrate better psychological adjust-
Roth, & Lemoine, 2015).                                           ment to life experiences in general, not just experien-
   The specific type of international work experi-                ces abroad (Nguyen & Benet-Martınez, 2013). In
ence may also matter. For example, one study                      addition, some research finds that “third-culture”
(Godart et al., 2015) showed that the relationship                children and adults—biculturals who grow up or
between a firm’s creative director’s multicultural                live in a third, non-parental culture—demonstrate
experiences and the firm’s creative innovations                   better well-being, are more resilient, and are more
(i.e., its publicly displayed fashion collections)                adaptive both cognitively and affectively than non-
showed (a) an inverted-U relationship with the                    third-culture individuals (Abe, 2018; Brimm, 2010).
number of foreign countries the fashion house ex-                 Such positive effects may apply to recent immigrants
ecutive had previously worked in (i.e., “breadth of               as well, particularly when they blend their multiple
experience”), and (b) an inverted-U relationship                  identities (e.g., Ward et al., 2018). For example, Berry
with the cultural distance between home and host                  and colleagues (2006) found that immigrant adoles-
countries. By contrast, time worked abroad (i.e.,                 cents had an advantage in psychological adjustment
“depth of experience”) was found to have a linear                 and school performance compared to non-immi-
effect on creativity, though with some diminishing                grants. Moreover, culturally diverse personal and so-
returns observed. Moreover, there was a three-way                 cial networks have also been shown to promote
interaction among breadth, depth, and cultural                    bicultural identity integration and psychological ad-
distance, such that creative directors low on depth               justment (Repke & Benet-Martınez, 2018).
benefited from extra breadth or greater cultural                     A study by Geeraert and Demoulin (2013) is particu-
distance, but creative directors with particularly                larly illustrative of the effect of multicultural
356                                            Academy of Management Annals                                           July

experiences on psychological adjustment. These re-               Takeuchi et al., 2009), which can lead to increased ex-
searchers followed 162 Belgian adolescents during a              patriate job satisfaction (Bhaskar-Shrinivas, Harrison,
one-year cultural exchange program and 182 control               Shaffer, & Luk, 2005) and job performance (Kraimer,
participants who did not go abroad. Subsequent analy-            Wayne, & Jaworski, 2001). Finally, and similar to the
ses revealed that those who had studied abroad                   aforementioned research on creativity, higher levels of
showed increased levels of self-esteem and lower lev-            cultural distance between home culture and destina-
els of stress when measured during the trip as well as a         tion culture have been found to be associated with
year after their return, suggesting that multicultural ex-       lower levels of psychological adjustment, especially
periences can have a lasting effect on different aspects         in situations involving chronically high levels of stress
of personal growth. Similarly, Zhu and colleagues                and uncertainty, such as the military in wartime (Fish-
(2016) found that employees on expatriate assign-                er & Hutchings, 2013).
ments demonstrated an increase in adjustment over
the first nine months of their international work as-            The Effects of Multicultural Experiences on
signments, with a steady increase in adjustment ap-              Personality, Cognition, and Individual
pearing for the first six months and a gradual leveling          Performance
off afterward. These results contrast to the U-shaped
results postulated by earlier work in this area (e.g.,              Research has found that personality traits are not
Sussman, 2000) and suggest a more gradual and stable             static throughout the lifespan (McAdams & Olson,
pattern of adjustment rather than a more varied experi-          2010) but instead can be affected and changed by sig-
ence (i.e., an initial “honeymoon” period, followed by           nificant life events (e.g., Boyce, Wood, Daly, & Sedi-
a subsequent period of stress, followed by a final peri-         kides, 2015). Research now shows that multicultural
od of adjustment and stress relief).                             experiences can be one such life experience factor that
   Moderating variables. Not everyone adjusts to                 affects personality traits as well. While extraversion,
multicultural experiences in the same manner. For                openness to experience, and conscientiousness pre-
example, multicultural experiences lead to higher                dict whether people decide to undertake a study-
levels of psychological adjustment when individuals              abroad experience, the experience of studying abroad
are higher in cultural intelligence and when the per-            also leads individuals to become higher on openness
ceived diversity climate in the host country is high             to experience and agreeableness and lower on neuroti-
(Volpone, Marquardt, Casper, & Avery, 2018), and                 cism following the experience (Greischel et al., 2016;
these effects appear to be stronger for individuals              L€udtke et al., 2011; Zimmermann & Neyer, 2013). Mir-
who are considered minorities in their home coun-                roring the findings on creativity and psychological ad-
try. Moreover, other research shows that coming                  justment, foreign culture adaptation (measured
from a tighter as opposed to looser home country                 through increases in international relationships and
leads to better adaptation to a host country, an effect          social support) accounts for these personality changes
that is further moderated by individuals’ agreeable-             (Zimmermann & Neyer, 2013).
ness and honesty–humility (Geeraert et al., 2019).                  Personality changes may be facilitated by multicul-
   Contextual factors are also important moderating              tural experiences because they have the potential to
variables on psychological adjustment. Consistent                change aspects of the self-concept in ways that are psy-
with individual-level creativity findings demonstrat-            chologically beneficial. For example, time spent living
ing the importance of adapting to one’s host country             abroad can enhance individuals’ self-concept clarity
(Maddux & Galinsky, 2009), higher levels of social               (Adam et al., 2018a, 2018b), which further leads to
support from host country individuals and higher lev-            two important organizational outcomes: it positively
els of cultural adaptation are strongly associated with          predicts career decision-making clarity, and it in-
lower stress and better adjustment (Demes & Geeraert,            creases alignment with 360-degree feedback received
2014, 2015). For those employees on international as-            from peers (Adam et al., 2018a, 2018b), effects that are
signments, higher levels of cross-cultural motivation,           mediated by higher levels of self-discerning reflec-
empowerment, challenge stressors, and affective com-             tions. In other words, multiculturally experienced par-
mitment are all positive predictors of adjustment to             ticipants have been found to be more likely to think
foreign cultures (Firth et al., 2014; Shaffer, Harrison, &       about how their identity truly defines who they are as
Gilley, 1999; Takeuchi et al., 2009). Similarly, subjec-         individuals (Adam et al., 2018a, 2018b).
tively perceiving organizational or family support dur-             Bicultural identity may also drive changes to indi-
ing these assignments leads to higher levels of                  viduals’ cognitive orientations and how they respond
adjustment (Caligiuri, Hyland, Joshi, & Bross, 1998;             to the different ways in which information is
2021                                         Maddux, Lu, Affinito, and Galinsky                                       357

presented. Some evidence suggests that biculturals                who had the highest levels of bicultural identity inte-
with integrated identities show assimilative tenden-              gration were found to have the best professional repu-
cies when exposed to cultural primes or personality               tations in their fields, and were promoted at faster
inventories with various cultural elements (Chen &                rates compared to Israeli Americans with less integrat-
Bond, 2010; Mok & Morris, 2009) whereas biculturals               ed bicultural identities (Tadmor et al., 2012, Study 3).
with low identity integration show cultural contrast
effects (Mok & Morris, 2009). Lower identity integra-             Conclusions on Intrapersonal Effects
tion may have benefits in group settings as well,
with some evidence showing that low-identity-inte-                   Overall, it is clear that multicultural experiences
grated biculturals are better able to resist group-               affect important intrapersonal variables, including
think than high-identity-integrated biculturals                   creativity, psychological adjustment, various as-
(Mok & Morris, 2010b). Moreover, biculturalism has                pects of the self-concept, and individual skills and
been found to be associated with a more global rath-              performance. Importantly, a review of the findings
er than local cognitive processing style (Mok & Mor-              across outcome variables has shown that many of
ris, 2012).                                                       these effects are driven by increases in different
   Bilingualism also seems to produce lasting cogni-              types of cognitive and behavioral flexibility, such
tive changes by altering overall executive functioning            as increased learning and adaptation, higher levels
in the brain, affecting various cognitive skills includ-          of integrative complexity, and enhanced executive
ing enhanced attentional control, working memory,                 functioning. Indeed, some research has demon-
metalinguistic awareness and abstract and symbolic                strated that diversifying experiences in general,
representation skills, as well as being associated with           such as being exposed to unusual events or schema
slower cognitive declines as a result of aging (Ade-              violations (such as completing a mundane topic in
sope, Lavin, Thompson, & Ungerleider, 2010; Baum-                 an unusual way), increase general cognitive flexi-
gart & Billick, 2018; Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2012).             bility (Lu, Akinola, & Mason, 2017; Ritter et al.,
Multilingualism is also associated with the ability to            2012). However, there are also important individu-
distinguish between a variety of physical sounds, in-             al and contextual elements of these experiences
cluding those involving music (Krizman et al., 2012).             that seem to determine whether and to what extent
Interestingly, the use of a foreign language seems to             changes emerge. When multicultural experiences
actually change our psychological perceptions of the              facilitate openness, adaptation, learning, and cog-
world overall by providing social and emotional dis-              nitive complexity, they lead to higher levels of cre-
tance from certain decisions and decision-frames                  ativity, psychological adjustment, and general
(Hayakawa, Costa, Foucart, & Keysar, 2016; Pavlenko,              performance. Conversely, situations involving
2017). As a result, foreign language use reduces sus-             threat, close-mindedness, and conflict seem to pre-
ceptibility to certain types of cognitive biases, such as         vent such effects from occurring.
framing decisions as gains versus losses (Keysar et al.,
2012) and susceptibility to the “hot hand fallacy”                           INTERPERSONAL OUTCOMES
(Gao et al., 2015).
   Finally, multicultural experiences may provide                    Humans are fundamentally social in nature, and
benefits for various aspects of individual perfor-                we derive much of our self-worth from the quality of
mance. For example, individuals who spend time                    our interactions with others (Baumeister & Leary,
working abroad have been shown to have higher sala-               1995). Our species evolved in small- to moderately-
ries than those who do not (Biemann & Braakmann,                  sized group environments, and we continue to spend
2013). In addition, MBA students with higher multi-               much of our lives in the modern world surrounded
cultural engagement (i.e., adaptation plus learning of            by other people, both at home and at work. As a re-
the host culture) had more success in job interviews at           sult, our relationships with friends, romantic part-
the end of their 10-month program (Maddux et al.,                 ners, and colleagues dominate a large part of our
2014). Higher levels of cultural intelligence (Earley &           waking hours and the majority of our topics of con-
Ang, 2003) have been shown to lead to higher joint                versation (Dunbar, 2004). Given the importance of
gain in negotiation contexts, ostensibly because high             sociality for the human experience, the effect of mul-
cultural intelligence negotiators are better able to rec-         ticultural experiences on various interpersonal out-
ognize value trade-offs in integrative negotiations               comes has also received substantial attention from
(Imai & Gelfand, 2010). Similarly, Israeli Americans              researchers. In this section, we turn our attention to
working in the technology industry in Silicon Valley              these interpersonal effects.
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