Harnessing diversity: Majority-group acculturation predicts creativity and flourishing over time
Do majority-group members gain something when they engage with the cultures around them? Across three studies led by David Colledge — students in the UK and China, and English adults followed over three waves — integration and cultural adoption went together with more cognitive flexibility, meaning in life, curiosity and flourishing. The effects over time appeared in one interval and not in the next, so the claim is a careful one.
The paper, in plain language
The question
Universities and governments name creativity and flourishing among their core aims, and large projects have linked both to cultural diversity. What had not been examined is whether it matters how members of the majority themselves relate to that diversity — how much they adopt elements of other cultures and how much they maintain their national culture. That is the two-dimensional view of majority-group acculturation my colleagues and I have developed over the past years, here put to work on outcomes that matter to the majority members themselves.
Two student samples
Among 323 White British university students, only about one in eight fell into an integrated profile, combining adoption of international students' cultures with maintenance of their own; most were undifferentiated. The integrated students reported higher cognitive flexibility than the undifferentiated ones, more meaning in life than every other profile, and better relationships than the undifferentiated and marginalised students. Among 174 Chinese students in China, integration again went together with more meaning in life, but cognitive flexibility did not differ between profiles and the differences in relationship quality were small. Both studies are snapshots based on self-report, and some profiles were small.
Following people over time
The third study followed 219 White English adults across three waves during 2019, with 158 remaining at the last. The model separates stable differences between people from changes within a person. When people adopted more of migrants' cultures than they usually do, they reported more cognitive flexibility, more curiosity and more flourishing at the next wave — and not the other way round. The pattern held when general beliefs about cultures influencing each other were taken into account. But it appeared between the first and second wave only, not between the second and third, and adoption did not predict everyday creativity; instead, everyday creativity predicted stronger maintenance of the national culture.
How far it goes
We describe the findings as consistent with the idea that multicultural experience fosters creativity — not as proof of it. The designs are observational, the longitudinal sample was close to the minimum the model requires, and the effects look like short-term gains rather than lasting change, perhaps because engagement with other cultures is episodic for many majority members. What the paper adds is a shift in perspective: acculturation is not the burden of minorities alone, and majority members who take part in it may have something to gain.