The Impact of Language-Induced Cultural Mindset on Originality in Idea Generation

Creativity is vital in the contemporary business world. Drawing on the culture-as-situated-cognition theory, we investigate how language affects divergent thinking. We study multicultural bilinguals (Arabs in Israel) whose two languages reflect contrasting cultural mindsets: individualism (Hebrew) versus collectivism (Arabic). Theoretically, individualism is associated with novel thinking as it encourages autonomy of thought and action, whereas collectivism encourages compliance to social norms. We investigate the impact of language as a factor that may affect performance in divergent thinking tasks through its associated cultural mindset, distinguishing this from the effects of the speaker's proficiency in the language. We expected that individualism induced by language (in this case, Hebrew) would promote greater originality in tasks demanding high, but not moderate, levels of ingenuity. Study 1 (N = 163) induced competing cultural mindsets using two cultural primes-language and task instructions-in a divergent thinking task. As hypothesized, Hebrew was associated with greater originality (uniqueness of ideas) but not fluency (number of ideas); and this pattern is specific to language, not the cultural prime induced by task instructions. Study 2 (N = 137) confirmed that the effect is stronger in tasks calling for greater ingenuity. Implications for language management in organizations are discussed. Public Significance Statement Creativity is an important skill for individuals and organizations. Many external factors impact creativity, among them cultural individualism. We expect individualism to amplify novel and original thinking. Using language as a cultural cue, we study Arab students proficient in Arabic and Hebrew and show that, despite being more fluent in Arabic (their mother tongue), they display greater originality in Hebrew (a language associated with individualistic values). This research shows that language is much more than words and sentences; it carries the essence of a culture and impacts performance.