Immigrant visa correlates to braininess

A recent study by one of the world’s top business schools has found a good reason to apply for a visa – living abroad enhances creativity.

The research by INSEAD has proven that experience of living in a new culture outside of your own encourages adaptation, which results in enhanced problem solving abilities and increased artistic creativity.

One experiment involved using objects on a table to solve a problem; the other was about negotiating a price that was above the buyers maximum and below the sellers minimum.

Both experiments resulted in the conclusion that living abroad was related to creativity, but time spent travelling abroad did not matter.

William Maddux, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour at INSEAD, was the lead author of the study. Here are some comments he made about the findings:

This research may have something to say about the increasing impact of globalisation on the world, a fact that has been hammered home by the recent financial crisis. Knowing that experiences abroad are critical for creative output makes study abroad programs and job assignments in other countries that much more important, especially for people and companies that put a premium on creativity and innovation to stay competitive.

There’s a very strong, robust association between foreign language aptitude and creativity. So bi-lingual and tri-lingual people are more creative in general. And I think that the language is part of the adaptation.

So you can imagine a person who goes to live abroad for a year, but hangs out mostly with expatriates, maybe from their own country – that person is not going to derive the same kind of creative benefit as those who try to adapt themselves to a new culture, learn the language, learn the customs and get really involved in changing who they are and how they behave.

If you’re getting those cultural experiences at a young age, it’s going to have a stronger effect on subsequent creativity.