If someone had asked me last week to share with my readers what proof did I have to support the statement that US Hispanics are creative problem solvers my answer might have been less than reassuring for many of you. Last week I would have said that the above statement was the product of 15 years of personal observation of US Hispanics’ behavior. That is the number of years I have worked in both the US Multicultural market and in Latin America and doesn’t include the over 30 years I have lived in several Hispanic communities in various cities around the country. In all those years I have seen Hispanics solving problems creatively over and over again. I must admit that a couple of people I knew used their creative problem solving abilities for less than legal activities…but they were very creative!
However, the fact that I have being observing Hispanic behavior for so many years does not mean that I was not researching this topic all along. Last week, in order to support or debunk the theory that Hispanics are creative problem solvers, I reached out to David Livermore www.davidlivermore.com, President of Cultural Intelligence Center. David is an expert on the topic of cultural intelligence and has written a couple of books on this subject (David has a book called “Leading with Cultural Intelligence” and is publishing another book on the same topic in May called “The Cultural Intelligence Difference”). In essence cultural intelligence, or CQ, is defined as the capability to function effectively across national, ethnic, and organizational cultures. Interestingly one of the traits of high CQ people is that they are better innovators.
From the moment Hispanics arrive in this country we, first generation and Bilingual / Bicultural Hispanics alike, are constantly negotiating between at least two cultures. I would add to the mix the fact that most Hispanics live and engage with Hispanics of other nationalities other than theirs on a regular basis due to linguistic and certain cultural similarities. This leads me to state that Hispanics in the US function effectively across national and ethnic cultures which to me is an indication that US Hispanics have a pretty high CQ. If this is true then it would also be true that US Hispanics are better innovators which would support my comments about Hispanics being creative problem solvers.
This was a great starting point but I felt I needed stronger scientific evidence in order to defend my comments about Hispanics and so I asked David Livermore if he would be able to help. David read my blog and commented that my theory resonated with him based on his personal experience but that he had not seen any study that looked at specific ethnic groups and their connection with creativity. He went on to tell me that what he had seen was a study that dealt with creativity and intercultural effectiveness which he was kind enough to forward on to me. I read the study and I found in essence what I was looking for, sort of.
The study is not ethnic group specific but the results of the study do support the fact that Hispanics in the US are creative problem solvers. The study states that “The evidence reviewed in the present article should reassure …that multicultural experience does indeed confer distinct beneficial effects on creative performance.” It also states that “…our research is the first to empirically demonstrate exposure to multiple cultures in and of itself can enhance creativity. Overall, we have found that extensiveness of multicultural experiences is positively related to both creative performance (insight learning, remote association, and idea generation) and creativity –supporting cognitive processes (retrieval of unconventional knowledge, recruitment of ideas from unfamiliar cultures for creative idea expansion).” In the absence of a study done specifically for US Hispanics I feel this study does include US Hispanics and to me its results are enough supporting evidence that Hispanics are creative problem solvers. Does it say that other immigrants are less so? Not really but I have never said that creative problem solving was a trait that could only be found in the Hispanic community. What I have said is that Hispanics are creative problem solvers and that we as a community have to leverage that trait in order to succeed and to help the US succeed in this new highly competitive world we live in. Does anyone disagree?
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