The Creativity–Motivation–Culture Connection

A review of the literature reveals that cultural distinctions have yet to be integrated into empirical investigations or models of the interface between motivation and creativity. Scholarly work is dominated by a Western perspective, and this bias has prevented a full examination of the impact of cultural context on motivational orientation or creative performance. Yet, importantly, the creative act is as much social and cultural as it is cognitive or psychological. Research avenues incorporating a consideration of culture are explored and a call is made to carry out not only carefully controlled studies that rely on cross-cultural comparisons and operationalize culture as an external force but also ethnographic investigations taking the view that culturally driven differences in psychological processes, most especially how individuals view themselves in relation to others, might also result in important differences in creative behavior.