Living Overseas and Creativity

What does living overseas for awhile have to do with creativity? Apparently quite a lot according to a recent study.

The results from this study intuitively make sense. I'm guessing that the link between the two is due to figuring out new ways of accomplishing a multitude of tasks in a place that you're totally unfamiliar with and in a language that may be completely foreign.

From The Economist...

Anecdotal evidence has long held that creativity in artists and writers can be associated with living in foreign parts. Rudyard Kipling, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Paul Gauguin, Samuel Beckett and others spent years dwelling abroad. Now a pair of psychologists has proved that there is indeed a link.

They found 60% of students who were either living abroad or had spent some time doing so, solved the [creativity] problem, whereas only 42% of those who had not lived abroad did so.

A follow-up study explored creative negotiating skills. Where both negotiators had lived abroad 70% struck a deal. When neither of the negotiators had lived abroad, none was able to reach a deal.

Merely travelling abroad, however, was not enough. You do have to live there.