This project explores the hypothesis that bilingualism encourages divergent thinking and cognitive flexibility, which together facilitate creative thought. Whereas most of the explorations of this issue have directly compared monolinguals with bilinguals, in this study we also used a within-bilingual design in which each bilingual individual was assessed in terms of proficiency in each language and cross-cultural experience. The purpose was to incorporate the various procedures that have been traditionally used to assess bilingualism in bilingual research along with the socio-cultural aspects of bilingualism, which have typically been neglected. The working hypothesis was that, in addition to the virtue of speaking two languages, bilinguals who experience and participate in two cultures may benefit from the meta- and paralinguistic advantages of biculturalism leading to an increase in divergent thinking abilities.

US sample: 108 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who claimed to speak Russian and English, mean age=21.52 (4.54), and 47 Brooklyn College students who claimed to be native monolingual English speakers, mean age=23.45 (8.96). All participants were Brooklyn College students.

Russian sample: 130 Moscow State University and Russian State University for the Humanities students, Russian native speakers who indicated that they also spoke English, mean age=19.74 (2.78).

Biographical questionnaire: assessment of participants’ cross-cultural experience and language proficiency self-rating.
Picture Naming Test: assessment of participants’ language proficiency in each language by scoring the number of correct responses to the pictures presented (see excerpt of a page).
Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA, Goff & Torrance, 2002): assessment of participants’ divergent thinking.

Bilingualism assessment: Participants were grouped using a strategy of cutoff points:

Biculturalism assessment: Cultural Exposure Coefficient (CEC) was computed as following:

    AOA – length of residence in Russia (age of arrival to the US)
    LOR – length of residence in the US
    AGE – participants’ age

MANCOVA
    IV = language proficiency
    Covariate = CEC
    DV = fluency, originality, elaboration, flexibility

Significant main effect of language proficiency on
    fluency (F(3, 280)=20.69, p<.001, =.18)
    elaboration (F(3, 280)=6.15, p<.001, =.06)
    No significant effect on originality and flexibility

Tukey HSD post-hoc analysis (see Figure 1):

The High Proficiency and the Unbalanced Proficiency bilinguals significantly outperformed the Low Proficiency bilinguals and Monolinguals on the ATTA measures of fluency and elaboration.

Low Proficiency bilinguals performed similar to Monolinguals on both of these measures.

Figure 1. Fluency (a) and elaboration (b) scores as a function of language proficiency.

All  -bars perform significantly better than the  -bars.

Both individuals’ cross-linguistic and cross-cultural experiences may contribute to their divergent thinking:

=> Bilingualism should be studied not only in the context of individuals’ linguistic abilities, but also in the sociocultural context.

BilingualCreative

The positive effect of bilingualism on divergent thinking abilities was found only for basic cognitive processing (fluency and elaboration).

=> Bilingualism does not necessary imply being creative. Rather, the basic cognitive processing that might be influenced by bilingualism may lay foundation for more sophisticated processing during which the truly creative ideas may be extracted.

The effectiveness of these cognitive processes might be influenced by various developmental factors different from bilingualism (e.g., intelligence, education, motivation, and personal experience).

A spreading activation is proposed as a cognitive mechanism underlying basic processing in divergent thinking. A specific architecture of bilingual memory in which two lexicons are mutually linked to the conceptual system is speculated to facilitate the functioning of spreading activation mechanism (see the next box).

To account for obtained results we propose a model (similar to Kroll & De Groot, 1997), in which a spreading activation mechanism that operates between lexical and conceptual levels, is facilitated by dual lexical-conceptual access in bilingual memory. The working of this mechanism, we speculate, might result in bilinguals’ greater ability to activate multiple unrelated concepts simultaneously (see example in Figure 2), which in our opinion might underlie fluency and elaboration in divergent thinking.

Figure 2. Spreading activation in bilingual memory (example).

Activity 1

JUST SUPPOSE you could walk on air or fly without being in an airplane or similar vehicle.
What problems might this create? List as many as you can.

Activity 2

Use the incomplete figures below to make some pictures. Try to make your pictures unusual. Your pictures should communicate as interesting and as complete a story as possible.

Highest score for the measures of originality and elaboration (case 17).

Activity 3

See how many objects or pictures you can make from the triangles below, just as you did with the incomplete figures.

Highest score for the measures of originality and elaboration (case 17).

Goff, K. & Torrance, E. P. (2002). Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults, Bensenville, IL: Scholastic Testing Service.

Kroll, J. F., & De Groot, A. M. B. (1997). Lexical and conceptual memory in the bilingual: mapping from the meaning in two languages. In A. M. B. de Groot, J. F. Kroll, (Eds.), Tutorials in bilingualism: Psycholinguistic perspectives (pp. 169-199). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.