1 . Group-Centered Societies Have Just as Much Creativity

What does culture have to do with creativity? The answer could be “a lot”. For decades, psychologists trying to understand the roots of creative imaginations have looked at the ways in which two different types of cultures can come to have an effect over its artistic and _________ output. Individualistic cultures encourage people to be unique and to _________ their own interests even if doing so comes at a cost to the group overall. Collectivistic cultures are based on relationships and duties to other people. These types of cultures often _________ the individual’s wants for the needs of those who are close to them or for those in their community.

Individualism has long been thought to have a creative _________. Individualists _________ social convention, the logic goes, and that pushback supports innovation. For instance, around the world, individualistic cultures have more patents than collectivistic cultures do. _________, a new study suggests that these ideas about culture and creativity could be off base. People in collectivistic cultures actually do better with a particular type of creative thinking than those in individualistic cultures. And the findings overall reveal the shortcomings of thinking about innovation too _________.

The new work comes from comparing communities in different parts of China. Though it scores high, as a nation, on measures of cultural _________, China’s 1.4 billion people are more than just a single culture. People from areas north of the Yangtze River tend to be more _________, open to strangers and self-confident, whereas people along the river and farther south are often more inter-dependent, partial to friends over strangers and likely to try harder to __________.

In the new creativity study, researchers investigated innovation with these two groups in mind. The team used a drawing test that had been created by psychologists. They gave kids a sheet of paper with just a few basic elements printed on it: some dots here, squiggles (弯曲的线条) there, and a rectangle that suggested a drawing frame. The children got 15 minutes to use the elements already on the page to draw whatever they wanted. They could get “adaptive creativity” points for doodling in ways that connected the squiggles and lines into an original and __________ image. In addition, a judge checked whether the children chose to incorporate a small shape that could be found just outside the rectangular. This element was easy to __________, so those who included this outside-the-box detail could get points for “boundary-breaking creativity.”

The researchers gave the test to 683 middle school students from north and south of the Yangtze River. When the scientists got the scores back, they discovered that there were no differences in the children’s overall creativity. When they broke down the results into components, they found that students from collectivistic regions scored __________ in adaptive creativity while those from individualistic areas did better in boundary-breaking creativity.

The findings are also a warning against cultural chauvinism (极端民族主义). Western countries have tended to lead the way in innovation — at least as defined by the metrics (指标) we Westerners have created. Perhaps we have been __________ China’s adaptive creativity. For example, while the country may not have invented the assembly line, it is largely thanks to the __________ its people have made to this system that the country has such a thriving manufacturing sector today.

3 . The make-up has been __________ and the costumes are back in the wardrobe. All of the ghosts, and zombies (僵尸) have disappeared for another year. If you were out On October 31, you probably noticed that there seemed to be many more of the __________ creatures scaring up fun on Shanghai streets this year. Not everyone, however, is __________ about the increasing popularity of Halloween in our city.

In actual fact, Halloween is a holiday that makes __________ people unhappy, even in countries where it is widely popular. It is not surprising that stories of the dead rising and walking among us might offend certain religious and cultural __________ of any country.

__________, costumes are often designed to be scary, disturbing and even disgusting. This particular feature of Halloween is exactly what __________some elderly passengers on the metro a few nights ago. A group of local university students, who were heading for a Halloween party, had dressed up like zombies. Their frightening appearance shocked the elderly passengers, causing them to become nervous.

Micro-bloggers later discussed the __________ online, expressing __________ opinions. On one hand, some see it as an example of young people showing a lack of __________ and respect towards the people around them. On the other hand, others see it as a harmless way to have fun.

__________ one’s judgment of that particular story, we can all agree that this is an obvious case of both cultural and generational __________. China is a country that values respect for dead ancestors. It’s quite likely that some Chinese people see certain Halloween traditions as making fun of the dead. It seems that while China’s younger generation embraces the celebrations of Western countries, the __________ generation can easily feel offended and question the wisdom of adopting foreign holidays.

China is changing rapidly, and many of those changes are due to outside influences. As the country embraces the values and cultural celebrations of foreign countries, what happens to __________ values and celebrations? How do generations, which are becoming so vastly different, continue to respect and understand one another? __________ to think about while you eat your Halloween candy.