Even one personal relationship counts
Personal relationships, including also romantic ones, with people from different cultures can foster creativity. According to an article on the website of the INSEAD business school, even one single connection with a person, provided that the relationship is deep and long-lasting, can have a meaningful impact in this regard.
During the research, 115 students of INSEAD MBA courses were tested. They were also asked whether they had had a romantic relationship with someone from another culture. Those who had had really did achieve better results in the creativity tests. In another study, the duration of past inter-cultural romantic relationships turned out to be the most significant predictor of how well the person did when creativity was tested. The number of relationships, however, was not significant.
Broader research
Apart from romantic relationships, intercultural friendships were also examined. Over 2,000 professionals were surveyed. Those who were still in close contact with friends they had made abroad (in this case in the USA) were more likely to have started their own business or, if they were employees, to have brought innovations to their workplaces.
-jk-