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Past research shows that democracy is valued more in affluent societies with challenging climate than in other societies. Building on this finding, the present study examines how the amount of institutional and value support for cultural pluralism in a society is related to its climate and level of innovation performance. Cultural pluralism is defined as the societal condition in which minority groups within a society can maintain their distinctive cultural identities, values, and practices provided that they are consistent with the laws and values of the wider society. Institutions and values that support cultural pluralism include political democracy, tolerance for uncertainty, prioritization of secular-rational values, and openness to foreign cultures. I hypothesize that institutional and value support for cultural pluralism is stronger in societies with more challenging climate and higher innovation performance. I tested this hypothesis using society-level measures of harshness of climatic condition and innovation performance as predictors. The results showed that in societies with demanding climate and high innovation performance, their citizens tend to support democracy, are more tolerant of uncertainty, prioritize secular-rational values, and take more leisure trips outside of their home country. These results illustrate that innovation, through its moderation effect on climate, predicts the amount of institutional and value support for cultural pluralism, highlighting the reciprocal effects of culture and innovation.

This special issue enriches the study of creativity and innovation as a cultural and social process. Authors of nine articles jointly contribute to a nuanced and systematical inquiry into the cultural perspective of creativity. Their topics of investigation include lay conceptions of creativity in different cultures, different natures and manifestations of creativity and innovation, the influence of cultural values, norms, and multiculturalism on creativity, and the dialogical coevolvement between culture and creativity. The collection of articles in this issue presents cutting-edge evidence and lays the groundwork for an active dialogue about integrating the study of culture and creativity.

Results from a field experiment conducted in Guangzhou, China, show that Chinese consumers react more negatively to culture-mixed products after shopping (vs. simply entering) in a high-status Chinese store ( Exception). This effect was absent among Chinese consumers who shopped (vs. simply entered) in a high-status European store, a low-status European store, or a lower status Chinese store. The effect was also absent among Western shoppers. We argue that the Exception effect among Chinese consumers emerges due to heightened perceptions of the rising status of China—which might increase the positivity of Chinese identity and hence prompt a rejection of foreign cultural influences.

China, which was once a world champion in invention, has failed to maintain its global leadership in innovation after the middle of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Today, frame-breaking innovations are more likely to originate from European and North American countries than from China. In the perspective article (Augier, Guo, & Rowen, 2016), the authors attribute this phenomenon, which is often referred to as the Needham Puzzle, to three reasons: (1) the Chinese did not develop a scientific method like that in the West; (2) lack of educational diversity and structural inertia in China; and (3) lack of openness to the outside world. The authors also attribute the US's leadership in innovation to its culture of encouraging experimentation, tolerating failure and accepting deviance, and to its institutional support for decentralization of and competition in R&D and basic research. This commentary aims to enrich this insightful analysis. We focus on (1) the reasons for the demise of Chinese leadership in science and technology since the middle of the Ming dynasty, and (2) the historical and cultural obstacles to the development of frame-breaking innovations in modern China.

Drawing on moral foundation theory, the author found that in response to an infringement of intellectual property rights, both US and Chinese samples reported anger and evaluated the infringement negatively. The results also highlight the importance of considering cultural factors in moral decision-making. Apparently, in Chinese culture, moral decisions tend to be norm-based, even when people are assigning sanction to a transgression of the ethics of autonomy. In contrast, in American culture, moral decisions tend to be preference-based. Furthermore, although people tend to express their anger through punishment and contempt and disgust with social exclusion, in the American context, due to its relatively high mobility, to express their moral anger, individuals prefer to sanction wrongdoing by socially isolating the wrongdoer.

In globalized societies, people often encounter symbols of diverse cultures in the same space at the same time. Simultaneous exposure to diverse cultures draws people's attention to cultural differences and promotes catergorical perceptions of culture. Local cultural identification and presence of cultural threat increase the likelihood of resisting inflow of foreign cultures (exclusionary reactions). When cultures are seen as intellectual resources, foreign cultural exposure affords intercultural learning and enhances individual creativity (integrative reactions). Psychological studies of globalization attest to the utility of treating cultures as evolving, interacting systems, rather than static, independent entities.