How Exploring Other Cultures Makes You Smarter
There is a particular kind of shift that happens when you are somewhere unfamiliar. It might be standing in a market in Marrakech trying to negotiate in a language you barely speak, or watching a film from South Korea and realising that the way its characters approach conflict is completely unlike anything you grew up seeing. Something quietly recalibrates. You start noticing that the way you have always done things is not the only way, and that realisation is one of the most powerful cognitive upgrades available to a human being.
The idea that exposure to other cultures makes you a better thinker is not just intuition. It is increasingly well-supported by research. And the good news is that you do not need a passport to start.
The Science Behind the Shift
For decades, researchers have studied what happens to the brain when it is exposed to unfamiliar cultural frameworks. The findings are consistently striking.
A landmark study published in the American Psychologist, led by researchers Angela Leung and Chi-yue Chiu, was among the first to empirically demonstrate that exposure to multiple cultures directly enhances creativity. [1] Their research found that multicultural experience improved creative performance across several measures including insight learning, remote association, and idea generation, and that the benefits extended to the cognitive processes that support creativity, such as the ability to retrieve unconventional knowledge and draw on ideas from unfamiliar contexts. Critically, the study also found that these benefits were not automatic. They depended on how openly individuals engaged with the cultures they encountered. Exposure alone is the starting point; genuine curiosity is what activates it.
A subsequent study published in Frontiers in Psychology reinforced these findings, showing that multicultural experience encourages what researchers call “whole processing” of information, a broader, more integrative way of thinking that is positively correlated with creative problem solving. [2] Put simply, the more cultural contexts you understand, the more angles you can bring to any given problem.
What Happens in Your Brain
The mechanism behind this is rooted in cognitive flexibility which is the brain’s ability to switch between different concepts, adapt to new information, and approach situations from multiple angles simultaneously. Research published in PLOS ONE on bilingualism and creativity found that learning and engaging with a foreign language develops both cognitive inhibition (the ability to filter out unhelpful thinking patterns) and cognitive flexibility (the ability to shift between ideas), and that both of these traits directly support better creative and analytical problem solving. [3]
Even without full bilingual proficiency, the act of engaging with a foreign language through classes, apps, or simply watching films in another language, exercises these same neural pathways. Research from the University of Hradec Králové, published in Brain Sciences in 2023, found that digital language learning contributes measurably to cognitive gains including enhanced problem-solving skills, improved memory, and greater multitasking ability. [4]
The implication is significant: you do not need to be fluent to benefit. The act of engaging seriously with another language , of sitting with ambiguity and making meaning from unfamiliar patterns , is a form of cognitive training.
The Unexpected Power of Foreign Films
One of the most accessible entry points into another culture is also one of the most underestimated: watching foreign films and television.
Research from Columbia University’s Harvard Business School found that even passive exposure to foreign cultural icons including films can promote creative thought and stimulate divergent thinking. [5] The mechanism is similar to travel: you are being exposed to different problem-solving frameworks, different emotional logic, different ways of structuring a story and resolving tension. Every narrative is a window into a cultural worldview, and absorbing different worldviews expands the range of conceptual tools you have available.
There is also a practical language dimension. A study published in PLOS ONE by researchers at Universitat Pompeu Fabra found that watching subtitled films in a foreign language measurably improves phonological awareness and vocabulary acquisition , and does so in naturalistic, low-effort conditions equivalent to simply watching television at home. [6] More recent research published in the International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching confirmed that audiovisual exposure to foreign language content drives vocabulary learning and supports meaningful cognitive engagement even outside formal classroom settings. [7]
In short, a Sunday evening watching a Japanese drama or a French thriller is not a guilty pleasure. It is a genuine investment in how your brain works.
Travel as Cognitive Infrastructure
If films offer a window, travel throws open the door entirely.
Researcher Adam Galinsky at Columbia Business School has spent years studying the relationship between international travel and cognitive performance. His 2010 work found that travel and cultural adaptation increase what he calls “awareness of underlying connections and associations” , the ability to spot patterns and relationships that less-exposed minds tend to miss. [8] He has also documented that travel improves cognitive flexibility specifically, noting that the act of perspective-taking required to navigate a foreign culture is a core ingredient of both empathy and creative problem solving.
A study co-authored by Galinsky and published in Social Psychological and Personality Science went further, finding that the breadth of foreign experiences and not just depth increases generalised trust and broadens the mind in measurable, lasting ways. [9] People who have engaged with many different cultures, even briefly, demonstrate a greater capacity to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously which is precisely the mental skill that separates average problem solvers from exceptional ones.
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has similarly reported that people who have lived abroad score consistently higher on creativity tests than those who have not. [10] Immersing yourself in another culture, the research suggests, literally rewires the brain to perceive the world through more than one lens.
You Do Not Have to Go Far
The most important takeaway from all of this research is not that you need to book a round-the-world flight or achieve fluency in Mandarin. The benefits begin earlier and closer to home than most people assume.
Watching films from cultures you know little about. Listening to music in languages you do not speak. Trying to understand the internal logic of a cuisine, a tradition, or a form of storytelling that feels alien at first. Travelling somewhere genuinely different, even within your own country. Striking up real conversations with people whose backgrounds differ from yours. All of these are forms of multicultural exposure, and all of them, approached with genuine openness, begin to build the same cognitive architecture.
The research is clear that the variable which matters most is not the passport stamp, it is the willingness to engage. People who encounter new cultures with curiosity and openness show the greatest gains in creative performance and problem-solving ability. [1] Those who encounter them with defensiveness or detachment benefit far less.
A Different Kind of Intelligence
We tend to think of intelligence as something fixed, a capacity we are born with that determines how well we think. But the evidence increasingly suggests that the inputs we expose ourselves to shape the quality of our thinking in significant and lasting ways.
Cultures are, at their core, different operating systems for navigating human experience. Each one has developed its own answers to the fundamental questions of how to live, how to relate, how to resolve conflict, and how to create meaning. When you engage seriously with a culture other than your own, you are not just collecting experiences, you are expanding the repertoire of thinking tools available to you.
The world, it turns out, is one of the best thinking tools we have. The more of it you take in through travel, through film, through language, through honest curiosity, the sharper and more flexible your mind becomes.
Go see something unfamiliar. Your problem-solving will thank you for it.
References
- Leung, A.K., Maddux, W.W., Galinsky, A.D., & Chiu, C. (2008). Multicultural experience enhances creativity: The when and how. American Psychologist, 63(3), 169–181. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18377107/
- Frontiers in Psychology – Does Exposure to Foreign Culture Influence Creativity? Maybe It’s Not Only Due to Concept Expansion (2019) https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00537/full
- PMC / PLOS ONE – Bilingualism and creativity: Benefits from cognitive inhibition and cognitive flexibility (2022) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9670109/
- Klimova, B. & Pikhart, M. – Cognitive Gain in Digital Foreign Language Learning, Brain Sciences (2023) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10376944/
- Harvard Business School – How Multicultural Networks Promote Creativity https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/11-085.pdf
- Birulés-Muntané, J. & Soto-Faraco, S. – Watching Subtitled Films Can Help Learning Foreign Languages, PLOS ONE (2016) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4927148/
- De Gruyter – What watching subtitled movies does to the learner: the impact of subtitles and modality on cognitive load and vocabulary learning, IRAL (2024) https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/iral-2024-0175/html
- Galinsky, A.D. (2010), cited in: A Benefit of World Travel That You Probably Didn’t Realize? Increased Empathy https://www.cheapoair.com/miles-away/why-world-travel-fosters-empathy/
- Cao, J., Galinsky, A.D., & Maddux, W.W. (2014). Does travel broaden the mind? Breadth of foreign experiences increases generalized trust. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(5), 517–525. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274063991
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, cited in: How Traveling Opens the Mind and Nurtures Empathy and Innovation https://www.thenotsoinnocentsabroad.com/blog/how-traveling-opens-the-mind-and-nurtures-empathy-and-innovation
Vikram Udyawar is a marketer with a passion for travel and cultures. He writes about the ideas and experiences that shape how he thinks.
