PRIMING CULTURE DIFFERENCES IN A CREATIVE DESIGN COURSE: THE INFLUENCE OF DIGITAL STIMULI
Year: 2023
Editor: Buck, Lyndon; Grierson, Hilary; Bohemia, Erik
Author: Gong, Zhengya; Gonçalves, Milene; Latif, Ummi; Georgiev, Georgi V.
Series: E&PDE
Institution: Center for Ubiquitous Computing, University of Oulu, Finland; Department of Design, Organisation and Strategy, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Section: Established, alternative and emerging educational paradigms to equip engineers and designers for future challenges
DOI number: 10.35199/EPDE.2023.7
ISBN: 978-1-912254-19-4
Abstract
Extensive research has focused on the influence of culture on individuals’ performance in design, with either positive or negative effects. Moreover, studies have shown that it is possible to prime individuals’ cultural values to be different and influence their behaviors in design. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has explored priming culture in design, especially with digital stimuli. Therefore, we conducted a pilot study to explore the influence of priming culture by digital stimuli in design. First, we created video-based digital stimuli to prime individuals’ individualism versus collectivism (IC) cultural values. We tested the digital stimuli in an exercise during a seven-week creative design course that aimed to explore and implement essential creative problem-solving and design thinking methodologies in practice for interdisciplinary students. The results showed that the collectivism digital stimulus increased the participants’ IC value, with statistical significance. However, in the other two conditions, the participants’ IC values also increased, which was unexpected. Therefore, we discuss the role that enjoyable group ideation plays in participants’ IC values. Furthermore, we found that their design aim changes by priming participants’ IC values. These findings can support the development of educational practices aimed at encouraging design novices to design in teams independently of their culture and inspire researchers to further explore the influence of priming culture in design.
Keywords: Digital intervention, priming cultural difference, creative design, individualism, collectivism