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Past research has examined independently how openness to experience, as a personality trait, and the situational threat triggered by a foreign cultural encounter affect the emergence of creative benefits from a culture-mixing experience. The present research provides the first evidence for the interactive effect of openness to experience and cultural threat following culturally mixed encounters on creative performance. In Study 1, under heightened perceptions of cultural threat, exposing to the mixing of Chinese and American cultures (vs. a non-mixed situation) made close-minded Chinese participants to perform more poorly in a creative generation task. In Study 2, inducing cultural threat by having a foreign cultural icon spatially intrude a sacred space of the local culture caused Chinese participants with lower levels of openness to perform less creatively when the foreign icon was deemed highly symbolic of the foreign culture. These patterns of effects did not emerge among open-minded participants. These findings suggest that trait openness acts as a buffer against foreign cultural threat to sustain the creative benefits of culture mixing.

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In daily life, people make decisions not only for themselves but also on behalf of others. There may be differences in terms of the endowment effect when making decisions in these two situations. In Study 1, this question was investigated with an existing dataset exploring the traditional endowment effect, in which 86 students (M age = 20.8 years, SD = 5.0) at Harvard University were asked to make a decision on selling or buying a coffee mug for themselves or for others as brokers. When making decisions for the self, the average price demanded by sellers was much higher than that offered by buyers; while making decisions for others, the price discrepancy disappeared. In Study 2, a similar study was conducted with a sample of 42 Chinese university students (M age = 22.3 years, SD = 2.5), and a similar pattern of results was obtained. Further analysis indicated that when making decisions for others, only buyers increased their valuations, therefore mitigating the seller-buyer price discrepancy. Finally, the findings were interpreted from the perspective of Construal Level Theory.

Mullite matrix composites with laminated and stitched carbon fiber cloth preform as reinforcement were fabricated via the route of “infiltration-drying-heat treatment” using Al2O3-SiO2 sol as raw materials. Thermal properties from room temperature to 1673K of the composites were investigated. The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) increases first and then decreases, and reaches a maximum of 4.83×10-6K-1 at 1273K. As a result of the further sintering of matrix, the CTE is negative at above 1300°C. The specific heat capacity increases to the maximum of 1.547J·g-1·K-1 at 1473K and remains stable at above 1473K, with a minimum of 0.756J·g-1·K-1 at room temperature. The thermal diffusivity decreases from 1.1mm2·s-1 at room temperature to 0.707 mm2·s-1 at 973K as the temperature was elevated, and remains stable at above 973K. On the contrary, the thermal conductivity is improved with increasing temperature on the whole and varies from 1.859W·m-1·K-1 at room temperature to 2.325W·m-1·K-1 at 1473K.