Agata Groyecka-BernardPiotr SorokowskiMaciej KarwowskiS. Craig RobertsToivo AavikGrace AkelloCharlotte AlmNaumana AmjadKelly AsaoChiemezie S. AtamaDerya Atamturk DuyarRichard AyebareCarlota BatresAicha BensafiaAnna BertoniBoris BizumicMahmoud BoussenaDavid M. BussMarina ButovskayaSeda CanAntonin CarrierHakan CetinkayaDaniel Conroy-BeamMarco Antonio Correa VarellaIlona CroyRosa Maria CuetoMarta CzerwonkaMarcin CzubSilvia DonatoDaria DronovaSeda DuralIzzet DuyarBerna ErtugrulAgustin EspinosaCarla Sofia EstevesTomasz FrackowiakAleksandra GajdaMarta Galewska-KustraJorge Contreras GradunoFarida GuemazIvana HromatkoChin-Ming HuiIskra HerakRaffaella IafrateJas Laile JaafarDorota M. JankowskaFeng JiangKonstantinos KafetsiosTina KavcicNicolas O. KervynNils C. KobisIzabela LebudaGeorgina R. LennardErnesto LeonTorun LindholmMohammad Madallh AlhabahbaZoi ManesiSarah L. McKercharGirishwar MisraConal MonaghanEmanuel C. MoraAlba Moya-GarofanoBojan MusilJean Carlos NatividadeGeorge NizharadzeElisabeth OberzaucherAnna OleszkiewiczMohd Sofian Omar FauzeeIke E. OnyishiBaris OzenerFarid PazhoohiMariia PerunAnnette PisanskiKatarzyna PisanskiEdna Lucia Tinoco PoncianoCamelia PopaPavol ProkopMuhammad RizwanSvjetlana SalkicevicSusanne SchmehlOksana SenykShivantika SharadFranco SimonettiMeri TadinacKarina Ugalde GonzalezOlha UhrynChristin-Melanie VauclairDiego VegaEwa Weremczuk-MarczynskaDwi Ajeng WidariniGyesook YooMaja ZupancicAfifa AnjumAnam ShahidAgnieszka SorokowskaAavik, ToivoRoberts, S. CraigKarwowski, MaciejSorokowska, AgnieszkaGroyecka-Bernard, AgataAkello, GraceSorokowski, Piotr2025-10-0620240022-02211552-542210.1177/002202212412383212-s2.0-85189607827http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00220221241238321https://gcris.yasar.edu.tr/handle/123456789/7942https://doi.org/10.1177/00220221241238321Previous studies have found a negative relationship between creativity and conservatism. However as these studies were mostly conducted on samples of homogeneous nationality the generalizability of the effect across different cultures is unknown. We addressed this gap by conducting a study in 28 countries. Based on the notion that attitudes can be shaped by both environmental and ecological factors we hypothesized that parasite stress can also affect creativity and thus its potential effects should be controlled for. The results of multilevel analyses showed that as expected conservatism was a significant predictor of lower creativity adjusting for economic status age sex education level subjective susceptibility to disease and country-level parasite stress. In addition most of the variability in creativity was due to individual rather than country-level variance. Our study provides evidence for a weak but significant negative link between conservatism and creativity at the individual level (beta = -0.08 p < .001) and no such effect when country-level conservatism was considered. We present our hypotheses considering previous findings on the behavioral immune system in humans.Englishinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesscreativity, TCT-DP, behavioral immune system, parasite stress, conservatism, liberalism, cross-culturalPOLITICAL CONSERVATISM, PATHOGEN PREVALENCE, DISEASE-AVOIDANCE, OPENNESS, PERSONALITY, AMERICAN, THREAT, ETHNOCENTRISM, VULNERABILITY, EXTROVERSIONLiberalismConservatismCross-culturalCreativityParasite StressTCT-DPBehavioral Immune SystemArticle