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Mental illness, suicide and creativity: 40-Year prospective total population study
... Research in psychology and medicine points to a link between mental health disorders and employment in creative professions. For instance, studies of Swedish population data have found that writers (but not people in other creative professions) face an elevated risk of BD, schizophrenia, and depression (Kyaga et al., 2011;Kyaga et al., 2013). Similarly, polygenic risk scores for the population of Iceland indicate that people with an elevated genetic predisposition for BD and schizophrenia are more likely to work in creative professions (Power et al., 2015). 1 While the neurobiological underpinnings of the link between creativity and mental health are incompletely understood, existing theories emphasize the importance of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that regulates our perception of pleasure and the ability to think and plan. ...
... Family identifiers, available for 71 percent of the population, allow us to identify siblings of people with a mental health condition and observe family wealth. To define employment in creative professions, we implement definitions from psychology, which include designers, university teachers (academics), visual artists, architects, display artists, performing artists, musicians, and photographers (Ludwig, 1992;Kyaga et al., 2013;Power et al., 2015). ...
... Our main analyses focus on BD, a "brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks." 3 BD has been strongly and consistently associated with creative employment (e.g., Jamison, 1993;Power et al., 2015;and Kyaga et al., 2013). For instance, biographical evidence in Jamison (1993) suggests that many exceptionally creative individuals were affected by BD, including visual artists such as Vincent van Gogh, writers such as Virginia Woolf, and composers such as Robert Schumann. ...
... There is a growing body of literature indicating that certain forms of mental illness, or proneness for certain aberrant cognition is related to creative achievement. Some of the more convincing evidence includes research by Power et al. (2015), who found, and replicated in three large independent samples, that polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder predicted creative achievement (attainment in a creative domain); Kyaga et al. (2013) studied a sample of more Table 6 Results of the GAM of professional musical achievements regressed on personal characteristics, childhood exposure to music, and practice. Significant p-values are displayed in bold font. ...
... Scientists for instance, can be thought of as competent but at the same time somewhat cold (Fiske & Dupree, 2014). Similarly, one stereotype of artists is a higher level of eccentric behaviors and mental illness (Kyaga et al., 2013), which in music has been reinforced by equally famous and infamous genius-level musicians like the drummer Keith Moon and bassist Jaco Pastorius. Given a liberal environment and salient role models, there might have been a self-promoting influx of individuals with proneness for positive symptoms of psychosis who have gradually shaped a cultural domain that not only accepts but also to some extent values and encourages creative products inspired by aberrant cognitive experiences. ...
... The ambiprofessionals, i.e. those who had reached a professional level in both music and science, had a general ability similar to the scientists and an auditory ability similar to the musicians. Interestingly, and in line with research already mentioned (Kyaga et al., 2013), musicians had higher psychosis proneness than scientists. One explanation for this relates to that creative cognition may involve different strategies (Pinho, Ullén, Castelo-Branco, Fransson, & de Manzano, 2016). ...
Previous research shows that individuals choose careers based on the relative strengths of various traits. More debated however, is how specific combinations of traits predict individual differences in professional achievements. General intelligence is often proposed to be the best predictor of eminence, but some studies suggest that more specific traits can be relatively important when performance depends on specific skills and expertise. Here we identified a comprehensive set of variables relevant for music achievement (intelligence, auditory ability, absolute pitch, Big-five personality traits, psychosis proneness, music flow proneness, childhood environment and music practice), and tested how they predicted level of musicianship (non-musicians vs. amateur musicians vs. professional musicians) and number of achievements among professional musicians. We used web survey data from a total of 2150 individuals, and generalized additive models that can also reveal non-linear relationships. The results largely confirmed our three main hypotheses: (i) non-musicians, amateur musicians, and professional musicians are best differentiated by domain specific abilities, personality traits, and childhood factors; (ii) largely the same significant predictors are also associated with the number of creative achievements within professional musicians; (iii) individuals who reach a professional level in two domains (here science and music) possess the union of the relevant traits of both domains. In addition, many of the associations between predictors and achievement were non-linear. This study confirms that in music, and potentially in other occupational fields where performance relies on specific competences, domain relevant characteristics may be better predictors of engagement and creative achievement than broad traits.
... A recent survey of health and well-being in the creative sector by Gillian W. Shorter, Siobhan O'Neill, Lisa McIlherron (2018) validates my observations presented above, in that it is exceedingly common among creative professionals to overexploit their creativity and end up feeling uninspired, blocked, and burned out in their creative practice. The numerous often-cited studies show that creative personalities have unusually high rates of psychopathology (see, e.g., Karlsson, 1970;Andreasen, 1977Andreasen, , 1987Andreasen, , 2008Goertzel, Goertzel and Goertzel,1978;Richards, Kinney, Lunde, Benet and Merzel, 1988;Jamison, 1989Jamison, , 1993Ludwig, 1994Ludwig, , 1995Ludwig, , 1998Post, 1994;Sass, 1998;Kinney, Richards, Lowing, LeBlanc and Zimbalist, 2001;Kyaga, Landén, Boman, Hultman, Långström and Lichtenstein, 2012;Reddy, Ukrani, Indla, and Ukrani, 2018). Shorter et al. (2018: 5) found that people working in the creative industries were almost three times more likely to suffer from mental health problems than the general population. ...
... cy Andreasen (2008: 252) lists approaches that have been typically used by researchers to identify a sample to study creativity and different aspects related to creative well-being. One approach is to study a mixture of creative individuals from multiple disciplines (see, e.g., Ludwig, 1995Ludwig, , 1998Csíkszentmihályi, 1996;Richards et al., 1988;Kyaga et. al., 2012). An alternative approach is to identify a group of people for whom written histories are available, and to use this information as the basis for study (see, e.g., Ellis, 1926;Juda, 1949;Goertzel et al., 1978;Jamison, 1993;Post, 1994;Ludwig, 1994;Schildkraut, Hirshfeld and Murphy, 1994;Caramagno, 1996;Beveridge and Yorston, 1999). Perhap ...
... Similarly, the psychiatrists Allan Beveridge and Graeme Yorston (1999) suggest that the idea of an association between creativity and mental ill-health has mainly been upheld by occasional anecdotes or biographies of great artists who struggled with depression or alcohol abuse. Furthermore, Andreasen (2008: 254) points out the relatively narrow range of types of creativity studied, discussing the obvious limitation of many of the studies, that they largely focus on writers (see, e.g., Andreasen, 1987;Jamison, 1989;Ludwig, 1994;Kyaga et al., 2012). An extensive report conducted in 2012 by Simon Kyaga, Mikael Landén, Marcus Boman, Christina M. Hultman, Niklas Långström and Paul Lichtenstein -based on a 40-year study of roughly 1.2 million Swedish people -found that with the exception of bipolar disorder, those in creative professions were not more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders. ...
Research studies acknowledge the complex nature of creative personalities and show empirical evidence for an association between creativity and mood disorders. Yet, there has been surprisingly little discussion of creative professionals who have lost their work motivation and creative spark. A critical discussion of this phenomenon is often reduced instead to conversations focusing on some variation of the idea that the unifying characteristic of creative people is that they all love what they do. This perspective does not reflect the reality of the working lives of creative professionals and ignores those creative individuals who have lost their passion for their creative work. In the studies presented in this thesis, I focus on addressing this gap and attempt to provide a more in-depth understanding of the creative process.
This thesis examines creative well-being and the complexity of the creative process from the perspective of picturebook illustrators. The methodological basis of the thesis is a qualitative approach called grounded theory. The term "grounded" refers to the idea that the theory emerging from the research is grounded in data, instead of having its basis in a particular theoretical framework. I collected the research data by documenting my own picturebook illustration process and by conducting narrative interviews with eight Finnish picturebook illustrators. Initially, my aim with the thesis was to gain a better understanding of the creative process of illustrating a picturebook. I started by trying to answer the question: what is the creative process of illustrating a picturebook? However, the more I examined my data, the clearer it became that it suggested a new kind of theory about the work-related well-being of creative professionals in general. Consequently, I ended up posing and answering two further questions: what are the main elements of creative resources, and what are the main factors contributing to creative well-being?
This interdisciplinary investigation draws not only on studies of the picturebook illustration process, but also on research on creativity and creative processes in general. It concludes by providing two visual models that have emerged from the studies presented in this thesis. The first – the Picturebook Illustration Model – presents the four-stage process followed when illustrating picturebooks. The second – the Cycle of Creative Resources – proposes that creative well-being could be observed as a cycle of six states of creative resources that have been identified in this thesis. Where on the Cycle of Creative Resources a creative professional finds herself has a direct impact on how fulfilling or draining she experiences the creative process. This thesis suggests a new way to approach, achieve, and sustain creative well-being. It concludes by proposing that creativity in itself does not increase or diminish in a person – it is always there, ready to be used and explored. What increases or decreases are the creative resources. This, I propose, is at the core of creative well-being.
... There are several conceptual representation theories (Kiefer and Pulvermüller, 2012) that not only enable us to understand the various cognitive processes in humans but also psychological ones, like creativity (Kyaga et al., 2013). Each theory has a way to represent concrete concepts through perception, action, emotion, and introspection, but the notion of abstract concepts is debatable (Kiefer and Pulvermüller, 2012). ...
... Computational models are useful in understanding the psychological and cognitive phenomena, validate the existing cognitive theories, and helps to formulate fresh ideas related to cognition (Rolls et al., 2008, Kyaga et al., 2013, Braver et al., 1999, O'Reilly, 2006. The representations produced by computational approaches are amodal (symbolic), multimodal (distributed), or hybrid (Hayes and Kraemer, 2017). ...
... The literature (Braver et al., 1999, O'Reilly, 2006, Rolls et al., 2008 shows that this ambitious goal is not out of reach of computational cognitive modeling. Furthermore, this type of computational tools with the ability to capture cognitive phenomena has also the potential to simulate and study some mental states and processes such as those linked to creativity (Kyaga et al., 2013). Several computational Connectionist Learning with Adaptive Rule Induction Online (CLARION) (Sun and Peterson, 1996) is a methodology that is hybrid, and capable of simulating scenarios related to cognitive and social psychology. ...
Concepts are of great value to humans because they are one of the building blocks of our
cognitive processes. They are involved in cognitive functions that are fundamental in decision
making such as classification and also capacitate us for contextual comprehension. By definition,
a concept refers to an idea or a combination of several ideas. In a computational context, a
concept can be a feature or a set of features. An individual concept is referred to as a concrete
concept, whereas a generalized form of a set of concepts can be perceived as an abstract concept.
Computational concepts can be characterized in three broad categories; i.e. symbolic (e.g.
Adaptive Control of Thought based approach), distributed (e.g. Neural Networks) and spatial
(e.g. Conceptual Space) representations. CLARION, a cognitive architecture, is an example
of a hybrid computational framework that combines symbolic and distributed representations.
Moreover, the symbolic, distributed, spatial and hybrid representations are mostly used on
representing concrete concepts, whereas the notion of an abstract concept is rarely explored.
In this thesis, we propose a computational cognitive model, named Regulated Activation Net-
work (RAN), capable of dynamically forming the abstract representations of concepts and to
unify the qualities of spatial, symbolic and distributed computational approaches. Our model
aims to simulate the cognitive processes of concept learning, creation and recall. In particular,
the RAN’s modeling has three learning mechanisms where two perform inter-layer learning that
helps in propagating activations from an input-to-output layer and vice versa. The third pro-
vides an intra-layer learning that is used to emulate regulation mechanism, which is inspired by
biological Axoaxonic synapse where one node in a layer induces excitatory, neutral or inhibitory
activation to other nodes in the layer. In this research, two different types of abstract con-
cepts are modeled: first, the convex abstract concepts where the geometrical convexity among
the concrete concepts was exploited to create the abstract concept; second, the non-convex ab-
stract concepts where the similarity relationships among the convex abstract concepts were used
to capture non-convexity and model it. The RAN uniquely unifies the qualities of symbolic,
distributed and spatial conceptual representation, where the model has a dynamic topology,
simulates cognitive process like learning and concept creation and performs machine learning
operations.
Experiments with 11 benchmarks demonstrated the classification capability of RAN’s modeling
and provided a proof-of-concept of convex and non-convex abstract concept modeling. In these
experiments, the study has shown that RAN performed satisfactorily when compared with five
different classifiers. One of the datasets was used to model the active and inactive states of
three students. Further, the results of this model of students were analyzed statistically to
infer students’ psychological and physiological conditions. The recall experiments with RAN
demonstrated the cued recall blend retrieval of abstract concepts. Besides cognitive function
simulation and machine learning, the RAN’s model was also useful in the data analysis task.
In one of the experiments, a RAN’s model was developed to have 7 layers showing dimension
reduction and expansion operations. Additionally, the data visualization of the 1st, 3rd, and
5th layers displayed how deep data analysis with the RAN model unearth the complexities in
the data.
The research work involved the study of topics from the fields of Mathematics, Computational
Modeling, Psychology, Cognition, and Neurology. Based upon the results of all the experiments
and analogical reasoning of RAN’s modeling processes, the hypotheses of the research work
were demonstrated. The abstract concept modeling was substantiated through classification
experiments, whereas the simulations of concept creation, learning, activation propagation, and
recall were justified through analogy and empirical outcomes. The research work also helped in
discovering new challenges, such as temporal learning and simulation of the cognitive process
of forgetting, which will be taken as research projects in the future.
... Researchers have long examined links between creativity and mental illness and disorders (Andreasen, 2008;Jamison, 1996;Jamison, 1995;Ludwig, 1989), suggesting that those in creative industries may be more likely to suffer mental health issues. Although some researchers suggest that those in creative professions are no more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders than those not in creative professions (Kyaga et al., 2013), research by Entertainment Assist in association with Victoria University found that mental illness is prevalent among workers in the entertainment industry (van den Eynde, Fisher, & Sonn, 2015). A potential implicated as a result of this link between creative industries and mental illness is difficulty with gaining and maintaining employment, especially among those with severe mental illness (Kyaga et al., 2013). ...
... Although some researchers suggest that those in creative professions are no more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders than those not in creative professions (Kyaga et al., 2013), research by Entertainment Assist in association with Victoria University found that mental illness is prevalent among workers in the entertainment industry (van den Eynde, Fisher, & Sonn, 2015). A potential implicated as a result of this link between creative industries and mental illness is difficulty with gaining and maintaining employment, especially among those with severe mental illness (Kyaga et al., 2013). The culture of working in architecture, and creative industries in general, could play a role in mental health, and will be discussed in section 2. ...
Literature Review
This review was to answer the following three main questions:
1. What research currently exists to indicate the prevalence or incidence of mental illness in the sector (broadly described as comprising practicing architects, and para professionals such as Computer Aided Design (CAD) technicians, students and graduates of architecture programs)?
2. What research currently exists to indicate the triggers, risk factors and early warning signs that could assist the sector to better support those in periods of mental illness? For example, does the isolated nature of sole practice and/or regional practice represent a greater risk or prevalence than, say, larger practice where the group dynamic provides informal support? How do the intense study patterns of studio-based education impact on students?
3. Does existing research suggest any correlation between the triggers and risk factors of mental illness, and any particular part of the sector? For example; risk factors that can be associated to the units of competency, or stages of life from university, registration and practice? For example, are there factors associated with university education? Is stress, anxiety or depression more commonly associated with design, documentation, project delivery or practice management? Are business pressures such as running a practice more likely to be a trigger for stress or anxiety than, say, the enjoyment of being engaged in the creative design process?
There exists a dearth of research around the mental health concerns facing architects, when students, when seeking employment, and when employed.
For the purpose of this review only, the term ‘architect’ may also refer to all those engaged in the sector, including students and CAD technicians.
Mental health is considered to be a ‘state of wellbeing in which the individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community’ (World Health Organization (WHO), Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, & University of Melbourne, 2004). WHO estimates that more than 450 million people around the world suffer from mental disorders, and by 2030, depression alone will be the number one cause of disability. Suicide is currently the leading cause of death among Australians aged 15-44 (ABS, 2016).
Mental Health Promotion (MHP) is defined as ‘interventions designed to maximize mental health and well-being by increasing coping capacity of communities and individuals and by improving environments that affect mental health’ (Donovan & Anwar-McHenry, 2014, p. 1).
According to the Australian Institute of Architects (2016), Architecture influences ‘all aspects of the built environment and brings together the arts, environmental awareness, sciences and technology. By combining creative design with technical knowledge, architects create the physical environment in which people live, which in turn, influences quality of life.’
... 185 Although the field of neuroscience of creativity remains polarized on the nature of the link between creativity and mental illness, 2,101 with some scholars even questioning its validity, [186][187][188] the empirical basis of this association is mainly derived from the raised incidence of severe mental illness, particularly bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, among eminent and high achievers in creative professions. [189][190][191][192]194 F I G U R E 7 Graphic depiction showing how three creative domains-musical, visuospatial, and kinesthetic-affect brain plasticity in individuals who have suffered brain injuries. The distinct plasticity effect appears in the three creativity domains through enhancing executive functions (EFs), each indicated by arrows. ...
... Creative writers have been singled out as having a propensity toward mental illness and substance abuse. 189,193,[201][202][203][204] There are several open questions about the nature of the association between creativity and mental illness, three of which are highlighted here. The first is the shape of the association, with some researchers arguing for an inverted-U function of sorts (e.g., 32,205,206 ). ...
Can we better understand the unique mechanisms of de novo abilities in light of our current knowledge of the psychological and neuroscientific literature on creativity? This review outlines the state-of-the-art in the neuroscience of creativity and points out crucial aspects that still demand further exploration, such as brain plasticity. The progressive development of current neuroscience research on creativity presents a multitude of prospects and potentials for furnishing efficacious therapy in the context of health and illness. Therefore, we discuss directions for future studies, identifying a focus on pinpointing the neglected beneficial practices for creative therapy. We emphasize the neglected neuroscience perspective of creativity on health and disease and how creative therapy could offer limitless possibilities to improve our well-being and give hope to patients with neurodegenerative diseases to compensate for their brain injuries and cognitive impairments by expressing their hidden creativity.
... Meanwhile, considering that mood disorder severity and mental health status may affect individuals' creativity and brain networks (N. C. Andreasen, 1987;Nancy C. Andreasen, 2008;Jamison, 1989;Kyaga, Landén, Boman, Hultman, Långström & Lichtenstein, 2013;Taylor, 2017), we added depression and anxiety into the SEM and mediation models as controlled variables to test whether the results were consistent with the previous analyses when controlling for depression and anxiety. ...
... In addition, many studies have explored the relationship between creativity, mood disorders, and mental health status (N. C. Andreasen, 1987;Nancy C. Andreasen, 2008;Jamison, 1989;Kyaga et al., 2013;Taylor, 2017). To ensure that the associations of openness to experience and divergent thinking with creative achievement and brain networks could not be due to such unanticipated confounds, we selected depression (measured by the Beck Depression Inventory-II, Beck et al., 1996) and trait anxiety (measured by the Trait Anxiety Inventory of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Spielberger, Gorssuch, Lushene, Vagg & Jacobs, 1983) as controlled variables and added them into the structural equation and mediation models. ...
Openness to experience and divergent thinking are considered to be critical in real-life creative achievement. However, there is still a lack of neural evidence to explain how creative achievement is related to openness to experience and divergent thinking. Here, a structural equation model and resting-state functional connectivity were used to investigate their relationships in college students. The structural equation model results repeatedly showed that openness to experience and divergent thinking are positively associated with creative achievement, and the resting-state functional connectivity results showed that openness to experience and divergent thinking were both correlated with the attention network and default mode network. However, openness to experience was also correlated with the primary sensorimotor network and frontoparietal control network. Mediation models further corroborated this result. Collectively, these findings support previous works and further indicate that different neural bases may underlie the associations of creative achievement with openness to experience and divergent thinking.
... In addition to the industry being described as potentially harmful, there are also studies indicating vulnerability at the individual level. In example, creativity, a prerequisite for many forms of artistic and musical performances, has been shown to be associated with increased risk of affective disorders (Akiskal et al., 2005;Mula and Trimble, 2009;Kyaga et al., 2013). Compared to the general workforce, recent studies have shown that professional musicians suffer from more symptoms of anxiety and depression (Vaag et al., 2016a,b;Gross and Musgrave, 2020;Kegelaers et al., 2021), sleep problems (Vaag et al., 2015), and use more psychotherapy (Vaag et al., 2016b) as well as manual, complementary and alternative healthcare services (Vaag and Bjerkeset, 2017). ...
... If so, these findings support the notion that the industry is in need for transformation (Gross and Musgrave, 2020). Or, on the other hand, the discrepancies could rather be attributed to the individual characteristics of people attracted to the profession, and the proposed association between creativity and mental illness indicated in large-scale epidemiological studies (Bellis et al., 2007;Kyaga et al., 2013), and an indication of increased prevalence of the personality trait neuroticism among musicians (Cooper and Wills, 1989;Kemp, 1996;Gillespie and Myors, 2000;Vaag et al., 2018). ...
PURPOSE: Previous epidemiological studies have shown higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms among professional musicians, compared to the general workforce. Similar findings have been observed for psychotherapy use among musicians. To date, large-scale investigations of prevalence rates among music and arts students are lacking.
METHODS: 880 students from music and arts institutions and faculties were derived from a national health student survey for higher education in Norway (the SHoT study). They were compared to a sample of the general student population (n=48,729). We used logistic regression analysis, adjusting for age, sex and semesters of study.
RESULTS: Music and arts students reported higher rates of anxiety (OR 1.60 (1.38-1.85), Prevalence difference (PD) 9.6 (6.3-12.8)) and depression symptoms (OR 1.41 (1.22-1.62), PD 7.9 (4.5-11.2)) compared to the general student force. Similar patterns were observed for self-reported mental disorders (OR 1.71 (1.46-2.01), PD 8.1 (5.3-11.0)), as well as psychotherapy use (OR 1.91 (1.60-2.29), PD 7.4 (4.9-9.9)) in music and arts students.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings are consistent with studies comparing musicians to the general workforce, and indicate that challenges also exist at student level, and not only after becoming a professional in the performing arts, which is important when planning health-related measures. These findings have the potential to inform on health promotion and services in the educational system.
... The model derived provides useful insights into how to enable creative development for those in similar contexts. To do so, the study links different literatures at the nexus of the industry-specific creative development process (Andreasen 1987;Baas et al. 2016;Gino & Wiltermuth 2014;Hare 1987;Kyaga et al. 2013;Schlesinger 2009). Related to this literature are insights provided by the process of creative destruction described by Schumpeterian theory (Adler et al. 2019;Henrekson & Sanandaji 2019). ...
Orientation: This qualitative study follows a process of inductive theory development.
Research purpose: Focussing on recent ‘pop icon’ musicians, the aim was to weave systemic insights into a holistic model that identifies some characteristics of creative development.
Motivation for the study: Within the diverse literature on creativity, what seems missing is an integrative perspective of similarities in the creative path-dependent development process.
Research design, approach and method: Following an in depth review of publicly available data about iconic Anglophone musical artist-musicians of the period spanning the 1960s–1980s, including Dylan, Cohen, Young and Springsteen, bibliographic and life turning-point analysis was applied to derive propositions about a path-dependent process of creative development.
Main findings: The study finds that such individuals typically trace a ‘path-dependent’ trajectory of creative transition across seven stages. Sequentially, these are the stages of: (1) Pathology, (2) The Rage to Master, (3) Authenticity, (4) Perseverance, (5) Practice, (6) Perspective and (7), Accessing Flow. Drawing insights from Gardner’s theory of creative asynchrony, after which asynchronies that seem to characterise a process of negotiation and transition of conflicts across these stages was derived.
Practical/managerial implications: The model derived provides useful insights into how to enable creative development for those in similar contexts.
Contribution/value-add: The study provides a conceptual ordering of key biographical milestone stages and intrinsic influences explaining aspects of creative development. Thus, the study builds on previous work on the creative career development of individuals in a music industry genre and extends the literatures related to biographical analysis including personality, individual differences and turning points.
... The causal mechanisms underlying these associations can only be shown by direct experimental changes in brain activity that concentrate on beta oscillations. From the view of neurochemistry, dopamine (DA), which is essential for stabilizing brain networks 103 , is most likely a key player in schizophrenia psychopathology 104 . Furthermore, the DA levels in neural networks could affect the temporal dynamics of beta oscillations 105 . ...
Paranormal believers’ thinking is frequently biased by intuitive beliefs. Lack of inhibition of these tempting beliefs is considered a key element in paranormal believers’ thinking. However, the brain activity related to inhibitory control in paranormal believers is poorly understood. We examined EEG activities at resting state in alpha, beta, and gamma bands with inhibitory control in paranormal believers and skeptics. The present study shows that paranormal belief is related to the reduced power of the alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands, and reduced inhibitory control. This study may contribute to understanding the differences between believers and skeptics in brain activity related to inhibitory control in paranormal believers.
... Empirical studies have also shown that scientists are less likely to suffer from mental illness compared with non-scientists (Ludwig, 1995;Rawlings & Locarnini, 2008). In contrast, artists (e.g., writers) have shown increased risk of schizophrenia, unipolar depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, substance abuse, and suicide (Kyaga et al., 2013). Kaufman found that reduced latent inhibition, which is highly associated with schizophrenia, was significantly correlated with creative achievement in the arts, but not the sciences (Kaufman, 2009). ...
Existing research has consistently supported a relationship between creative achievement and specific personality traits (e.g., openness to experience). However, such work has largely focused on univariate associations, potentially obscuring complex interactions among multiple personality factors, rendering an incomplete picture of the creative personality. We applied a psychometric network approach to characterize the multidimensional personality structure of highly creative individuals in the arts (“artists”) and sciences (“scientists”), using data from three samples (N=4,015): college students, a representative adult sample, and the Big-C project of eminent creative professionals. Replicating past work, we found that artists showed reliably higher levels of openness to experience compared to scientists and a control group of less creative people. Psychometric network analysis revealed that artists were characterized by higher connectivity (i.e., co-occurrence) with other personality traits for openness, indicating that openness may be more heterogeneous in how it co-occurs with other personality traits in highly creative people. Across all three samples, we found that the scientists’ personality network structure was more cohesive than the personality network of artists and the control group, indicating greater homogeneity in the personality characteristics of scientists. Our findings uncover a constellation of traits that give rise to creative achievement in the arts and sciences.
... Si les résultats existants soulignent des répercussions négatives des troubles bipolaires sur la productivité et l'insertion dans l'emploi, fortes et persistantes au cours du temps, la littérature en psychiatrie et en économie s'est également intéressée à des hypothèses alternatives, s'inscrivant dans le courant des recherches sur les liens entre santé mentale et créativité (Borowiecki, 2017). Dans le cas de la bipolarité, ces liens sont notamment représentés dans des films ou au travers de biographies d'artistes ou d'écrivains, et la prévalence des troubles bipolaires apparaît plus élevée dans les professions artistiques et scientifiques (Kyaga et al., 2013). ...
Cette étude s’intéresse à la situation d’emploi des personnes vivant avec un trouble bipolaire diagnostiqué et pris en charge dans le cadre d’un protocole de soins de longue durée, en mobilisant des données administratives couvrant la période de 2000 à 2015. La population d’étude est constituée de 674 personnes ayant ces troubles incluses dans le dispositif des affections de longue durée (ALD), âgées de 25 à 50 ans lors de cette inclusion. Nos résultats portent tout d’abord sur leur situation d’emploi au cours des huit années qui précèdent l’entrée en ALD. Ils mettent en évidence, parmi les personnes bipolaires, plus de situations d’emploi heurtées, marquées par des périodes de chômage, par comparaison à la population de témoins. Cela peut traduire un retentissement négatif de ces troubles sur la situation d’emploi avant l’entrée en ALD. Néanmoins, des événements de vie ou des facteurs de vulnérabilité au cours de ces années ont pu augmenter le risque de bipolarité et affecter la situation d’emploi, tandis que des parcours d’emploi marqués par le chômage et la désinsertion professionnelle ont pu également constituer des facteurs déclencheurs de l’apparition ou de l’aggravation des troubles. Ensuite, l’analyse de la situation d’emploi des personnes bipolaires après l’entrée en ALD suggère que ces troubles ont des effets négatifs importants sur les parcours d’emploi, persistants dans le temps. Cette étude souligne l’importance de mettre en œuvre et de développer des interventions dédiées à améliorer la situation d’emploi des personnes vivant avec un trouble bipolaire.
... To explore the relationship between psychological pain, hopelessness and suicide stages for high-suicide-risk adolescents, we established a hypothesis for the suicide mechanism path: psychological pain → hopelessness → suicide stages, with hopelessness as the mediating variable. In addition, there is a high correlation between mental illness and suicidal behaviors [24,25], and in order to better clarify the effect of psychological pain and hopelessness on suicide stages, a mediating effect model of our study is proposed with mental illness as a control variable (Figure 1). We used the more ecological Weibo text analysis method in this study, and hoped to further deepen the research on adolescent suicide and to find a new theoretical basis for future suicide interventions drawing on online data. ...
Background:
Adolescent suicide can have serious consequences for individuals, families and society, so we should pay attention to it. As social media becomes a platform for adolescents to share their daily lives and express their emotions, online identification and intervention of adolescent suicide problems become possible. In order to find the suicide mechanism path of high-suicide-risk adolescents, we explore the factors that influence is, especially the relations between psychological pain, hopelessness and suicide stages.
Methods:
We identified high-suicide-risk adolescents through machine learning model identification and manual identification, and used the Weibo text analysis method to explore the suicide mechanism path of high-suicide-risk adolescents.
Results:
Qualitative analysis showed that 36.2% of high-suicide-risk adolescents suffered from mental illness, and depression accounted for 76.3% of all mental illnesses. The mediating effect analysis showed that hopelessness played a complete mediating role between psychological pain and suicide stages. In addition, hopelessness was significantly negatively correlated with suicide stages.
Conclusion:
mental illness (especially depression) in high-suicide-risk adolescents is closely related to suicide stages, the later the suicide stage, the higher the diagnosis rate of mental illness. The suicide mechanism path in high-suicide-risk adolescents is: psychological pain→ hopelessness → suicide stages, indicating that psychological pain mainly affects suicide risk through hopelessness. Adolescents who are later in the suicide stages have fewer expressions of hopelessness in the traditional sense.
... ADHD is a behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, which are pervasive, impairing, and otherwise ageinappropriate [384]. ADHD is associated with SUDs, alcoholism, and other mental disorders, including MDD, GAD, and ASD [385]. ...
Nearly half a century has passed since the discovery of cytoplasmic inheritance of human chloramphenicol resistance. The inheritance was then revealed to take place maternally by mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Later, a number of mutations in mtDNA were identified as a cause of severe inheritable metabolic diseases with neurological manifestation, and the impairment of mitochondrial functions has been probed in the pathogenesis of a wide range of illnesses including neurodegenerative diseases. Recently, a growing number of preclinical studies have revealed that animal behaviors are influenced by the impairment of mitochondrial functions and possibly by the loss of mitochondrial stress resilience. Indeed, as high as 54% of patients with one of the most common primary mitochondrial diseases, mitochondrial encephalomyopathy with lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) syndrome, present psychiatric symptoms including cognitive impairment, mood disorder, anxiety, and psychosis. Mitochondria are multifunctional organelles which produce cellular energy and play a major role in other cellular functions including homeostasis, cellular signaling, and gene expression, among others. Mitochondrial functions are observed to be compromised and to become less resilient under continuous stress. Meanwhile, stress and inflammation have been linked to the activation of the tryptophan (Trp)-kynurenine (KYN) metabolic system, which observably contributes to the development of pathological conditions including neurological and psychiatric disorders. This review discusses the functions of mitochondria and the Trp-KYN system, the interaction of the Trp-KYN system with mitochondria, and the current understanding of the involvement of mitochondria and the Trp-KYN system in preclinical and clinical studies of major neurological and psychiatric diseases.
... Attention dificit hyperactivity disorder Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, which are pervasive, impairing, and otherwise age inappropriate [348]. ADHD is associated with SUDs, alcoholism and other mental disorders including MDD, GAD, and ASD [349]. Furthermore, multidirectional relationships between stress, anxiety, and inflammation in the pathogenesis of ADHD are discussed recently [350]. ...
Nearly half a century has passed since the discovery of cytoplasmic inheritance of human chloramphenicol resistance. The inheritance was then revealed to take place maternally by mito-chondrial DNA (mtDNA). Later, a number of mutations in mtDNA were identified as a cause of severe inheritable metabolic diseases with neurological manifestation, and the impairment of mito-chondrial functions has been probed in the pathogenesis of a wide range of illnesses including neu-rodegenerative diseases. Recently growing number of preclinical studies has revealed that animal behaviors are influenced by the impairment of mitochondrial functions and possibly by the loss of mitochondrial stress resilience. Indeed, as high as 54% of patients with one of the most common primary mitochondrial diseases, mitochondrial encephalomyopathy with lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) syndrome, present psychiatric symptoms including cognitive impairment, mood disorder, anxiety, and psychosis. Mitochondria are multifunctional organelles which produce cellular energy and play a major role in other cellular functions including homeostasis, cellular sig-naling, and gene expression, among other. Mitochondrial functions are observed to be compromised and to become less resilient under continuous stress. Meanwhile, stress and inflammation have been linked to the activation of the tryptophan (Trp)-kynurenine (KYN) metabolic system, which observably contributes to development of pathological conditions including neurological and psychiatric disorders. This narrative review discusses the functions of mitochondria and the Trp-KYN system, the interaction of the Trp-KYN system with mitochondria, and the current understanding of the involvement of mitochondria and the Trp-KYN system in preclinical and clinical studies of major neurological and psychiatric diseases.
... Numerous biographical studies of the eminently creative combined with large population-based studies of everyday creativity provide strong support for a connection between creativity and bipolar disorder (Jamison, 1993;Tremblay et al., 2010;Kyaga et al., 2011). While these studies have found a ten-fold increase in the rate of bipolar disorder among creative individuals, they have also shown that creativity and professional success are particularly enhanced among unaffected first-degree relatives and individuals expressing bipolar spectrum traits (Verdoux and Bourgeois, 1995;Richards et al., 1988;Kyaga et al., 2013;Coryell et al., 1989;Simeonova et al., 2005;Akiskal and Akiskal, 2007). These findings suggest that some bipolar spectrum traits may confer advantages for creativity. ...
Creativity has long been associated with the bipolar spectrum, particularly among unaffected first-degree relatives and those with milder expressions of bipolar traits, suggesting that some aspects of the bipolar spectrum may confer advantages for creativity. Here we took a multifaceted approach to better define the shared vulnerability between creativity and bipolar disorder. We recruited 135 individuals with bipolar disorder, 102 creative controls, and 103 non-creative controls for a total of 340 participants. All participants completed a comprehensive assessment battery that included several self-report temperament and personality questionnaires, a computerized test of cognitive function across multiple domains, and an evaluation of creative performance and achievement. Significant group differences were observed for the hypothesized shared vulnerability traits of hypomanic personality, cyclothymic temperament, impulsivity, and positive schizotypy. While both the creative and bipolar groups demonstrated superior creative ability, the creative group alone revealed enhanced cognitive performance. Accounting for intercorrelations between traits, a combination of openness, hypomanic personality, divergent thinking, and reasoning ability emerged as the strongest predictors of creativity, collectively explaining 34% of the variance in creative achievement and correctly classifying 85% of individuals with high achievement irrespective of diagnosis. These results confirm and extend earlier observations of a shared vulnerability between creativity and bipolar disorder and suggest that mild to moderate expressions of bipolar spectrum traits are associated with enhanced cognitive functioning and creative expression. Further investigation of these traits is needed to clarify the nature of this shared vulnerability and suggest individualized treatment strategies to improve clinical outcomes in bipolar disorder.
... Aalberg et al. (2019) separately found that these characteristics predicted levels of psychological distress in musicians. Another long-standing proposal is that higher levels of psychopathology are intrinsically linked to creativity (Kyaga et al., 2013), which might suggest that as "creative types," musicians are inherently more prone to higher levels of anxiety and depression. However, direct evidence for this is limited and the relationship has often been hotly debated (see Kyaga, 2018, for a full review). ...
People working in the music industry report significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than the general population, but to date, studies have not explored the differences between professional musicians and those who perform music primarily for recreation. In this study, 254 musicians from 13 countries completed measures of anxiety, depression, and wellbeing as well as answering questions about their professional status, level of success, and income. Across the whole sample, we found that over half had high levels of anxiety, and a third were experiencing depression. We showed that musicians who viewed music as their main career were more likely to have poor mental wellbeing and had significantly higher levels of clinical depression. Status as a solo or lead artist and perceived level of success also significantly predicted higher levels of anxiety and depression, and lower levels of positive wellbeing. We conclude that low mental wellbeing in musicians is the result of working as a professional musician, as opposed to being an inherent trait. Future work should explore underlying beliefs and perceptions of career musicians alongside other key factors, such as health behaviors and social support, with the aim of making specific recommendations to the music industries and educators.
... Further, hypomanic tendencies, like ADHD symptoms, are tied to high energy, sensitivity to reward over risk, and creativity (Johnson et al., 2012a;Johnson et al., 2012b;Kyaga et al., 2013). ...
Entrepreneurship scholarship finds itself in something of a quandary concerning rationality. While an increasingly large body of empirical work has found evidence of less-deliberative and even impulsive drivers of business venturing, the dominant theories of entrepreneurial action remain anchored to the assumption that intended rationality is a defining attribute of entrepreneurship. The growing schism between entrepreneurial action theory (EAT) on the one hand, and empirics and practice on the other hand, represents a consequential and exciting opportunity for the field to revisit its core assumptions regarding rationality, particularly the presence, role, and function of rational intentionality. In this study, we undertake a review and exploratory investigation of the assertion that without reasoned intentionality there is no entrepreneurship. Our work generates three important insights that contribute to rethinking key facets of the most prominent and influential EATs: alternative, non-rational pathways to business venturing exist with a non-ignorable prevalence; a proclivity towards reasoned intentionality is not invariably prescriptive; and, less-reasoned, less-deliberative tendencies do not constitute an entrepreneurial death sentence. Rather, entrepreneurs (including highly successful ones) embody a shifting blend of rational and non-rational proclivities, motivations, decisions, and actions.
... In general, people often experience a surge in emotion and happiness as a result of creative language use or appreciation (e.g., appreciating a visual metaphor) or of the resolution of interpersonal/social dilemmas by engaging in creative self-deprecation [e.g., disparagement humor; for a review, see (43)]. After reviewing previous studies, Table 1 was established to selectively list existing studies on the dichotomous association between creativity and mental health [we provide only a small number of studies supporting the positive association between creativity and mental illness; for more studies, please see some influential reviews or metaanalyses, e.g., (35,36,60)]. Specifically, Yu et al. (52), for instance, provided participants with descriptions of various scenarios that included some sort of mental distress and asked them to offer a resolution using one of three solution types: creative, literal, or problem restatement. ...
The theory of the mad genius, a popular cultural fixture for centuries, has received widespread attention in the behavioral sciences. Focusing on a longstanding debate over whether creativity and mental health are positively or negatively correlated, this study first summarized recent relevant studies and meta-analyses and then provided an updated evaluation of this correlation by describing a new and useful perspective for considering the relationship between creativity and mental health. Here, a modified version of the dual-pathway model of creativity was developed to explain the seemingly paradoxical relationship between creativity and mental health. This model can greatly enrich the scientific understanding of the so-called mad genius controversy and further promote the scientific exploration of the link between creativity and mental health or psychopathology.
... Tanto la observación clínica como los estudios empíricos han encontrado sistemáticamente relaciones entre determinados trastornos mentales (i.e. depresión, trastorno bipolar, esquizofrenia) y la genialidad creativa (Kyaga et al. 2013). Sin embargo, otros rasgos tradicionalmente asociados a los melancólicos, como el de la tendencia a la reflexión, a la introspección y la inclinación espiritual no han sido tan ampliamente estudiados. ...
Abstract: Melancholy and spirituality have been related as early as classical Greece. Since then, in every historical
epoch, some of the most relevant authors in the fields of humanities, philosophy, medicine and the arts have made
observations and comments about the possible relationship between melancholic people and spirituality tendency. For
the purpose of this research, documents and original works about this topic have been reviewed since classical Grece to
present. As a result of this review, a relationship between melancholic people and spirituality tendency is systematically
found, also related to exceptional authors, especially in the arts. More specifically, anguish and suffering could act as
mechanisms that would drive the melancholic person to initiate into introspection and existentialism, thus facilitating
contact with the mystical and spiritual path. However, these preliminary inquiries should be complemented and
expanded with more research carried out from other methodological approaches, allowing the corroboration of the
hypothesis raised. Likewise, it is recommended to consider the limitations found, such as the lack of conceptual clarity
about the meaning of "melancholy" or the absence of quantitative methodologies applied to this topic.
... Understanding the context of creative engagement also allows us to grapple with wider issues associated with artistic creativities. For instance, isolation at multiple levels when it comes to the creative process could be among the key grounds for why the practice of the literary arts in particular is strongly associated with poor mental health (Kyaga et al., 2013;MacCabe et al., 2018). On the other hand, our ability to understand written texts and express ourselves in verbal form is emphasized throughout our formal education. ...
To attain a better grasp of the dynamics underlying the creative process, it is necessary to take the ‘context’ of ideation into account. The contexts that accompany creative ideation differ considerably both across and within domains. Within the realms of artistic creativities, which are closely allied to design creativities, contextual factors include (a) the temporal duration of the creative process, (b) degree of isolation/sociality involved across all stages of the creative process from the inception of the idea to the reception of the artwork, and (c) the inherent voluntary/involuntary nature of the accessibility of the artwork. Considering the importance of the context of creative ideation is therefore essential to arrive at a comprehensive and accurate understanding of creativities in practice.
... A review of the literature on creativity reveals a link between creativity and mental illness ( Jamison, 2011 ;Kyaga, et al., 2013 ;Ludwig, 1992Ludwig, , 1994Richards, et al., 1988;Richards & Kinney, 1990 ). Jamison (1989 , ✩ Submission date: July 2021 Request for reprints should be addressed to: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. E-mail addresses: furtwenglers@uhd.edu ...
In a pilot study, an exploratory factor analysis using a minimum rank factor extraction method and an oblique (Promin) rotation of 30 self-report items on a proposed Creativity Orientation Scale (COS) was conducted on a snowball sample (n = 237). The purpose was to gain more in-depth understanding of attitudes toward and perceptions of creativity and creative individuals within the framework of social identity theory. Using the optimal implementation of Parallel Analysis (PA) retention method, a three-factor solution provided the clearest extraction. Factor 1 (creative-averse orientation) accounted for 37.32% of the variance and had seven items. Factor 2 (creative-approach orientation) accounted for 18.76% of the variance and had eight items. Factor 3 accounted for 8.31% of the variance and had only two items and therefore was not considered salient. Following rotation, these three items accounted for 64.40% of the total variance.
... International studies Barbar et al., 2014;Dobos et al., 2019;Vaag et al., 2016) have found that health and psychological problems are frequently reported by musicians and performing artists. Studies have also suggested that creativity, which is a prerequisite for many forms of artistic and musical performances, is associated with an increased risk of affective disorders (Kyaga et al., 2013). A study on the prevalence of performance anxiety among Brazilian musicians reported a high rate of psychiatric indicators (Barbar et al., 2014), while symptoms of depression were observed in 32% of a sample of Australian professional orchestral musicians . ...
Music performance anxiety (MPA) is one of the main problems experienced by music students. It manifests in affective, cognitive, somatic, and behavioral symptoms that can occur regardless of the quality of the musical performance. The aim of this study was to perform a regression analysis to determine the variables that contribute to the prediction of MPA in conservatory students. A total of 295 Spanish music students aged 15–68 years enrolled in Spanish conservatories completed a battery of questionnaires selected to collect information about demographic characteristics, musical training, learning processes, and health and psychological variables. Pearson’s correlations and ANOVA were calculated, and a regression analysis was done to predict the development of MPA. The results showed that MPA is largely predicted by health and psychological variables, including depression, fear of negative evaluation, social avoidance, poor achievement motivation, and use of substances to alleviate MPA. Age at first musical performance with an audience was the only musical training variable with sufficient strength to predict MPA (the older the participant, the greater the MPA). The article concludes with a discussion of the need to implement psychological and educational counseling in music education centers as well as specific training to increase the quality of the musical career and personal wellbeing of the students.
... Studies have reported that schizophrenic or bipolar patients will commonly end up self-suspending their pharmacological treatment due to complaints of reduced creativity and cognitive deficits caused by psychotropic drugs. [34] While drugs such as buproprion may be associated with increased creative capacity in depressed patients, it is often reported that lithium, a mood stabilizer often used in bipolar affective disorder, is associated with creative flattening, despite the psychopathological stabilization of these patients. [35] Antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), may be associated with increased creativity as they act to decrease depressed mood; but they may also cause fear, shame, libido, or curiosity to subside, emotions that are an essential substrate of the creative process. ...
Art and madness seem to have much in common. The realization that creativity interrelates with psychiatric disorders is taken as an axiom in modern Western culture. The stigmatization of people with mental disorders has persisted throughout history, and Vincent van Gogh, author of the most sensational works of the post-Impressionist current, seems to illustrate this question since it remains one of the human minds that more curiosity and admiration raise in the present times. The article aims to address the possible association between creative development and the presence of psychopathology by taking a look at the multiple interpretations of the life and work of artists such as Van Gogh.
... Some psychiatric diagnoses are over-represented in certain occupations, especially those requiring creativity, suggesting a selection effect. For example, large-scale analysis of the Swedish population revealed that people with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are overrepresented in artistic and scientific lines of work (Kyaga et al., 2011), and that being a professional author is associated with increased odds of meeting criteria for bipolar, major depression, and schizophrenia (Kyaga et al., 2013). ...
The purpose of this study is to explore how professional employment impacts mental health among people with mental illness, and how having a mental illness impacts job performance, both positively and negatively. The research is based on in-depth interview data from 56 professionals diagnosed with mental illness, and the interview transcripts are analyzed in accordance with the flexible coding model of qualitative data analysis. We find that working conditions of professional jobs pose challenges to managing symptoms of mental illness, including the pressures of responsibility and exposure to secondary trauma. However, professional employment also provides benefits such as social connections and feeling accountable. Similarly, symptoms cause problems at work like having angry outbursts, yet experience with mental illness informs job performance such as by increasing empathy with others. We use these findings to recommend new directions for research and argue for inclusion of people with mental illness in the workplace.
... This result was predictable in light of up to date studies indicating higher risk of developing mood and anxiety disorders in artists. 29,30 From a positive perspective, more intense experiencing of emotions such as sadness or anxiety can have a positive impact on the performance of creative tasks. 10 Furthermore, the high ability to engage emotionally in the performance is a prerequisite for the successful performance of artistic professions, and is also positively evaluated by the audience. ...
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to expand knowledge about the relationship between temperament and choice of profession by comparing temperaments among representatives of various professional groups.
Subjects and methods:
A total of 759 subjects aged 18-71, representatives of six professional groups: firefighters, musicians, athletes, bank managers, nurses and paramedics, were included in the study. Temperament was assessed using the TEMPS-A autoquestionnaire.
Results:
Musicians showed higher levels of depressive and anxious temperaments whereas firefighters were lower on cyclothymic dimension. Athletes, bank managers and paramedics showed higher intensity of hyperthymic temperament compared to firefighters, musicians and nurses. Athletes showed lower of depressive temperament compared to bankers, musicians and nurses. Bankers obtained lower results of irritable temperament compared to musicians, athletes and nurses. Nurses showed a higher intensity of anxious temperament compared to firefighters, athletes and paramedics.
Conclusion:
The results obtained support the concept of adaptive and socially useful role of affective temperaments. The studied professional groups show different individual temperamental profiles, which is justified in such aspects of the profession, as the level of stimulation, stress encountered, the necessity of making important decisions, or entering into relationship with the patient.
... Naming unrelated words measures originality with better face validity than appropriateness, although both are important components of creativity (31). DAT scores may thus partly reflect other constructs more related to divergence than creativity, such as overinclusive thinking or schizotypy (46). Still, the DAT scores correlated with assessments of appropriateness on the Bridge-the-Associative-Gap Task. ...
Several theories posit that creative people are able to generate more divergent ideas. If this is correct, simply naming unrelated words and then measuring the semantic distance between them could serve as an objective measure of divergent thinking. To test this hypothesis, we asked 8,914 participants to name 10 words that are as different from each other as possible. A computational algorithm then estimated the average semantic distance between the words; related words (e.g., cat and dog) have shorter distances than unrelated ones (e.g., cat and thimble). We predicted that people producing greater semantic distances would also score higher on traditional creativity measures. In Study 1, we found moderate to strong correlations between semantic distance and two widely used creativity measures (the Alternative Uses Task and the Bridge-the-Associative-Gap Task). In Study 2, with participants from 98 countries, semantic distances varied only slightly by basic demographic variables. There was also a positive correlation between semantic distance and performance on a range of problems known to predict creativity. Overall, semantic distance correlated at least as strongly with established creativity measures as those measures did with each other. Naming unrelated words in what we call the Divergent Association Task can thus serve as a brief, reliable, and objective measure of divergent thinking.
... Neuere epidemiologische Studien mit großen Stichproben bestätigen das erhöhte Auftreten von psychiatrischen Erkrankungen bei professionellen Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftstellern, dies trifft vor allem auf die Schizophrenie und die bipolare Störung zu. Des Weiteren wird von einer familiären Häufung in kreativen Berufen für die Schizophrenie, die bipolare Störung, Anorexie und möglicher Weise auch Autismus ausgegangen (Kyaga et al., 2011(Kyaga et al., , 2013. Power und Kollegen (2015) konnten an einer Stichprobe von 86 292 Personen aus Island zeigen, dass Kreativität und die Neigung zur Psychose ähnliche genetische Dispositionen aufweisen. ...
The link between creativity and psychopathology is legendary and has been studied until today. The first part of the present paper describes the current stage of literature with a clear focus on psychopathologies and personality traits, which are closely linked with psychosis and psychosis-proneness. The second part outlines how these traits might be associated with creativity. To achieve this, we focused on divergent and convergent
thinking processes. Divergent thinking might be important to produce a high number of ideas and convergent thinking to elaborate on these ideas to select the most applicable and useful solution. The psychosis-proneness might go along with elevated divergent thinking processes (via associative abilities) and decreased cognitive control mechanisms. The authors concluded that acute psychosis might not be associated with higher creativity and people might more likely achieve the fulfillment of their creative potential without psychosis-proneness. [Published in "Rausch"; Full text in German]
... In recent years, advances in technologies have played an essential role in cognitive and psychological research, e.g., use of devices like GP3 [16], TheEyeTribe [17], and electroencephalography (EEG) [18,19] to study visual attention. In this article, we focus on representations of computational models that are also very useful in understanding the psychological and cognitive phenomena, validating the existing cognitive theories, and helping to formulate fresh ideas related to cognition [20][21][22][23]. The representations of these computational approaches are either symbolic (amodal), distributed (multimodal), or hybrid [24], which helps in simulating or understanding various cognitive phenomena. ...
Abstract concepts play a vital role in decision-making or recall operations because the associations among them are essential for contextual processing. Abstract concepts are complex and difficult to represent (conceptually, formally, or computationally), leading to difficulties in their comprehension and recall. This contribution reports the computational simulation of the cued recall of abstract concepts by exploiting their learned associations. The cued recall operation is realized via a novel geometric back-propagation algorithm that emulates the recall of abstract concepts learned through regulated activation network (RAN) modeling. During recall operation, another algorithm uniquely regulates the activation of concepts (nodes) by injecting excitatory, neutral, and inhibitory signals to other concepts of the same level. A Toy-data problem is considered to illustrate the RAN modeling and recall procedure. The results display how regulation enables contextual awareness among abstract nodes during the recall process. The MNIST dataset is used to show how recall operations retrieve intuitive and non-intuitive blends of abstract nodes. We show that every recall process converges to an optimal image. With more cues, better images are recalled, and every intermediate image obtained during the recall iterations corresponds to the varying cognitive states of the recognition procedure.
... (a) Mental disorders, ranging from schizophrenia or bipolar disease, to autism, are regularly found by relatives of highly creative persons (Kyaga et al., 2013). Partial overlap of genes, providing mental disorders, on one hand, and creative performance, on the other, tends to be currently regarded as the main cause of this regularity. ...
... preneurs must generate novel ideas for innovative new businesses was found to have a connection with mental health (Amabile, 1988). This finding was supported by other researchers that also identified a relationship between creativity and mental health conditions including substance abuse (Ghaemi, 2011); ADHD, (Healey &Rucklidge, 2006); psychosis, (Kyaga, S. et. al., 2012); depression, (Ludwig, A, 1992), and bipolarity (Ghaemi, 2011). However, studies have shown that mental disorders are not a preserve of entrepreneurs and that is why related studies on mental health differences in leadership reported the occurrence of bipolarity, depression, sociopathy, and psychosis among political and military leaders ...
Entrepreneurship has propagated because of its usefulness in economic development and the connected commercialization of innovations that improves the standards of living. A proportion of the global population is therefore in the process of either starting or running a business without an understanding of its implications to mental health. Studies have therefore carried out to establish a link between entrepreneurship and psychological wellbeing of entrepreneurs so as to come up with programs germane to addressing risk factors and ameliorated dysfunction through treatment. However, current literature on sustainable entrepreneurship has pursued discussions on the construct of entrepreneurial personality traits separately from that of strategic competencies and psychosocial support, in spite of the inferred indications that the three can be assimilated in an integrated model to register an impact on the mental health of an entrepreneur. The purpose of this study then is to provide a review of pertinent literature on the perspectives associated with the psychological wellbeing of entrepreneurs as they passionately and creatively pursue business ideas from concept to actualization as per the needs in the market. This study has established that rivulets of research on entrepreneurship and the mental health of entrepreneurs have returned conflicting results. The study has identified emerging data gaps and came up with critical propositions for purposes of progressing knowledge and forming a basis for future studies on sustainable entrepreneurship that takes into account national and global economize as well as the emotional and relational wellbeing of the entrepreneurs.
Introduction: Alterations of verbalized thought occur frequently in psychotic
disorders. We characterize linguistic findings in individuals with schizophrenia
based on the current literature, including findings relevant for differential and
early diagnosis.
Methods: Review of literature published via PubMed search between January
2010 and May 2022.
Results: A total of 143 articles were included. In persons with schizophrenia,
language-related alterations can occur at all linguistic levels. Differentiating
from findings in persons with affective disorders, typical symptoms in those
with schizophrenia mainly include so-called “poverty of speech,” reduced word
and sentence production, impaired processing of complex syntax, pragmatic
language deficits as well as reduced semantic verbal fluency. At the at-risk state,
“poverty of content,” pragmatic difficulties and reduced verbal fluency could
be of predictive value.
Discussion: The current results support multilevel alterations of the language
system in persons with schizophrenia. Creative expressions of psychotic
experiences are frequently found but are not in the focus of this review. Clinical
examinations of linguistic alterations can support differential diagnostics and early
detection. Computational methods (Natural Language Processing) may improve
the precision of corresponding diagnostics. The relations between languagerelated
and other symptoms can improve diagnostics.
The relationship of the nervous system and mental illness with musical creativity can be found in the production of eminent composers of the Romantic Age (1800–1910). Research published in recent decades specifies that in the history of music, mental disorders are not only present as a plot element in many operas, but are a condition experienced by many authors during the creative phase of their career. The cliché ‘genius and madness’ is reflected in the biographies of Gaetano Donizetti and Bedřich Smetana who were both suffering from neurosyphilis and confined in an asylum. Niccolò Paganini contracted syphilis, but he also suffered from a rare genetic anomaly. Robert Alexander Schumann was affected by bipolarity and, in addition to the symptoms of syphilis, he also suffered from annoying hearing alterations. Giuseppe Verdi fell into a severe depression, while Maurice Ravel suffered from aphasia and apraxia related to an unclear form of neurological deterioration. However, the production of these composers does not appear influenced by their pathological status. Indeed, their mental condition seems to have boosted their genius to the maximum degree. In this review, the association between the neuropsychological pathology and the creativity of well-known Romantic composers was investigated through the analysis of both the clinical histories and the musical production. However, it is difficult to establish where personal innovation stops and the effect of the medical condition takes over, especially for musicians of the Romantic Age accustomed to research expressive freedom and unusual intensity. Indeed, the cases examined do not have a univocal answer. In some cases, the pathological phenomenon has appeared to enrich the talent of the musicians with imagination. In other authors the serious neurological damage and the consequent invalidity seem to have represented an obstacle to the compositional work.
Depression is one of the most common and debilitating health problems, however, its heterogeneity makes a diagnosis challenging. Thus far the restriction of depression variables explored within groups, the lack of comparability between groups, and the heterogeneity of depression as a concept limit a meaningful interpretation, especially in terms of predictability. Research established students in late adolescence to be particularly vulnerable, especially those with a natural science or musical study main subject. This study used a predictive design, observing the change in variables between groups as well as predicting which combinations of variables would likely determine depression prevalence. 102 under- and postgraduate students from various higher education institutions participated in an online survey. Students were allocated into three groups according to their main study subject and type of institution: natural science students, music college students and a mix of music and natural science students at university with comparable levels of musical training and professional musical identity. Natural science students showed significantly higher levels of anxiety prevalence and pain catastrophizing prevalence, while music college students showed significantly higher depression prevalence compared to the other groups. A hierarchical regression and a tree analysis found that depression for all groups was best predicted with a combination of variables: high anxiety prevalence and low burnout of students with academic staff. The use of a larger pool of depression variables and the comparison of at-risk groups provide insight into how these groups experience depression and thus allow initial steps towards personalized support structures.
Musicians are at risk of developing music-induced hearing loss (MIHL) and also exhibit increased prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress. However, the relationship between hearing loss and mental health issues in musicians has not yet been explored. This study conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 32 professional and 35 amateur musicians recruited from local bands and orchestras. KUDUwave software was used to obtain their overall hearing thresholds for both ears over three frequency ranges: 0.5 to 4, 6 to 8, and 9 to 16 kHz. Participants also completed a demographic questionnaire that contained questions related to musical exposure, type of music exposed, years of practice, and so on, and the DASS-21 questionnaire, which assesses the presence of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. Professional musicians had significantly greater music exposure compared with amateur musicians, but their hearing thresholds were not significantly different from amateur musicians in 0.5–4, 6–8, or 9–16 kHz frequency ranges. Professional musicians experienced greater symptoms of anxiety compared with amateur musicians, and this occurred independently of their hearing status. Further longitudinal studies are required to explore the causative factors resulting in increased mental health issues in professional musicians and what potential interventions may be implemented to address anxious symptomology in this population.
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity and Emotions provides a state-of-the-art review of research on the role of emotions in creativity. This volume presents the insights and perspectives of sixty creativity scholars from thirteen countries who span multiple disciplines, including developmental, social, and personality psychology; industrial and organizational psychology; neuroscience; education; art therapy, and sociology. It discusses affective processes – emotion states, traits, and emotion abilities – in relation to the creative process, person, and product, as well as two major contexts for expression of creativity: school, and work. It is a go-to source for scholars who need to enhance their understanding of a specific topic relating to creativity and emotion, and it provides students and researchers with a comprehensive introduction to creativity and emotion broadly.
The hypothesis of a relationship between madness and creativity is most common in science and art. But science needs evidence, and it is in the ideas taken for granted that prejudices exist and are difficult to change. And this hypothesis, based on common sense ideas, has been supported by studies and observations. Furthermore, over time, this issue has been reinforced by anecdotes and examples, as well as plausible mechanisms that previous studies seem to confirm. But since correlation does not guarantee causality, we also need to understand the mechanisms involved. Lateral thinking, obsessive activity, among other aspects, are sometimes evoked to explain what is already thought to be known, and the proposed mechanisms end up reinforcing prejudice instead of explaining it. However, more recent studies and meta-analysis studies suggest that the relationship is too vague or negative.
The current article advances the hypothesis that creative culture evolved, in part, to allay the costs of the overgrown human brain and the cognitive integration limit that it imposes. Specific features can be expected among cultural elements best suited to allaying the integration limit and also among the neurocognitive mechanisms that might undergird these cultural effects. Music, visual art, and meditation are used as examples to illustrate how culture helps to bridge or sidestep the integration limit. Tiered religious, philosophical, and psychological concepts are considered in light of their reflection of the tiered process of cognitive integration. The link between creativity and mental illness is offered as additional support for the role of cognitive disconnection as a wellspring of cultural creativity, and I propose that this link can be harnessed in defense of neurodiversity. Developmental and evolutionary implications of the integration limit are discussed.
Background
Despite a large descriptive literature linking creativity and risk for psychiatric illness, the magnitude and specificity of this relationship remain controversial.
Methods
We examined, in 1 137 354 native Swedes with one of 59 3-digit official and objective occupational codes in managerial and educated classes, their familial genetic risk score (FGRS) for ten major disorders, calculated from 1 st through 5 th degree relatives. Mean FGRS across disorders were calculated, in 3- and 4-digit occupational groups, and then controlled for those whose disorder onset preceded occupational choice. Using sequential analyses, p values were evaluated using Bonferroni correction.
Results
3-digit professions considered to reflect creativity (e.g. ‘artists’ and ‘authors’) were among those with statistically significant elevations of FGRS. Among more specific 4-digit codes, visual artists, actors, and authors stood out with elevated genetic risks, highest for major depression (MD), anxiety disorders (AD) and OCD, more modest for bipolar disorders (BD) and schizophrenia and, for authors, for drug and alcohol use disorders. However, equal or greater elevations in FGRS across disorders were seen for religious (e.g. ministers), helping (e.g. psychologists, social workers), and teaching/academic occupations (e.g. professors). The potential pathway from FGRS → Disorder → Occupation accounts for a modest proportion of the signal, largely for MD and AD risk.
Conclusions
While traditional creative occupations were associated with elevated genetic risk for a range of psychiatric disorders, this association was not unique, as similar, or greater elevations were seen for religious, helping and teaching professions and was stronger for internalizing than psychotic disorders.
The idea of a connection between creativity and psychopathology has been attributed to our earliest human ancestors. It is also a notion that has, historically, been expressed across cultures. Contemporary research exploring the link between creativity and psychopathology, however, is equivocal. More recently, it has been hypothesized that this is only a subset of mental health problems that are linked with creativity; specifically, approach-based psychopathologies, such as mania and hypomania. This study explored the relationship between creativity (divergent thinking) and approach-based psychopathology (hypomanic traits) among Arab college women (n= 218) in the United Arab Emirates. The study used a Web-based version of the Alternative Uses Task to assess creativity. The study also administered the Hypomanic Personality Scale to assess hypomanic traits/bipolar risk. As predicted, there was a positive correlation between hypomanic traits and creativity. These findings broaden support for the idea of a link between approach-based psychopathologies and creativity. By extension, they lend further tentative support to archaeological hypotheses about the co-emergence of theology, creativity and mental illness.
Researchers have recently turned their focus to a specific area: the links between altered states of consciousness and creativity. A spectrum of attentional states of consciousness exists, from hypnagogia and mind wandering to mindfulness and flow. These attentional states of consciousness are present during a variety of activities (e.g., sports, music, painting, writing, video games, theater, and meditation) as well as in situations characterized by boredom. They are also present in many professional fields and practices (e.g., education and teaching). Moreover, researchers and educators focus sometimes on only one state of consciousness (such as mind wandering) or only on attention, and do not question relationships with others (such as mindfulness or flow) or the links with intention, the different levels of consciousness involved and the changes in perception of time, self and space. Additionally, as we know that a state of consciousness rarely occurs alone or that it can have two forms (such as spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering), we propose a global approach allowing to grasp the stakes and perspectives of what we call attentional states of consciousness. Thus, to our knowledge, this is the first theoretical review highlighting the historical, empirical, theorical and conceptual relationships between creativity, attention, mind wandering, mindfulness and flow by offering concrete and empirical avenues and bases for reflection about educating for creativity and developing creative potential.
Artistic creativity has long been associated with physical and psychological suffering. This phenomenon has also been the subject of empirical research. The anguished “artistic genius” stereotype is ubiquitous, and there is evidence to suggest that artists may have heightened susceptibility to psychopathology. The present qualitative study utilized in‐depth semi‐structured interviews, in accordance with the methodology of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis to explore inter‐relationships between artistic creativity, and physical and mental health among 10 eminent Australian female visual artists. Results revealed complex, reciprocal interactions whereby physical and mental health impacted creativity and vice versa. Physical and psychological illnesses were found to either diminish or stimulate creativity due to the interplay of biological predispositions, personal vulnerabilities, and environmental factors. It was also revealed that immersive creative engagement could have therapeutic, cathartic effects and facilitate post‐traumatic growth. The stressors and demands of professional creative practice could, however, also have a detrimental impact upon artists physically and psychologically. These findings contribute to existing understandings regarding the intricacy of the relationship between creativity, physical and psychological health. They highlight the need to challenge romantic societal mythologies regarding the impact of suffering on creativity in the visual arts and explore these issues in a nuanced manner to best support those in creative industries.
“Big Data” is a concept that has been used in the last 10–15 years to describe the increasing complexity and amount of data available at scale in organizations and companies—data that often requires novel computational techniques and methods to generate knowledge. Compared to other health domains, mental health is influenced by a greater variety of factors, such as those related to mental, interpersonal, cultural, environmental, and biological phenomena. Thus, knowledge discovery in mental health research can involve a broad variety of data types and therefore data resources, including medical, behavioral, administrative, molecular, ‘omics’, environmental, financial, geographic, and social media repositories. Moreover, these varied phenomena interact in more complex ways in mental health and illness than in other domains of health so knowledge discovery must be open to this complexity. In this chapter, we outline the main underlying concepts of the “big data” paradigm and examine examples of different types of data repositories that could be used for mental health research. We also provide an example case study for developing a data repository, outlining the key considerations for designing, building, and using these types of resources.
The ability to generate humor gives rise to positive emotions and thus facilitate the successful resolution of adversity. Although there is consensus that inhibitory processes might be related to broaden the way of thinking, the neural underpinnings of these mechanisms are largely unknown. Here, we use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, a humorous alternative uses task and a stroop task, to investigate the brain mechanisms underlying the emergence of humorous ideas in 24 subjects. Neuroimaging results indicate that greater cognitive control abilities are associated with increased activation in the amygdala, the hippocampus and the superior and medial frontal gyrus during the generation of humorous ideas. Examining the neural mechanisms more closely shows that the hypoactivation of frontal brain regions is associated with an hyperactivation in the amygdala and vice versa. This antagonistic connectivity is concurrently linked with an increased number of humorous ideas and enhanced amygdala responses during the task. Our data therefore suggests that a neural antagonism previously related to the emergence and regulation of negative affective responses, is linked with the generation of emotionally positive ideas and may represent an important neural pathway supporting mental health.
The association between creativity and mental disorders has been a subject of long-standing debate. And it is one of the most controversial issues in the field of creativity and psychopathology research. Despite the fact that engaging in creative activities has a wide range of benefits for mental health the concept of creativity/ mental illness has been widespread. On the one hand, a large body of anecdotal and empirical supports this association (e.g.Simonton, 2010; Andreasen, 2008; Johnson et al., 2012). On the other hand, some scholars argued that the creativity/ psychopathology connection is a traditional legend, and the empirical research in this area has many shortcomings, especially in terms of methodology (e.g. Sawyer, 2012; Schlesinger, 2009).This study conducted a systematic review to investigate the link between creativity and mental illness. Various electronic databases were used to find selected studies: including, Google Scholar, PubMed (Medline), Science Direct, and PMC (NCBI). Also, British Library, Core, and EThOS were applied to search for grey literature. In this paper, 24 studies have been reviewed that they are involved 6,525,664 participations. 21 reviewed studies provided some indications to support a positive link between creativity and psychopathology. 1 study proposed a negative link, and two studies suggested that there is no relationship. Altogether, the results displayed that there is a significant positive correlation between creativity and sub-clinical mental disorders. According to this study, not only creativity was introduced as a by-product of certain sub-clinical mental disorders (e.g., bipolar disorder, schizotypy) but it also identified as a treatment for some severe mental disorders (e.g., depression and addiction).
This textbook is a systematic and straightforward introduction to the interdisciplinary study of creativity. Each chapter is written by one or more of the world's experts and features the latest research developments, alongside foundational knowledge. Each chapter also includes an introduction, key terms, and critical thought questions to promote active learning. Topics and authors have been selected to represent a comprehensive and balanced overview. Any reader will come away with a deeper understanding of how creativity is studied – and how they can improve their own creativity.
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a debilitating disorder and most research therefore focuses on its deficits and its treatment. Research on the potential positive sides of ADHD is limited, and although a comprehensive overview of empirical studies on this subject is missing, it has been suggested that ADHD is associated with enhanced creativity. To identify important relations, trends and gaps in the literature, we review 31 behavioral studies on creativity and ADHD, distinguishing different research designs, age groups, creativity measurements and effects of psychostimulants, as well as reflecting the potential underlying neural mechanisms of creativity and ADHD. Most studies find evidence for increased divergent thinking for those with high ADHD scores (subclinical) but not for those with the disorder (clinical). The rates of creative abilities/achievements were high among both clinical and subclinical groups. We found no evidence for increased convergent thinking abilities in ADHD, nor did we find an overall negative effect of psychostimulants on creativity. Neuroscientific findings suggest candidate regions as well as mechanisms that should be studied further to increase our understanding of the relationship between creativity and ADHD. We propose research opportunities to boost the knowledge needed to better understand the potential positive side of ADHD.
Proučavanje odnosa kreativnosti i kliničkih te supkliničkih psihopatologija važno je zbog toga što otkriva kognitivne i bihevioralne korelate kreativnosti. Utvrđeno je da su za kreativnost najpogodniji blagi oblici psihopatoloških osobina kao što su shizotipija ili psihoticizam. Cilj istraživanja bio je ispitati odnos kreativnosti i shizotipije te psihoticizma u skupinama studenata umjetničkog i drugih usmjerenja. U istraživanju su sudjelovala 104 studenta umjetničkog i 193 studenta drugih usmjerenja. Rezultati pokazuju da između dviju skupina studenata postoji statistički značajna razlika u dvjema dimenzijama shizotipije (neobična iskustva i kognitivna dezorganizacija) i u broju kreativnih interesa i aktivnosti. Studenti umjetničkih usmjerenja su izrazili da doživljavaju više neobičnih iskustava poput halucinacija i deluzija te da imaju više dezorganiziranih misli, oslabljenih konceptualnih granica i poteškoća sa zadržavanjem pažnje nego studenti drugih usmjerenja. Također, studenti umjetničkih usmjerenja su naveli veći broj kreativnih interesa i aktivnosti nego studenti drugih usmjerenja. Nadalje, oni studenti koji su iskazali da doživljavaju više neobičnih iskustava i kojima su raspoloženje i ponašanje (posebice vezano uz socijalne norme i konvencije) češće nestabilni, bave se većim brojem kreativnih aktivnosti. S druge strane, oni studenti koji su iskazali veću sklonost introvertiranom, asocijalnom ponašanju sa smanjenom sposobnošću osjećanja ugode, navode manje kreativnih interesa i aktivnosti. Nije utvrđena značajna povezanost psihoticizma i kreativnosti. Ključne riječi: kreativnost, shizotipija, psihoticizam
Thesis (doctoral)--Københavns universitet, 2007.
With few exceptions, scholarship on creativity has focused on its positive aspects while largely ignoring its dark side. This includes not only creativity deliberately aimed at hurting others, such as crime or terrorism, or at gaining unfair advantages, but also the accidental negative side effects of well-intentioned acts. This book brings together essays written by experts from various fields (psychology, criminal justice, sociology, engineering, education, history, and design) and with different interests (personality development, mental health, deviant behavior, law enforcement, and counter-terrorism) to illustrate the nature of negative creativity, examine its variants, call attention to its dangers, and draw conclusions about how to prevent it or protect society from its effects.
Previous studies (Heston & Denney, 1968; Karlsson, 1970; Kauffman, Grunebaum, Cohler, & Gamer, 1979) have reported that psychologically healthier biological relatives of persons with schizophrenia had unusually creative jobs and hobbies. These studies, however, examined only eminent levels of creativity in a few professions, involved serendipitous post hoc findings, assessed creativity, or both, while aware of diagnosis. We studied 36 index adult adoptees of biological parents with schizophrenia and 36 demographically matched control adoptees with no biological family history of psychiatric hospitalization. Adoptees were diagnosed with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1980) criteria by investigators blind to creativity assessments. Adoptees' real-life creativity was rated by other investigators blind to personal and family psychopathology with scales of demonstrated reliability and validity applied to descriptions of vocational and avocational activities obtained from interviews. It was hypothesized that adoptees with genetic liability for schizophrenia (and thus potentially unconventional modes of thinking and perceiving)-although not schizophrenia itself-would be more creative. In fact, nonschizophrenics with either schizotypal or schizoid personality disorder or multiple schizotypal signs (which other research has linked with genetic liability for schizophrenia) had significantly higher creativity than other participants. Interestingly, some control adoptees also fit these criteria and were included in analyses. Results have implications for relations of creativity to personal symptoms and familial risk for schizophrenia.
"Creativity… is a process extended in time and characterized by originality, adaptiveness, and realization." Except for mathematicians "where there is a low positive correlation between intelligence and the level of creativeness, we have found within our creative samples essentially zero relationship between the two variables." A research study of the characteristics and background of creative architects is extensively discussed. Implications of the nature of creative talent for the nurturing of it in school and college through the processes of education are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Studies of creativity and affective illness typically focus on eminent individuals in specific fields. This is the first study to select subjects solely by diagnosis, and then evaluate their overall creative accomplishments. Seventeen manic-depressives, 16 cyclothymes, and 11 normal first-degree relatives were compared with 33 controls with no personal or family history of major affective disorder, cyclothymia, or schizophrenia; 15 controls were normal and 18 carried another diagnosis. Peak creativity was assessed by raters blind to subjects' diagnosis with the use of the Lifetime Creativity Scales. Orthogonal contrasts showed (a) creativity to be significantly higher among the combined index subjects (manic-depressives, cyclothymes, and normal relatives) than among controls (
p
Giftedness researchers have long debated whether there is empirical evidence to support a distinction between giftedness and attained level of achievement. In this paper we propose a general theoretical framework that establishes scientific criteria for acceptable evidence of superior reproducible performance, which any theory of exceptional performance must explain. We review evidence for superior reproducible performance, generally emerging only after extended periods of deliberate practice that result in subsequent physiological adaptations and complex cognitive mechanisms. We also apply this framework to examine proposed evidence for innate talents. With the exception of fixed genetic factors determining body size and height, we were unable to find evidence for innate constraints to the attainment of elite achievement for healthy individuals.
Most investigations of creativity tend to take one of two directions: everyday creativity (also called "little-c"), which can be found in nearly all people, and eminent creativity (also called "Big-C"), which is reserved for the great. In this paper, the authors propose a Four C model of creativity that expands this dichotomy. Specifically, the authors add the idea of "mini-c," creativity inherent in the learning process, and Pro-c, the developmental and effortful progression beyond little-c that represents professional-level expertise in any creative area. The authors include different transitions and gradations of these four dimensions of creativity, and then discuss advantages and examples of the Four C Model.
Hospital discharge registers (HDRs) are frequently used in epidemiological research. However, the validity of several important psychiatric diagnostic entities, including bipolar disorder, remains uncertain. Hence, we aimed to develop an optimal algorithm for register-based identification of DSM-IV-TR bipolar disorder.
We identified potential cases in the Swedish national HDR using two separate discharge diagnoses of bipolar disorder according to ICD versions 8-10 during January 1, 1973 to December 31, 2004. In a randomly selected subsample of 135 cases from the county of Sörmland, two senior psychiatrists reassessed the diagnostic status based on patients' medical records. We scrutinized false-positive cases and modified the initial algorithm to improve positive predictive value while minimizing false negatives. Finally, we externally validated resulting caseness algorithms by linking HDR diagnostic data with best-estimate clinical diagnoses from the National Quality Assurance Register for Bipolar Disorder (BipoläR), dispensed lithium prescriptions from the National Prescribed Drug Register, and the ICD-10 diagnoses from the National Outpatient Register respectively.
The algorithm with two discharge diagnoses of bipolar disorder yielded a positive predictive value of 0.81. Modification by excluding individuals diagnosed with ICD-8 296.20 (manic-depressive psychosis, depressed type), and/or ICD-9 296.B (unipolar affective psychosis, melancholic form), gave a positive positive predictive value of 0.92. The modified algorithm also had statistically superior external validity compared with the original algorithm.
Our findings suggest that DSM-IV-TR bipolar disorder caseness based on two inpatient episodes with a bipolar disorder diagnosis is sufficiently sensitive and specific to be used in further epidemiological study of bipolar disorder.
The Swedish National Inpatient Register (IPR), also called the Hospital Discharge Register, is a principal source of data for numerous research projects. The IPR is part of the National Patient Register. The Swedish IPR was launched in 1964 (psychiatric diagnoses from 1973) but complete coverage did not begin until 1987. Currently, more than 99% of all somatic (including surgery) and psychiatric hospital discharges are registered in the IPR. A previous validation of the IPR by the National Board of Health and Welfare showed that 85-95% of all diagnoses in the IPR are valid. The current paper describes the history, structure, coverage and quality of the Swedish IPR.
In January 2010, we searched the medical databases, Medline and HighWire, using the search algorithm "validat* (inpatient or hospital discharge) Sweden". We also contacted 218 members of the Swedish Society of Epidemiology and an additional 201 medical researchers to identify papers that had validated the IPR. In total, 132 papers were reviewed. The positive predictive value (PPV) was found to differ between diagnoses in the IPR, but is generally 85-95%.
In conclusion, the validity of the Swedish IPR is high for many but not all diagnoses. The long follow-up makes the register particularly suitable for large-scale population-based research, but for certain research areas the use of other health registers, such as the Swedish Cancer Register, may be more suitable.
There is a long-standing belief that creativity is coupled with psychopathology.
To test this alleged association and to investigate whether any such association is the result of environmental or genetic factors.
We performed a nested case-control study based on Swedish registries. The likelihood of holding a creative occupation in individuals who had received in-patient treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or unipolar depression between 1973 and 2003 and their relatives without such a diagnosis was compared with that of controls.
Individuals with bipolar disorder and healthy siblings of people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder were overrepresented in creative professions. People with schizophrenia had no increased rate of overall creative professions compared with controls, but an increased rate in the subgroup of artistic occupations. Neither individuals with unipolar depression nor their siblings differed from controls regarding creative professions.
A familial cosegregation of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with creativity is suggested.
We argue that hyper-systemizing predisposes individuals to show talent, and review evidence that hyper-systemizing is part of the cognitive style of people with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). We then clarify the hyper-systemizing theory, contrasting it to the weak central coherence (WCC) and executive dysfunction (ED) theories. The ED theory has difficulty explaining the existence of talent in ASC. While both hyper-systemizing and WCC theories postulate excellent attention to detail, by itself excellent attention to detail will not produce talent. By contrast, the hyper-systemizing theory argues that the excellent attention to detail is directed towards detecting 'if p, then q' rules (or [input-operation-output] reasoning). Such law-based pattern recognition systems can produce talent in systemizable domains. Finally, we argue that the excellent attention to detail in ASC is itself a consequence of sensory hypersensitivity. We review an experiment from our laboratory demonstrating sensory hypersensitivity detection thresholds in vision. We conclude that the origins of the association between autism and talent begin at the sensory level, include excellent attention to detail and end with hyper-systemizing.
To validate the ICD-10 diagnosis of a single depressive episode as used in daily clinical psychiatric practice and as recorded in the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register.
Patients discharged with a diagnosis of a single depressive episode were consecutively sampled from the register and diagnosed according to an interview using the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN).
A total of 75.4% of 399 patients with a register diagnosis of a single depressive episode also got this diagnosis according to the SCAN interview (82.8% for severe type of a single depression, 76.0% for moderate type of a single depression and 65.2% for mild type of a single depression).
The ICD-10 diagnosis of a single depressive episode can be used in daily clinical practice with sufficient precision. The validity of the diagnosis is highest for severe and moderate type of depression and decreases for mild depression.
To investigate the impact of coexistent psychiatric morbidity on risk of suicide after a suicide attempt.
Cohort study with follow-up for 21-31 years.
Swedish national register based study.
39 685 people (53% women) admitted to hospital for attempted suicide during 1973-82.
Completed suicide during 1973-2003.
A high proportion of suicides in all diagnostic categories took place within the first year of follow-up (14-64% in men, 14-54% in women); the highest short term risk was associated with bipolar and unipolar disorder (64% in men, 42% in women) and schizophrenia (56% in men, 54% in women). The strongest psychiatric predictors of completed suicide throughout the entire follow-up were schizophrenia (adjusted hazard ratio 4.1, 95% confidence interval 3.5 to 4.8 in men, 3.5, 2.8 to 4.4 in women) and bipolar and unipolar disorder (3.5, 3.0 to 4.2 in men, 2.5, 2.1 to 3.0 in women). Increased risks were also found for other depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, alcohol misuse (women), drug misuse, and personality disorder. The highest population attributable fractions for suicide among people who had previously attempted suicide were found for other depression in women (population attributable fraction 9.3), followed by schizophrenia in men (4.6), and bipolar and unipolar disorder in women and men (4.1 and 4.0, respectively).
Type of psychiatric disorder coexistent with a suicide attempt substantially influences overall risk and temporality for completed suicide. To reduce this risk, high risk patients need aftercare, especially during the first two years after attempted suicide among patients with schizophrenia or bipolar and unipolar disorder.
We investigated effects of occupational physical activity on relative risk for prostate cancer. From Swedish nationwide censuses in 1960 and 1970, we defined two cohorts of men whose occupational titles allowed classification of physical activity levels at work in 1960 (n=1 348 971) and in 1970 (n=1 377 629). A third cohort included only men whose jobs required a similar level of physical activity in both 1960 and 1970 (n=673 443). The incidence of prostate cancer between 1971 and 1989 was ascertained through record linkage to the Swedish Cancer Register. A total of 43 836, 28 702, and 19 670 prostate cancers, respectively, occurred in the three cohorts. In all three cohorts, the relative risk for prostate cancer increased with decreasing level of occupational physical activity (P<0.001), using Poisson regression. Among men with the same physical activity levels in 1960 and 1970, the rate ratio was 1.11 for men with sedentary jobs as compared with those whose jobs had very high/high activity levels after adjustment for age at follow-up, calendar year of follow-up and place of residence (95% CI 1.05–1.17; P for trend <0.001). There was no association between occupational activity and prostate cancer mortality. Since we had no data on other potential risk factors the observed associations for both incidence and mortality might have been confounded. Further studies are needed to better understand the potential role of physical activity for prostate cancer.
British Journal of Cancer (2002) 86, 70–75. DOI: 10.1038/sj/bjc/6600023 www.bjcancer.com
© 2002 The Cancer Research Campaign
Theory and research in both personality psychology and creativity share an essential commonality: emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual. Both disciplines also share an emphasis on temporal consistency and have a 50-year history, and yet no quantitative review of the literature on the creative personality has been conducted. The 3 major goals of this article are to present the results of the first meta-analytic review of the literature on personality and creative achievement, to present a conceptual integration of underlying potential psychological mechanisms that personality and creativity have in common, and to show how the topic of creativity has been important to personality psychologists and can be to social psychologists. A common system of personality description was obtained by classifying trait terms or scales onto one of the Five-Factor Model (or Big Five) dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Effect size was measured using Cohen's d (Cohen, 1988). Comparisons on personality traits were made on 3 sets of samples: scientists versus nonscientists, more creative versus less creative scientists, and artists versus nonartists. In general, creative people are more open to new experiences, less conventional and less conscientious, more self-confident, self-accepting, driven, ambitious, dominant, hostile, and impulsive. Out of these, the largest effect sizes were on openness, conscientiousness, self-acceptance, hostility, and impulsivity. Further, there appears to be temporal stability of these distinguishing personality dimensions of creative people. Dispositions important to creative behavior are parsed into social, cognitive, motivational, and affective dimensions. Creativity like most complex behaviors requires an intra- as well as interdisciplinary view and thereby mitigates the historically disciplinocentric attitudes of personality and social psychologists.
The suicide rates in Denmark have been declining during the last two decades. The decline was relatively larger among women than among men. All age groups experienced a decline except the very young with stable rates and the very old with increasing rates. The Universal, Selective, Indicated (USI) model recommended by Institute of Medicine was used as a framework for the thesis. Universal preventive interventions are directed toward the entire population; selective interventions are directed toward individuals who are at greater risk for suicidal behaviour; and indicated preventions are targeted at individuals who have already begun self-destructive behaviour. At the universal level, a review was carried out to highlight the association between availability of methods for suicide and suicide rate. There were mostly studies of firearms, and the conclusion of the review was that there was clear indication of restricted access to lethal means was associated with decline in suicide with that specific method, and in many cases also with overall suicide mortality. Restricting access is especially important for methods with high case fatality rate. Our own study indicated a beneficial effect on suicide rates of restrictions in access to barbiturates, dextropropoxyphen, domestic gas and car exhaust with high content of carbon monoxide. Although a range of other factors in the society might also be of importance, it was concluded that restrictions in access to dangerous means for suicide were likely to play an important role in reducing suicide rates in Denmark, especially for women. At the selective level, there are several important risk groups such as psychiatric patients, persons with alcohol and drug abuse, persons with newly diagnosed severe physical illness, all who previously attempted suicide, and groups of homeless, institutionalized, prisoners and other socially excluded persons. The thesis focused on homeless persons and psychiatric patients, especially patients with schizophrenia and related disorders. The thesis contains a review of the risk of suicide in homeless. In all the studies included, increased suicide mortality was found, and in the studies that evaluated suicide risk in different age groups, the excess suicide mortality was most dominant in younger age groups. Our own study revealed an increased risk of suicide, and in univariate analysis, significant predictors for suicide were found to be associated with shortest stay in hostel less than 11 days and more than one stay during one year. The thesis also contains a review of the risk of suicide in first-episode patients with schizophrenia, and it was concluded on the basis of the identified studies that long-term risk of suicide was not 10 percent as previously accepted, but lower. Risk factors for suicide among patients with schizophrenia were evaluated in case control studies, in nested case control studies, and in prospective studies. The following risk factors were the most important and frequently observed predictors: male gender, young age, short duration of illness, many admissions during last year, current inpatient, short time since discharge, previous and recent suicide attempt, co-morbid depression, drug abuse, poor compliance with medication, poor adherence to treatment, high IQ, and suicidal ideations. The results of analyses of psychotic symptoms as risk factor for suicide were contradictory, but a recent meta-analysis concluded that both hallucinations and delusions seemed to be protective; however, there was a non-significant tendency that command hallucinations were associated with higher suicide risk. Prevention of suicide in schizophrenia must especially focus on improving assessment of risk of suicide during inpatient treatment and the first week after discharge, and special attention must be paid to patients with one or more of the identified risk factors. There is a need for large randomised clinical trials evaluating the effect on suicide and suicide attempt of psychosocial and pharmacological treatment in schizophrenia. In our own study, we did not find any effect of integrated treatment on attempted suicide, but there was an effect on hopelessness and a trend toward lower prevalence of depression among patients in the integrated treatment. There were four suicides and one probable suicide (drowning) in standard treatment and one suicide in integrated treatment at two-year follow-up, but the study did not have sufficient power to detect these differences in proportion to who committed suicide; more than one thousand patients should have been in each treatment condition in order for these differences in proportion to be significant. At the indicated prevention level, a literature review was carried out regarding risk of suicide attempt and suicide in short-term, medium-term and long-term follow-up of persons who attempted suicide. It was concluded that the risk of repetition in short- and medium-term follow-up studies was approximately 16 percent, with lower risk among "first-evers" compared to repeaters. There was a large variation in repetition rate. The proportion who committed suicide in medium-term follow-up studies was 2.8 percent and in long-term follow-up studies was 3.5 percent (weighted mean) with clearly higher proportions in the Nordic studies than in the studies from UK. Risk factors for attempted suicide were previous suicide attempt, alcohol and drug abuse, depression, schizophrenia, previous inpatient treatment, self-discharge before evaluation, sociopathy, unemployment, frequent change of address, hostility, and living alone. Several of the predictors are overlapping and most of them were already identified in early studies of factors predictive of repetition of suicide attempt. Predictors of suicide were male gender, increasing age, previous suicide attempt, serious suicide attempt, alcohol and substance abuse, somatic disease, mental illness, and planning of suicide attempt, high suicidal intent score, violent suicide attempt or suicide attempt with severe lethality, and ongoing or previous psychiatric treatment. In our follow-up study from Bispebjerg Hospital, we found that the risk of suicide during a ten-year follow-up period among patients admitted in 1980 after self-poisoning was 30 times greater than in the general population. We also found increased mortality by all other causes of death. Predictors of suicide were several previous suicide attempts, living alone and increasing age. There are not many randomised clinical trials of psychosocial interventions aiming to reduce risk of repetition among suicide attempters. A Cochrane review concluded that evidence was lacking to indicate the most effective forms of treatment for deliberate self-harm patients. A recent randomised controlled trial showed a positive influence of cognitive behavioural therapy on repetition rate. Our own quasi-experimental study of effectiveness of two weeks' inpatient treatment in a special unit of young persons who had severe suicidal thoughts or who had attempted suicide showed that risk of repetition was reduced in the intervention group, and that the intervention group obtained a significantly greater improvement in Beck's Depression Inventory, Hopelessness Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and CAGE-score. The study of emergency outreach indicates that there are many persons in the community that experience a suicidal crisis, and that this group is an important target group for psychiatric emergency outreach. In our study of registration and referral practice in Copenhagen Hospital Cooperation, we conclude that not all suicide attempts were registered as such in the National Patient Register - in fact, only 37 percent. It must be concluded that the quality of the Danish Patient Register must be improved with regard to registration of suicide attempt. We found that psychiatric evaluation was planned in relation to almost all suicide attempts, but that it must be recommended to pay attention to escorting patients to psychiatric emergency in order to ensure that the patient actually attends the planned consultation. We found that patients who were referred after psychiatric evaluation to psychiatric treatment at outpatient facilities only received the planned treatment in approximately two-thirds of the cases; therefore, like Hawton et al. [Hawton et al., 1998; Hawton et al., 1999], we recommend that outpatient facilities adopt an assertive approach to patients who have attempted suicide. Danish suicide research is strong, primarily due to the possibilities for linking complete national registers providing detailed data and large sample sizes for suicide research, which is so far unique for the Nordic countries. This, combined with skilful use of epidemiological methods, had resulted in a remarkable series of papers highlighting risk of suicide in different risk groups, risk factors and protective factors. This activity must continue. In this work it is important to be aware of limitations in naturalistic studies such as the risk of interchanging cause and effect and the necessity to carry out control for confounders. Meta-analysis is a strong tool for summing up results of previous research. Meta-analyses can be used in reporting the evidence for effectiveness of interventions, but also for determining risk or identifying risk factors. A meta-analysis of risk factors of repetition of suicide attempt has not been carried out, and the quality of the identified studies did not allow a formal meta-analysis. Large randomised clinical trials examining the effectiveness of interventions on reducing rate of suicide attempt and suicide should have high priority. Suicide is a major public health problem and should be given high priority with regard to prevention and research. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)
This comparative study of Icelanders, born during the period 1881–1910, indicates that close relatives of psychotic individuals have a significantly increased probability of being considered persons of eminence. Their rate of listing in Who Is Who is doubled, both in regard to general listings and those based on artistic or scholastic endeavors. Review of relevant literature supports the view that the dominant principal gene proposed for schizophrenia may in a heterozygous state lead to cerebral stimulation, with improved performance in areas of giftedness and creativity.
All four facets of creativity – Person, Product, Process, and Press – have long been seen in a positive light. Creativity is strongly linked to favorable psychological development, beneficial outcomes, and aesthetic achievement. It is increasingly clear, however, that creativity also has a dark side that can manifest itself equally strongly in the four facets of creativity. Whether these manifestations take the form of mental problems, destructive outcomes, or harmful, criminal behavior, it is clear that the generation of effective, useful novelty is not limited to that which is inherently good. Terrorists, for example, are often fiendishly creative.
In order to assess the quality of the Stockholm county inpatient register for use in epidemiological studies on schizophrenia, a retrospective validity study was performed on a 10% sample of all patients discharged with the diagnosis schizophrenia from hospitals in Stockholm county during 1971. In order to assess fulfillment of the DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia, 102 medical records with an ICD-8 diagnosis of schizophrenia were scrutinized. Seventy-eight patients (76%) were classified as positively fulfilling the DSM-III criteria. In a global assessment, taking into account a lack of documentation on some criteria, 85 patients (83%) were judged as fulfilling the DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia. Excluding the ICD-8 schizo-affective subgroup, 88% of the patients fulfilled the DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia. The DSM-III schizophrenia criteria seem to fit the Swedish diagnostic tradition, except for the age limit of 45 years which excluded 36% of the paranoid group. The study confirms that the ICD diagnosis schizophrenia has been applied with great restriction in Sweden. The validity of the Stockholm county inpatient register as regards the diagnosis schizophrenia is thus quite satisfactory for epidemiological studies on schizophrenia.
This article assesses and extends Campbell's (1960) classic theory that creativity and discovery depend on blind variation and selective retention (BVSR), with special attention given to blind variations (BVs). The treatment begins by defining creativity and discovery, variant blindness versus sightedness, variant utility and selection, and ideational variants versus creative products. These definitions lead to BV identification criteria: (a) intended BV, which entails both systematic and stochastic combinatorial procedures; and (b) implied BV, which involves both variations with properties of blindness (variation superfluity and backtracking) and processes that should yield variant blindness (associative richness, defocused attention, behavioral tinkering, and heuristic search). These conceptual definitions and identification criteria then have implications for four persistent issues, namely, domain expertise, ideational randomness, analogical equivalence, and personal volition. Once BV is suitably conceptualized, Camp-bell's theory continues to provide a fruitful approach to the understanding of both creativity and discovery.
My main goal is simply to reinterpret schizophrenia and certain closely related forms of pathology (the so-called schizophrenia spectrum of illnesses, which also includes schizoid and schizotypal, and some forms of schizophreniform and schizoaffective, disorders); to show, using the affinities with modernism, that much of what has been passed off as primitive or deteriorated is far more complex and interesting—and self-aware—than is usually acknowledged.
In this book I will be concerned almost exclusively with phenomenological issues, the forms of consciousness and the texture of the lived world characteristics of many schizophrenics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Modern computer technology permits efficient evaluation of test scores in terms of basic orthogonal factors of ability. A three-level hierarchical model of cognitive abilities was used as the theoretical basis of the computerized Swedish Enlistment Battery (CAT-SEB). Structural analysis of ten ability tests on a sample of 1,436 conscripts by confirmatory factor analysis (tested by the LISREL system) revealed a general, a verbal and a spatial factor -- although the determinacy of the latter was weak. A nested factor model was used, with direct influences of the latent variables on the tests. This result is a construct validity evaluation of the testing system. Unrelated factor scores of the three latent variables comprise the output of the testing system. Future research should evaluate the efficiency of the prediction from the latent variables.
The aim of the study was to explore the validity of registry-based diagnoses of autism in Finland using the Autism Diagnostic Interview - Revised (ADI-R). This study was designed for the Finnish Prenatal Study of Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders (FIPS-A), an ongoing research project where registry-based diagnoses will be used for epidemiological studies.
In this small pilot study, a clinical sample of 95 subjects diagnosed with childhood autism or pervasive developmental disorder/pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified (PDD/PDD-NOS) or Asperger's syndrome according to the Finnish Hospital Discharge Register (FHDR) was gathered nationwide. A small control group consisting of siblings without any registered diagnoses of those being examined was also included in the study. Diagnoses were further re-evaluated by interviewing parents with the ADI-R.
The mean scores of autistic subjects clearly exceeded cut-off limits for autism on all three ADI-R domains and 96% of the subjects with registered diagnosis of childhood autism fulfilled the criteria based on the instrument as well.
These results suggest that the validity of Finnish registry-based diagnoses of childhood autism can be considered good. Our findings lay important groundwork for further population- based studies of the aetiology of autism.
The apparently large genetic contribution to the aetiology of mental illness presents a formidable puzzle. Unlike common physical disorders, mental illness usually has an onset early in the reproductive age and is associated with substantial reproductive disadvantage. Therefore, genetic variants associated with vulnerability to mental illness should be under strong negative selection pressure and be eliminated from the genetic pool through natural selection. Still, mental disorders are common and twin studies indicate a strong genetic contribution to their aetiology. Several theories have been advanced to explain the paradox of high heritability and reproductive disadvantage associated with the same common phenotype, but none provides a satisfactory explanation for all types of mental illness. At the same time, identification of the molecular substrate underlying the large genetic contribution to the aetiology of mental illness is proving more difficult than expected. The quest for genetic variants associated with vulnerability to mental illness is predicated upon the common disease/common variant (CDCV) hypothesis. On the basis of a summary of evidence, it is concluded that the CDCV hypothesis is untenable for most types of mental illness. An alternative evolution-informed framework is proposed, which suggests that gene-environment interactions and rare genetic variants constitute most of the genetic contribution to mental illness. Common mental illness with mild reproductive disadvantage is likely to have a large contribution from interactions between common genetic variants and environmental exposures. Severe mental illness that confers strong reproductive disadvantage is likely to have a large and pleiotropic contribution from rare variants of recent origin. This framework points to a need for a paradigm change in genetic research to enable major progress in elucidating the aetiology of mental illness.
The raised incidence of special abilities or 'savant skills' among individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) relative to other developmental disorders suggests an association between the traits characteristic of ASD and special abilities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between special abilities and ASD-like traits.
This study compared the scores of 6,426 8-year-olds with and without parent-reported special abilities on a screening questionnaire for ASD-like traits in three areas: social interaction, communication, and restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests. Measures of IQ, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES) were also compared.
From parent report, children with special abilities showed significantly more ASD-like traits than those without such abilities. General intelligence did not mediate this relationship: IQ was found to be positively associated with ability, but negatively associated with ASD-like traits. Special abilities were more strongly associated with restricted/repetitive characteristics than with social or communication traits.
Results support the association between special abilities and ASD-like traits, and expand it to traits in the general population. The type of nonsocial traits most strongly associated with parental reports of special abilities suggests a link to a feature information processing style, or 'weak central coherence'.
Whether schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are the clinical outcomes of discrete or shared causative processes is much debated in psychiatry. We aimed to assess genetic and environmental contributions to liability for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and their comorbidity.
We linked the multi-generation register, which contains information about all children and their parents in Sweden, and the hospital discharge register, which includes all public psychiatric inpatient admissions in Sweden. We identified 9 009 202 unique individuals in more than 2 million nuclear families between 1973 and 2004. Risks for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and their comorbidity were assessed for biological and adoptive parents, offspring, full-siblings and half-siblings of probands with one of the diseases. We used a multivariate generalised linear mixed model for analysis of genetic and environmental contributions to liability for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the comorbidity.
First-degree relatives of probands with either schizophrenia (n=35 985) or bipolar disorder (n=40 487) were at increased risk of these disorders. Half-siblings had a significantly increased risk (schizophrenia: relative risk [RR] 3.6, 95% CI 2.3-5.5 for maternal half-siblings, and 2.7, 1.9-3.8 for paternal half-siblings; bipolar disorder: 4.5, 2.7-7.4 for maternal half-siblings, and 2.4, 1.4-4.1 for paternal half-siblings), but substantially lower than that of the full-siblings (schizophrenia: 9.0, 8.5-11.6; bipolar disorder: 7.9, 7.1-8.8). When relatives of probands with bipolar disorder were analysed, increased risks for schizophrenia existed for all relationships, including adopted children to biological parents with bipolar disorder. Heritability for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder was 64% and 59%, respectively. Shared environmental effects were small but substantial (schizophrenia: 4.5%, 4.4%-7.4%; bipolar disorder: 3.4%, 2.3%-6.2%) for both disorders. The comorbidity between disorders was mainly (63%) due to additive genetic effects common to both disorders.
Similar to molecular genetic studies, we showed evidence that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder partly share a common genetic cause. These results challenge the current nosological dichotomy between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and are consistent with a reappraisal of these disorders as distinct diagnostic entities.
This study was designed to determine (1) whether members of the 8 "creative arts" professions (i.e., architects, artists, musicians, composers, actors/directors, essayists, fiction writers, and poets) display greater rates of psychopathology than members of other professions, and (2) whether a significant relationship exists between creative achievement and mental disturbance. The final study sample (n = 1,005), constituting 18 separate professions, consisted of all appropriate individuals whose biographies were reviewed in the New York Times Book Review over a 30-year period (1960 to 1990). The results, in their entirety, suggest (a) that different patterns of psychopathology, if any, tend to be associated with different professions and at different periods in individuals' lives, (b) that different professions are associated with different levels of creative achievement, and (c) that certain types of psychopathology are associated with creative achievement across all professions.
The main purpose of the present study was to assess the quality of information about occupational history obtained via retrospective interview questions. This assessment is achieved by linking interview data from the Swedish survey of Living Conditions (ULF) with occupational information about the same individuals obtained from a number of censuses. This has been done for the census years 1960, 1970, 1975 and 1980. In both ULF and the census, occupations have been classified according to the Nordic Occupational Classification (NYK). Both data sources contain errors. There are also differences in definitions and measurement procedures. Still, the survey question on occupational history gives results of good quality in terms of agreement with census data. This is especially the case for coarse levels of the classification scheme (NYK 1-digit level). The agreement is somewhat lower for the comparisons farthest back in time.
Extremes in mood, thought and behavior--including psychosis--have been linked with artistic creativity for as long as man has observed and written about those who write, paint, sculpt or compose. The history of this long and fascinating association, as well as speculations about its reasons for being, have been discussed by several modern authors and investigators, including Koestler (1975), Storr (1976), Andreasen (1978), Becker (1978), Rothenberg (1979), Richards (1981), Jamison (in press) and Prentky (in press). The association between extreme states of emotion and mind and creativity not only is fascinating but also has significant theoretical, clinical, literary and societal-ethical implications. These issues, more thoroughly reviewed elsewhere (Jamison et al. 1980; Richards 1981; Jamison, in press), include the understanding of cognitive, perceptual, mood and behavioral changes common to manic, depressive and creative states; the potential ability to lessen the stigma of mental illness; effects of psychiatric treatment (for example, lithium) on creativity; and concerns raised about genetic research on mood disorders. The current study was designed to ascertain rates of treatment for affective illness in a sample of eminent British writers and artists; to study differences in subgroups (poets, novelists, playwrights, biographers, artists); to examine seasonal patterns of moods and productivity; and to inquire into the perceived role of very intense moods in the writers' and artists' work. One of the major purposes of this investigation was to look at possible similarities and dissimilarities between periods of intense creative activity and hypomania. Hypothesized similarities were based on the overlapping nature of mood, cognitive and behavioral changes associated with both; the episodic nature of both; and possible links between the durational, frequency and seasonal patterns of both experiences.
Rates of mental illness were examined in 30 creative writers, 30 matched control subjects, and the first-degree relatives of both groups. The writers had a substantially higher rate of mental illness, predominantly affective disorder, with a tendency toward the bipolar subtype. There was also a higher prevalence of affective disorder and creativity in the writers' first-degree relatives, suggesting that these traits run together in families and could be genetically mediated. Both writers and control subjects had IQs in the superior range; the writers excelled only on the WAIS vocabulary subtest, confirming previous observations that intelligence and creativity are independent mental abilities.
This investigation sought to determine the prevalences of various psychopathologies in outstandingly creative individuals, and to test a hypothesis that the high prevalence of mental abnormalities reported in prominent living creative persons would not be found in those who had achieved and retained world status.
The family background, physical health, personality, psychosexuality and mental health of 291 famous men in science, thought, politics, and art were investigated. The membership of the six series of scientists and inventors, thinkers and scholars, statesmen and national leaders, painters and sculptors, composers, and of novelists and playwrights was determined by the availability of sufficiently adequate biographies. Extracted data were transformed into diagnoses in accordance with DSM-III-R criteria, when appropriate.
All excelled not only by virtue of their abilities and originality, but also of their drive, perseverance, industry, and meticulousness. With a few exceptions, these men were emotionally warm, with a gift for friendship and sociability. Most had unusual personality characteristics and, in addition, minor 'neurotic' abnormalities were probably more common than in the general population. Severe personality deviations were unduly frequent only in the case of visual artists and writers. Functional psychoses were probably less frequent than psychiatric epidemiology would suggest, and they were entirely restricted to the affective varieties. Among other functional disorders, only depressive conditions, alcoholism, and, less reliably, psychosexual problems were more prevalent than expected in some professional categories, but strikingly so in writers.
Similar findings have been reported for living artists and writers, and this suggests that certain pathological personality characteristics, as well as tendencies towards depression and alcoholism, are causally linked to some kinds of valuable creativity.
An earlier study of 291 world famous men had shown that only visual artists and creative writers were characterised, in comparison with the general population, by a much higher prevalence of pathological personality traits and alcoholism. Depressive disorders, but not any other psychiatric conditions, had afflicted writers almost twice as often as men with other high creative achievements. The present investigation was undertaken to confirm these findings in a larger and more comprehensive series of writers, and to discover causal factors for confirmed high prevalences of affective conditions and alcoholism in writers.
Data were collected from post-mortem biographies and, where applicable, translated into DSM diagnoses. The frequencies of various abnormalities and deviations were compared between poets, prose fiction writers, and playwrights.
A high prevalence in writers of affective conditions and of alcoholism was confirmed. That of bipolar affective psychoses exceeded population norms in poets, who in spite of this had a lower prevalence of all kinds of affective disorders, of alcoholism, of personality deviations, and related to this, of psychosexual and marital problems, than prose fiction and play writers.
A hypothesis is developed, which links the greater frequency of affective illnesses and alcoholism in playwrights and prose writers, in comparison with poets, to differences in the nature and intensity of their emotional imagination. This hypothesis could be tested by clinical psychologists collaborating with experts in literature on random samples of different kinds of writers.
To conduct a systematic review of studies investigating the validity of administrative registers for use in psychiatric research.
Studies were identified using MEDLINE (1966-2004) and EMBASE (1980-2004) databases using keywords 'validity' or 'reliability' combined with 'register' or 'database$'. Studies reviewed by two raters blind to each other and quality assessed using a data extraction form devised by the authors. A narrative description of the findings is presented.
Fourteen studies were identified, seven of which concerned Scandinavian registers. Ten studies were solely concerned with diagnostic validity and the most common single diagnosis studied was schizophrenia (five studies). Methods used and study quality varied widely.
Given the importance of the area, relatively little high-quality work exists into systematically measuring the diagnostic data validity of registers for research purposes.