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The Link Between Bipolar Disorders and Creativity: Evidence from Personality and Temperament Studies
Abstract
Although extensive literature supports connections between bipolar disorder and creativity, possible mechanisms underlying such relationships are only beginning to emerge. Herein we review evidence supporting one such possible mechanism, namely that personality/temperament contribute to enhanced creativity in individuals with bipolar disorder, a theory supported by studies showing that certain personality/temperamental traits are not only common to bipolar disorder patients and creative individuals but also correlate with measures of creativity. Thus, we suggest based on studies using three important personality/temperament measures-the Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness Personality Inventory (NEO); the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI); and the Temperament Evaluation of the Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego Autoquestionnaire (TEMPS-A)-that changeable (increased TEMPS-A-cyclothymia) and at times negative (increased NEO-neuroticism) affect and open-minded (increased NEO-openness) and intuitive (increased MBTI-intuition) cognition may contribute importantly to enhanced creativity in individuals with bipolar disorder.
... In some studies, extraversion was found to be associated with creativity since it is associated with stimulus seeking and creative thinking (Srivastava and Ketter, 2010;Kandler et al., 2016). ...
... Indeed, highly extroverted people are full of energy and enthusiasm, encouraging behaviors such as seeking stimulation and solving problems, which should enhance creative thinking and performance (Costa and McCrae, 1992;Furnham and Nederstrom, 2010). In addition, research shows that advertising professionals, designers and artists usually score high on extraversion (Srivastava and Ketter, 2010). Extroverts may use divergent thinking test scenarios as a way to find excitement, and they may be more willing to work with others to improve creativity (Furnham and Bachtiar, 2008;Srivastava and Ketter, 2010;Kandler et al., 2016). ...
... In addition, research shows that advertising professionals, designers and artists usually score high on extraversion (Srivastava and Ketter, 2010). Extroverts may use divergent thinking test scenarios as a way to find excitement, and they may be more willing to work with others to improve creativity (Furnham and Bachtiar, 2008;Srivastava and Ketter, 2010;Kandler et al., 2016). However, some people hold the opposite view. ...
In creative industries, entrepreneurs’ creativity is the source of entrepreneurial activities. Meanwhile, the key to the success of entrepreneurship lies in the strategic tendency of leaders, referred to the individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO). This paper is aimed to explain the process from creativity to IEO and reveal the psychological process of entrepreneurs’ creativity. We proposed an integrated model of “individuality–creativity–IEO” by drawing on the theories of big five personality and entrepreneurship. Using a sample of 202 creative entrepreneurs from China, the research found that entrepreneurs’ creativity has a positive impact on IEO, and the individuality of neuroticism and extraversion exhibited a negative U-shaped relationship with creativity. Finally, implications for both theory and practice were presented.
... The TEMPS-A is rooted in an evolutionary biologic perspective (Akiskal and Akiskal, 2005b), which has received some support from genetic studies (Gonda et al., 2005; 2009). Both past and recent studies purported a link between manic-depression/bipolar disorder and creativity (Murray and Johnson, 2010; Srivastava and Ketter, 2010), with emphasis on the cyclothymic component of the manic-depression/bipolar disorder spectrum (Akiskal and Akiskal, 1988; Andreasen, 1987; Juda, 1949; Kretschmer, 1931; Ludwig, 1992; Richards et al., 1988; Srivastava et al., 2010; Strong et al., 2007). Positive mood, and happiness in particular, was postulated to fuel creativity (Baas et al., 2008; Davis, 2009). ...
... The TEMPS-A is rooted in an evolutionary biologic perspective (Akiskal and Akiskal, 2005b), which has received some support from genetic studies (Gonda et al., 2005; 2009). Both past and recent studies purported a link between manic-depression/bipolar disorder and creativity (Murray and Johnson, 2010; Srivastava and Ketter, 2010), with emphasis on the cyclothymic component of the manic-depression/bipolar disorder spectrum (Akiskal and Akiskal, 1988; Andreasen, 1987; Juda, 1949; Kretschmer, 1931; Ludwig, 1992; Richards et al., 1988; Srivastava et al., 2010; Strong et al., 2007). Positive mood, and happiness in particular, was postulated to fuel creativity (Baas et al., 2008; Davis, 2009). ...
... Sociability is a core component in creative achievement, and the ability to promote oneself by networking might be a factor linking creativity and affective disorders (Sass, 2001). Openness to experience and intuitive thinking are two central features of creativity, and both patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder and people involved in creative professions were reported to score higher in openness (as measured by the Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness Personality Inventory: Costa and McCrae, 1985) and intuitive thinking (as measured by the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, which is based on Jungian types: Myers and McCaulley, 1985) than comparison groups (Srivastava and Ketter, 2010). Finally, a strong ambition and drive to success characterize people who excel because of their creative talent (Feist, 1998), and ambition for success and recognition by others are features observed in people diagnosed with bipolar disorder or at risk of it (Johnson et al., 2009; Murray and Johnson, 2010). ...
Manic-depression/bipolar disorder was linked to creativity, with affective temperaments allegedly favoring creative expression and achievement, but a few studies only empirically tested the link.
152 undergraduate students attending preparatory courses for creative artistic professions and 152 students in areas expected to lead to a profession mostly requiring the application of the learned rules were invited to fill in the TEMPS-A (Temperament Evaluation of the Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego - Autoquestionnaire), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and the Creative Achievement Questionnaire (CAQ). Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to investigate the links between creativity scores and measures of psychopathology.
Creative participants and controls did not differ in terms of sex (males=47%), age (24.5 years, SD=3.8), or socioeconomic status. Creative people scored higher than controls on the CAQ and on the cyclothymic, hyperthymic and irritable subscales of the TEMPS-A, but not on the GHQ. Greater involvement in creative activities rather than being a creative achiever best differentiated those into the "risk for bipolar spectrum" class from the other two classes extracted by the LCA from the TEMPS-A.
The use of self-report measures to evaluate both creative involvement and the risk of psychopathology, and the exclusive focus on artistic creativity limit the generalizability of the findings.
This study confirms that the cyclothymic dimension of the bipolar spectrum is linked to creativity, and this link is likely to result from increased involvement into pleasurable activities, including creative ones.
... The instructions for the "representation" scale were as follows: "how easily do you think another person can guess the word represented by the drawing". The ratings were obtained on a five-point scale (1)(2)(3)(4)(5), where 1 is "Not Representative", 2 is "Little Representative", 3 is "Moderately Representative", 4 is "Representative", and 5 is "Very Representative". ...
... Each subscale was defined as follows: (a) Fluency -total number of elements in the drawing; (b) Elaboration -imagination and exposition of detail; and (c) Originality -the statistical infrequency and unusualness/ uniqueness of the response. The rating for each subscale was also done on a five-point scale (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). ...
A novel game-like and creativity-conducive fMRI paradigm is developed to assess the neural correlates of spontaneous improvisation and figural creativity in healthy adults. Participants were engaged in the word-guessing game of Pictionary(TM), using an MR-safe drawing tablet and no explicit instructions to be "creative". Using the primary contrast of drawing a given word versus drawing a control word (zigzag), we observed increased engagement of cerebellum, thalamus, left parietal cortex, right superior frontal, left prefrontal and paracingulate/cingulate regions, such that activation in the cingulate and left prefrontal cortices negatively influenced task performance. Further, using parametric fMRI analysis, increasing subjective difficulty ratings for drawing the word engaged higher activations in the left pre-frontal cortices, whereas higher expert-rated creative content in the drawings was associated with increased engagement of bilateral cerebellum. Altogether, our data suggest that cerebral-cerebellar interaction underlying implicit processing of mental representations has a facilitative effect on spontaneous improvisation and figural creativity.
... These results suggest that high neuroticism in bipolar patients may be associated with a predisposition to mixed state but not to rapid cycling . (Koszewska and Rybakowski, 2008) Srivastava and Ketter reviewed the evidence suggesting that personality and temperament contributed to enhanced creativity in individuals with bipolar disorder, a theory that has been supported by studies showing that certain personality/temperamental traits are not only common in patients with bipolar disorder and creative individuals but also correlate with measures of creativity (Srivastava and Ketter, 2010). The authors suggest based on studies using three personality/temperament measures (the NEO inventory, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator [MBTI] and the Temperament Evaluation of the Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego Autoquestionnaire [TEMPS-A]), that changeable (increased TEMPS-A-cyclothymia) and at times negative (increased NEO-neuroticism) personalities and openminded (increased NEO-openness) and intuitive (increased MBTIintuition) cognition may contribute importantly to enhanced creativity in patients with bipolar disorder (Srivastava and Ketter, 2010). ...
... (Koszewska and Rybakowski, 2008) Srivastava and Ketter reviewed the evidence suggesting that personality and temperament contributed to enhanced creativity in individuals with bipolar disorder, a theory that has been supported by studies showing that certain personality/temperamental traits are not only common in patients with bipolar disorder and creative individuals but also correlate with measures of creativity (Srivastava and Ketter, 2010). The authors suggest based on studies using three personality/temperament measures (the NEO inventory, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator [MBTI] and the Temperament Evaluation of the Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego Autoquestionnaire [TEMPS-A]), that changeable (increased TEMPS-A-cyclothymia) and at times negative (increased NEO-neuroticism) personalities and openminded (increased NEO-openness) and intuitive (increased MBTIintuition) cognition may contribute importantly to enhanced creativity in patients with bipolar disorder (Srivastava and Ketter, 2010). Lönnqvist and colleagues explored the premorbid personality traits Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Disinhibition in individuals later diagnosed with psychotic disorders and also showed an association between premorbid Extraversion and bipolar disorder (Lönnqvist et al., 2009). ...
... Another line of thought is captured in the "shared vulnerability model" (20,21), which suggests shared personality "traits" between creative people and persons with mental illness, such as latent inhibition and hyperconnectivity. This hypothesis is endorsed by some empirical studies (22)(23)(24)(25)(26), but does not explain fully why mental illness is sometimes accompanied by creativity and sometimes not at all. Abraham (27) therefore suggested that the relationship may be best described as an inverted-U function of causality, to account for the conflicting findings, where mild symptoms of psychopathology may be beneficial, and severe levels of distress may only hinder creativity [see also (28)]. ...
Aim
To explore the self-perceived relationships between experiences of creativity and mental illness and to understand the meanings behind these relationships.
Background
The idea that mental illness and artistic creativity are somehow related dates back to ancient times. There is some evidence for an actual correlation, but many questions remain unanswered on the nature and direction of the relationship. Qualitative contributions to the debate are scarce, and mainly focus on the potential benefits of participation in the arts for people with mental illness.
Design
An explorative, interpretive study.
Methods
Twenty-four professional and semi-professional artists with self-reported experience with mental illness, were recruited purposively. Unstructured in-depth interviews were conducted and transcripts were subjected to interpretive analysis, guided by a hermeneutic phenomenological frame.
Results
Participants experience a range of interactions between artistic creativity and mental illness. Three constitutive patterns describe what these interactions look like: “flow as a powerful force”; “ambiguous self-manifestation”; and “narrating experiences of suffering.”
Conclusion
The findings show that both the concept of creativity and the concept of mental illness, as well as their interrelationships, are layered and complex phenomena that can take on different meanings in people’s lives. The findings provide starting points for further research that goes beyond the polarized academic debate. Understanding the experiences of artists with mental illness can help shape the role of art in public mental health and mental health care.
... Schwartzmann et al. (2016) found high levels of neuroticism in ASD individuals and Perkins et al. (2015) explained that self-generated thought-as the engine of neuroticism-could facilitate creativity. Srivastava & Ketter (2010) noticed the importance of negative affect-measured as an increased neuroticism-for creativity in bipolar individuals. Gao et al. (2020) found an inverted U-shaped relationship between neuroticism and individual creativity (and a same relationship between creativity and extraversion) in creative entrepreneurs. ...
Abstract
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) really appeared in their current meaning under the labels "Attention Deficit Disorder" and "Infantile Autism" in the third version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980. Thus, their pathological and psychiatric status was officially established. Researchers therefore focus mainly on deficits and impairments and forget the other side of the coin, namely the positive aspects and strengths of autistic and hyperactive people. However, for several decades, the positive aspects and strengths have been noted by scientists and expressed by the individuals concerned.
The central question of this article is to question the creative and scientific skills of ADHD and ASD individuals. This article highlights the links between psychopathologies and creativity, the relationships and overlaps between ASD and creativity, ADHD and creativity, as well as a review of physiological evidence of the common characteristics of ASD-ADHD-creativity in particular concerning lateralization of brain functions and cerebral asymmetries, variations in concentrations and receptors in neurotransmission systems and gene related, attentional states of consciousness and default mode network, cognitive disinhibition and latent inhibition deficit, hyperconnectivity and highly cerebral excitability, personality and temperament.
I propose a rereading of ADHD and ASD which are usually analyzed through a localization model highlighting some non-pathognomonic behaviors and from a pathological angle. Here, the connectionist model highlights variations in the concentrations and receptors of γ-aminobutyric acid, acetylcholine, dopamine, glutamic acid and serotonin, thus causing changes in basic cognitive functioning and increased creative thinking. This attempt to analyze the characteristics of ADHD and ASD in cognitive neurogenetics highlights that this creative thinking is pervasive and will materialize in the individuals involved in their areas of interest and expertise (causing goal-oriented motivation in ADHD and developed to understand the environment, making the world coherent, socializing, expressing oneself in ASD) at the levels of divergent and convergent thinking (related to boredom intolerance, impulsivity and spontaneous thinking in ADHD and attention to detail, abstract and schematic thinking, extensive systematization and reintegration abilities, hyperfocusing abilities, and compulsive ritualistic repetition in ASD), and a specific default mode network and the ability to switch between attentional states of consciousness (leading to high sensitivity and risk-seeking situations in ADHD and to environmental ordering in ASD) from real-life situations, and open-ended and abstract problems and situations.
Thus, these characteristics could allow ADHD and ASD to be considered as high creativity syndromes, provoking an irrepressible creative impulse in ADHD and ASD individuals, and creating a double stigma related to the pathologization of their difference and the social treatment reserved for creative people.
Résumé
Le trouble déficitaire de l'attention avec ou sans hyperactivité (TDAH) et le trouble du spectre autistique (TSA) sont véritablement apparus dans leur acception actuelle sous les étiquettes « trouble déficitaire de l'attention » et « autisme infantile » dans la troisième version du Manuel diagnostique et statistique des troubles mentaux en 1980. Ainsi, leur statut pathologique et psychiatrique a été officiellement établi. Les chercheurs se concentrent donc principalement sur les déficits et les déficiences et oublient l'autre côté de la médaille, à savoir les aspects positifs et les forces des personnes autistes et hyperactives. Cependant, depuis plusieurs décennies, les aspects positifs et les forces ont été notés par les scientifiques et exprimés par les personnes concernées.
La question centrale de cet article est de s'interroger sur les compétences créatives et scientifiques des individus TDAH et TSA. Cet article met en évidence les liens entre les psychopathologies et la créativité, les relations et les chevauchements entre les TSA et la créativité, le TDAH et la créativité, ainsi qu'un examen des preuves physiologiques des caractéristiques communes des TSA-TDAH-créativité, notamment au niveau de la latéralisation des fonctions cérébrales et les asymétries cérébrales, des variations des concentrations et des récepteurs dans les systèmes de neurotransmission et les gènes associés, des états de conscience attentionnels et du réseau du mode par défaut, de la désinhibition cognitive et du déficit d'inhibition latent, de l'hyperconnectivité et de la forte excitabilité cérébrale, de la personnalité et du tempérament.
Je propose une relecture du TDAH et TSA qui sont habituellement analysés à travers un modèle localisationniste mettant en exergue quelques comportements non pathognomoniques et sous un angle pathologique. Ici, le modèle connexionniste met notamment en lumière des variations des concentrations et des récepteurs de l'acide γ-aminobutyrique, de l'acétylcholine, de la dopamine, de l'acide glutamique et de la sérotonine provoquant ainsi des modifications du fonctionnement cognitif de base et provoquant une pensée créative accrue. Cette tentative d’analyse des caractéristiques du TDAH et du TSA en neurogénétique cognitive fait ressortir que cette pensée créative est omniprésente et va se matérialiser chez les individus concernés dans leurs domaines d'intérêt et d'expertise (provoquant une motivation axée sur les objectifs dans le TDAH et développée pour comprendre l'environnement, rendre le monde cohérent, socialiser, s'exprimer dans les TSA) au niveau de la pensée divergente (liée à l'intolérance à l'ennui, à l'impulsivité et aux pensées spontanées dans le TDAH) et convergente (liée à l'attention aux détails, à la pensée abstraite et schématique, aux capacités de systémisation et de réintégration étendue, aux capacités d'hyperfocalisation et aux répétitions compulsives rituelles dans les TSA), et un réseau spécifique de mode par défaut et la capacité de passer d'un état de conscience attentionnel à un autre (entraînant des situations de haute sensibilité et de recherche de risque dans le TDAH et une mise en ordre de l'environnement dans les TSA) à partir de situations de la vie réelle, et de problèmes et situations ouverts et abstraits.
Ainsi, ces caractéristiques pourraient permettre de considérer le TDAH et le TSA comme des syndromes de haute créativité, en provoquant un élan créatif irrépressible chez les personnes TDAH et TSA, et créant une double stigmatisation liée à la pathologisation de leur différence et au traitement social réservé aux personnes créatives.
... From a psychiatric perspective, however, we have to take into account that the features of bipolar disorders may interrelate with personality traits and temperament (Srivastava & Ketter, 2010). Moreover, clinical experiences suggest to understand bipolar disorders not as an 'all-or-nothing principle' but rather as the multifaceted expressions of the individual: the interplay between pathological and creative facets generates the artistic self-representation. ...
Creativity was the theme of the EAS-congress 2016 and is a core matter both in music education and in music therapy. Involving neuropsychological notions and concepts such as neuroplasti-city, divergent and convergent thinking and functions of the 'default mode network', the paper tries to elucidate underlying principles of creativity. Scientific findings point out how creativity it relevant to personal growth, problem-solving and vital energy. Particularly pupils with medical conditions such as affective or psychotic disorders may benefit from creative expression and production which is, in artistic contexts, not necessarily seen as a pathological symptom. Well-developed creativity enhances life-quality and social inclusion across the lifespan .
... Sin embargo, aunque el factor ha presentado una valoración negativa en la literatura, también se han identificado relaciones entre el neuroticismo y características valoradas de manera más positiva, como la creatividad (Clark & DeYoung, 2014;Nowakowska, Strong, Santosa, Wang, & Ketter, 2005;Srivastava & Ketter, 2010). ...
Antecedentes
:El modelo de los cinco factores representa uno de los enfoques más empleados para el estudio de la personalidad desde una perspectiva psicológica. Si bien se han relevado numerosos instrumentos para su evaluación, el Compendio Internacional de Ítems de Personalidad Abreviado (Donnellan et al., 2006) constituye una de las principales herramientas destacadas en la literatura.
Objetivo
: Por este motivo, el propósito del presente estudio consiste en adaptar y validar el instrumento en una muestra no probabilística incidental compuesta por estudiantes de nivel superior en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (N = 2460).
Resultado
: El análisis factorial confirmatorio indica un buen ajuste a los datos del modelo relevado por los autores, por lo que puede recomendarse su administración en el contexto local.
Conclusiones
: Se sugiere que futuros trabajos exploren sus propiedades en poblaciones diferentes.
... A similar circumstance was also observed in the comparison between BPD and MDD, where BPD had a significant positive correlation with childhood intelligence quotient and a higher level of education. Previous evidence has indicated that BPD subjects who experience hypomania present increased creativity and probands of people with BPD are more likely to be professionally successful 64,65 . Regarding the comparison between SCZ and MDD, it was worthwhile to mention that SCZ had a strong negative correlation with hippocampal volume, which was corroborated by the strong association with the hippocampus region in the cell-type enrichment analysis. ...
Psychiatric disorders are common and are among the top causes disabilities around the world. On the other hand, although displaying strong genetic correlations, these disorders have been clinically defined as independent categorical entities as they each have some distinguishing clinical symptoms and may involve different treatments. Identifying differential genetic variations between these disorders may shed light on how the disorders differ biologically and help to guide more personalized treatment in the future. Another potential clinical application is differentiating different disorders by genetic markers. For example, a patient who presents with depression may actually be having bipolar disorder (BPD). Here we presented a comprehensive analysis to identify genetic markers differentially associated for various psychiatric disorders based on GWAS summary statistics. We performed comparisons among schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BPD), major depressive disorder (MDD) as well as six other pairs of genetically related psychiatric disorders/traits. Importantly, we also conducted comprehensive computational analysis to unravel the genes, pathways and SNP functional categories involved, and unravelled the most relevant cell types and tissues for differentiating the disorders. We also uncovered differences in each studied pair of disorders in terms of their differences in comorbid traits, using LD score regression. Another novel contribution is that we assessed how well we could distinguish two psychiatric disorders (e,g, MDD vs BPD) by the use of polygenic risk scores (PRS). This may be clinically relevant in the future given the lack of biomarkers to aid differential diagnosis of psychiatric disorder.
... Temperaments measured by the Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego Autoquestionnaire (TEMPS-A) are significantly heritable and have been shown to predict risk for bipolar disorder and to discriminate between bipolar patients, unaffected first-degree relatives, and healthy controls , Evans et al. 2005, Greenwood et al. 2013b. Additionally, the cyclothymic, dysthymic, and irritable temperaments show strong correlates with creativity (Nowakowska et al. 2005, Srivastava & Ketter 2010. ...
Bipolar disorder is a lifelong mood disorder characterized by extreme mood swings between mania and depression. Despite fitness costs associated with increased mortality and significant impairment, bipolar disorder has persisted in the population with a high heritability and a stable prevalence. Creativity and other positive traits have repeatedly been associated with the bipolar spectrum, particularly among unaffected first-degree relatives and those with milder expressions of bipolar traits. This suggests a model in which large doses of risk variants cause illness, but mild to moderate doses confer advantages, which serve to maintain bipolar disorder in the population. Bipolar disorder may thus be better conceptualized as a dimensional trait existing at the extreme of normal population variation in positive temperament, personality, and cognitive traits, aspects of which may reflect a shared vulnerability with creativity. Investigations of this shared vulnerability may provide insight into the genetic mechanisms underlying illness and suggest novel treatments.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, Volume 16 is May 7, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
... High affect scores, reflecting difficulty regulating emotion and the frequent experience of negative emotion, predicted fluency. This relationship is consistent with suggestions that emotional lability may contribute to enhanced creativity (see Srivastava & Ketter, 2010). Indeed, creativity has often been posited to be linked to mood disorder, characterized by dysregulation of affect, though two recent meta-analyses suggest that this relationship may be more nuanced than previously thought (Baas, Nijstad, Notes. ...
... Several temperament and personality traits are related to bipolar disorder, to creativity in individuals with bipolar disorder, and to creativity in healthy individuals, seemingly occupying the space between madness and genius. Both bipolar and creative individuals have higher cyclothymic, dysthymic, and irritable temperament scores compared with noncreative controls [36,38,[50][51][52] . Hyperthymic temperament is further associated with creativity in healthy subjects, as are hypomanic personality traits, which predict risk for bipolar disorder [53][54][55] . ...
Bipolar disorder is a severe, lifelong mood disorder for which little is currently understood of the genetic mechanisms underlying risk. By examining related dimensional phenotypes, we may further our understanding of the disorder. Creativity has a historical connection with the bipolar spectrum and is particularly enhanced among unaffected first-degree relatives and those with bipolar spectrum traits. This suggests that some aspects of the bipolar spectrum may confer advantages, while more severe expressions of symptoms negatively influence creative accomplishment. Creativity is a complex, multidimensional construct with both cognitive and affective components, many of which appear to reflect a shared genetic vulnerability with bipolar disorder. It is suggested that a subset of bipolar risk variants confer advantages as positive traits according to an inverted-U-shaped curve with clinically unaffected allele carriers benefitting from the positive traits and serving to maintain the risk alleles in the population. The association of risk genes with creativity in healthy individuals (e.g., NRG1), as well as an overall sharing of common genetic variation between bipolar patients and creative individuals, provides support for this model. Current findings are summarized from a multidisciplinary perspective to demonstrate the feasibility of research in this area to reveal the mechanisms underlying illness.
... Hoy están más en boga, sin embargo, los estudios sobre perfiles profesionales. Sobre dicho asunto, recientes estudios neurológicos parecen mostrar que ciertas actividades laborales predisponen al individuo a sufrir particulares problemas mentales y también, a la inversa, que hay personalidades más adecuadas que otras para cumplir con determinados empeños 11 . De entre estas investigaciones, algunas ya incluyen consideraciones sobre actividades espirituales, especialmente las desempeñadas por sacerdotes y misioneros. ...
... Nahaste bipolarra dutenen mania-faseetan ohikoa da euforia sentitzea, aktibitatea eta asaldadura areagotzea, lo egiteko beharra gutxitzea, ekintza berrietan murgildu nahi izatea eta pentsamendu dibergentea hobetzea (Gruber, Mauss, Tamir, 2011). Aldiz, mania faseetan haserrea sentitu ohi da eta ebaluaziorako gaitasunak gutxitu; beraz, sortutako ideien artean bakarra hautatzeko prozesua kaltetu egiten da (Srivastava eta Ketter, 2010). Ondorio horiek ezagutzera ematen dute emozio positiboak aktibazio-maila oso altuarekin sentitzen direnean (adib., mania-faseetan ohikoa den euforia) ideien jariakortasuna, malgutasuna eta originaltasuna areagotzen direla; aldiz, ideien kalitatea gutxitu egiten dela eta akats kopurua handitu (Kaufmann eta Kaufmann, 2014). ...
En la actualidad, la relación entre las emociones y la creatividad constituye una línea de investigación de creciente interés. Además, las habilidades socioemocionales y creativas son consideradas la piedra angular de la mejora del rendimiento académico y laboral. Pero, ¿cómo se relacionan los fenónemos emocionales y la creatividad? Este trabajo reúne las principales contribuciones que la literatura científica ofrece respecto a esta cuestión. En la primera parte, se analiza la relación entre el tono emocional (positivo o negativo), el nivel de activación (alto, medio o bajo) y los focos de regulación (de pomoción o de prevención). En la segunda parte, se presentan algunos de los modelos teóricos más significativos que investigan la interacción emoción-creatividad definiéndose, a su vez, sus dimensiones. En la tercera parte, se proponen algunas recomendaciones dirigidas al profesorado o a los/as tutores/as de cara a mejorar los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Por último, se elaboran y desarrollan algunas conclusiones con la vista fijada en la investigación futura.
... We have argued that evidence linking BD with creativity has potential to decrease the stigma that is currently so destructive for those living with the condition (Johnson et al., 2012c). Researchers have not yet identified mechanisms driving creativity in BD (Johnson et al., 2012c;Srivastava and Ketter, 2010). There is little evidence for elevated divergent thinking among those diagnosed with BD (Johnson et al., in press). ...
... Beyond examining creative accomplishments, a key question is what mechanisms guide this creativity in bipolar disorder. Multiple models have been proposed to explain the links between bipolar disorder and creative accomplishment, including models of shared genetic vulnerability, cognitive disinhibition, positive affect, or increased goal-directedness and drive as potential joint contributions (Johnson, Murray et al., 2012;Srivastava & Ketter, 2010). Surprisingly, very little data is available to directly test any of these models. ...
A large literature documents that people with bipolar disorder are overrepresented among those who achieve fame for their creative endeavors, as well as among those who select creative occupations. Multiple models of this elevated creativity have been proposed. These include the idea that divergent thinking, ambitiousness, or positive affectivity would be high in bipolar disorder and could explain the heightened creative achievement. An alternative perspective suggests that people with bipolar disorder might just show greater variability in creative abilities, yielding some with extremely high accomplishments. We examine these models using a multimethod approach to assessing creativity among 62 persons with bipolar I disorder as compared with a well-matched sample of 50 control participants. Persons with bipolar disorder did not demonstrate significantly higher creativity scores across indices, but did display significantly more heterogeneity in creative accomplishment levels compared with those with no bipolar disorder. Positive affectivity, mania, or related clinical characteristics were not significantly related to creative thinking or creative accomplishment. Limitations and future directions are discussed.
... De betonar att det är speciellt viktigt för personer inom vården att förstå betydelsen av dessa effekter för att kunna möta patienters behov av en individuellt anpassad läkemedelsbehandling. Det stödjer resultaten i delstudie II om att en individuellt anpassad läkemedelsbehandling bidrar till ett gott liv, men endast om doseringen ligger på en nivå som bevarar så mycket av känsligheten som möjligt. Senare forskningssammanställningar på området visar dock att det är svårt att påvisa direkta samband mellan bipolär sjukdom och kreativitet (Johnson et al., 2012;Srivastava & Ketter, 2010). Dessa studier visar att det är mer komplext än vad som tidigare antagits och att även faktorer som temperament och personlighet verkar spela en roll i detta sammanhang. ...
Aim: The overall aim was to create knowledge about what it means to live with bipolar disorder from an existential perspective, both for individuals with the diagnosis and for their close relatives.
Method: An existential perspective in this context entails that it is explored and described from a lifeworld perspective of individuals who in various ways experience that which is termed as bipolar disorder. The lifeworld phenomenological approach Reflective Lifeworld Research (RLR) was used in the four empirical studies. Meaning-oriented interviews and analysis were conducted following the leading methodological principles of the chosen scientific approach. A synthesis, based on lifeworld hermeneutic existential philosophy, then presents how it is possible to understand the perspective of individuals with bipolar disorder and their close relatives as a coherent whole.
Findings and conclusions: A magnitude and complexity of experiencing, which means that life with bipolar disorder is characterized by extra dimensions, specific tension and contradictions, has been elucidated. Knowledge of the meaning of these aspects enables for the persons with the illness and for their close relatives to understand, to put words to, and to communicate how their life is and what they need, which in turn enhances their ability to influence their lives. It also increases the opportunities for professional caregivers to develop care, both in content and organization, so that it can meet the actual needs of those concerned in an adequate way.
Living with bipolar disorder means so much more than the usual description with changes between episodes of depression and mania. The diagnosis “bipolar disorder” thus appears to be an inadequate label that only reflects the more obvious and visible dimensions of the illness, while those that characterize life in its entirety remain hidden.
The thesis also shows that the importance of the common everyday life of persons with bipolar disorder and their close relatives should be highlighted as the most important factor in a liveable existence. A change in the view of mental health care is thus needed; a change that is characterized by consensus, collaboration and transparent communication between the person with the illness, their close relatives and mental health care. The common goal should be about meeting actual needs, and to strengthen a profound connectedness in order to make everyday life more liveable.
... Although a number of researchers have published impressive study on the putative association between creativity and psychopathology, their studies are generally limited by small cohorts, lack of standardized tools to assess creativity, or the use of retrospective biographies to establish diagnoses. In recent years, there have been several systematic studies (Andreasen, 1987;Goodwin & Jamison, 2007;Jamison, 1995;Kaufman, 2000Kaufman, /2001Kyaga et al., 2011Kyaga et al., , 2013Ludwig, 1992;Silvia & Kaufman, 2010;Srivastava & Ketter, 2010;Thys et al., 2013;Tremblay, Grosskopf & Yang, 2010) investigating the connection between affective disorders (mainly in their bipolar form) and creativity of artists, with a higher incidence of such disorders occurring in their first-degree relatives (Andreasen, 1987). There is a widespread belief that mania is a source of creative power. ...
Assumption regarding the relationship between creativity and mental disturbances has attracted academic and public interest from antiquity. Research performed in recent years, support these associations and show a disproportionately high rate of mental illnesses, especially bipolar disorder, in creative individuals. In this article, we give another example of this link by describing the life and works of a Lithuanian composer, painter, and poet Mikalojus Konstantinas Chiurlionis (1875–1911) (Lithuanian transcription—Čiurlionis). This relationship is demonstrated graphically, which enables to see a link between his mood fluctuations and quantity of Chiurlionis' works. Chiurlionis lived in the complex period with its turbulent whirl of changing trends in art doubtlessly influenced his art. Chiurlionis had synesthesia and he was one of the first who tried to join music and painting in a synthesis of the arts. Significant components of his work are related to Symbolism. Chiurlionis lived very short life—only 36 years, but during his life, he created over 200 musical works, and painted about 300 canvases. His compositions were romantic and nationalist in spirit, sometimes inspired by Lithuanian folklore and his best work is thought to be his “musical paintings”. For many years, they were virtually unknown outside his motherland. While it was well-known that Chiurlionis died in a sanatorium for mental ill, almost nothing was written about his mental illness. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that the Chiurlionis' illness (bipolar affective disorder) and his creative output in music and paintings were connected.
... Temperament appears to be a factor involved in professional attitudes (Akiskal et al., 2005b;Figueira et al., 2010). The most impressive findings are those on the importance of cyclothymia in art (Akiskal et al., 2005b;Akiskal and Akiskal, 2007;Strong et al., 2007;Figueira et al., 2010;Windholz, 1968;Srivastava and Ketter, 2010) and the prevalence of hyperthymic temperament in leadership (Akiskal et al., 2005b;Akiskal and Akiskal, 2007;Maremmani et al., 2010). A military career is definitely related to leadership issues. ...
BACKGROUND: Temperament appears to be a factor involved in professional attitudes. The most impressive findings are those on the importance of cyclothymia in art and of hyperthymia in leadership. AIM: In this study we raise the issue of whether the relationship between hyperthymic temperament and the choice of a military career, previously reported among Italian Air Force applicants, can be extended to another military service such as the Italian Navy. METHODS: We compared temperaments between those who had applied to become a cadet officer in the Italian Air Force or in the Italian Navy, with special reference to gender differences and the ability of the two types of applicants to pass the psychiatric examination for admission that we had recently assessed in the Italian Air Force. RESULTS: Hyperthymic traits were well represented in both these armed services. Navy applicants differed from air-force applicants in obtaining higher depressive, cyclothymic and irritable scores. Navy applicants who passed the psychiatric entrance examination (PEE) showed the same incidence of hyperthymic temperament as their Air Force counterparts, but higher depressive, cyclothymic and irritable scores. Considering gender, among Air Force applicants depressive traits were better represented in males; conversely, among Navy applicants they were better represented in females. If we consider gender together with PEE results, the highest hyperthymic scores were more frequently found among males who passed and females who failed to pass the PEE. On the other hand, a greater number of cyclothymic traits were found in females who passed and males who failed to pass the PEE. CONCLUSIONS: It was confirmed that hyperthymic temperament represents the temperamental profile of those who aim to become a cadet officer in the Italian armed forces. This study further supports the idea that hyperthymic traits bring distinct advantages in a professional field, such as a military career, which is closely related to leadership.
... We thus did not find any strong support for a relation between impaired cognitive control and high affective lability in BD, rather the opposite. Interestingly, to a certain extent there is an association between BD and creativity (Srivastava and Ketter, 2010;Kyaga et al., 2011). ...
Studies suggest altered affect regulation manifested by affective lability in manic/mixed and euthymic states in patients with bipolar disorder (BD). Altered affect regulation may arise from disturbances in interactions between the cognitive and the emotional brain networks. However, the relationship between affective lability and executive function has not previously been studied. Our aim was to investigate affective lability, as measured with the Affective Lability Scale (ALS) in patients with BD (N=32) compared to healthy controls (HC) (N=60), and its relationship to executive functioning. We found significantly higher ALS scores in the BD than in the HC group, indicating a higher degree of affective lability in patients with BD. Sub-sample analysis revealed a significant positive relationship between affective lability and semantic set shifting abilities in BD only. These findings suggest that higher levels of affective lability compared with controls are a trait as well as state dependent in BD, and that disturbed affective lability may arise from an aberrant interaction between cognitive and emotional brain networks.
... Even among those who tend to experience lower trait-like positive affectivity, many experience mood lability and intermittent periods of heightened mood state (Myin-Germeys et al., 2001). It has been suggested that these types of shifts in affect might contribute to creative processes (Srivastava & Ketter, 2010). ...
Substantial literature has linked bipolar disorder with creative accomplishment. Much of the thinking in this area has been inspired by biographical accounts of poets, musicians, and other highly accomplished groups, which frequently document signs of bipolar disorder in these samples. A smaller literature has examined quantitative measures of creativity among people with bipolar disorder or at risk for the disorder. In this paper, we provide a critical review of such evidence. We then consider putative mechanisms related to the link of bipolar disorder with creativity, by drawing on literature outside of bipolar disorder on personality, motivational, and affective predictors of creativity. Because so little research has directly evaluated whether these factors could help explain the elevations of creativity in bipolar disorder, we conclude with an agenda for future research on the theoretically and clinically compelling topic of creativity in bipolar disorder.
Background:
The coupling of perception and action in creativity has piqued the interest of researchers across various fields, yet a gap in research persists in this area. This interdisciplinary doctoral project aims to explore how the coupling of perception and action influences creativity in responsive movement improvisation. Specifically, the project examines how blended music and environmental sounds influence the creation and execution of physical movements, using a combination of performing arts, cognitive neuroscience, and neuroimaging techniques.
Aims:
The primary objective of the project is to investigate how recorded music and environmental sounds influence the physical and mental responses of performers, specifically contemporary trained dancers, during improvisation in the studio and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. The research will lead to an experimental data-driven performance through the analysed data.
Methods:
The experimental procedures in the project aim to measure the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms involved in performers' interpretation and response to blended music and environmental sounds during movement improvisation. Motion analysis techniques, such as Motiongrams and Laban Movement Analysis, will be used to analyse the physical responses of performers during improvisation. Additionally, fMRI will be used to measure the mental responses of the performers during sound and movement-based paradigms. The analysis of the collected data will lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms that influence creativity in responsive movement improvisation and ultimately contribute to the development of data-driven experimental creative work.
Discussion and Conclusion:
The findings of the project will contribute to the development of a data-driven creative process grounded in pragmatic information, aimed at reducing artistic bias and offering new perspectives in experimental performance approaches. This approach will enhance the ways that different music and sounds influence movement responses through the act of improvisation. By exploring the relationship between perception and action in creativity, the research will offer novel insights into the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying artistic expression.
This paper addresses an important yet neglected existential issue sometimes faced by persons with bipolar disorder (BD): confusion about the extent to which what one is like is influenced by BD. Although such confusion is common in psychiatric illnesses, BD raises idiosyncratic difficulties due to its intricate interactions with personality, cognition and behavior. The fluctuating mood phases of BD can generate inconsistency in one's self-experience and sense of self. One way to resolve this confusion would be to coherently account for BD within one's overall self-concept. To facilitate this task, this paper introduces a heuristic taxonomy of different relationships wherein BD can be viewed in light of self-related beliefs. The relationships are as follows: (1) BD contributes to the self, (2) BD scaffolds the self, (3) BD gradually becomes part of the self and (4) BD is not part of the ‘real self’. As the individual presentation of BD varies extensively, the type of relationship one feels holds true depends on one's personal experience of managing and living with the disorder. These relationships act as an organizing framework for one's self-related beliefs about how to account for the effects of BD on personality, behavior, cognitive patterns and other self-expressions.
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.
Studie se zaměřuje na porovnání úrovně kreativity u osob s diagnózou bipolární afektivní poruchy (BAP) a kontrolní skupiny, na posouzení vztahu kreativity s osobnostními rysy, pohlavím a věkem. Porovnává také výsledky dosažené v jednotlivých testech kreativity.
V dřívějších výzkumech byla souvislost kreativity s bipolární afektivní poruchou vyvrácena a potvrzena pouze pro manickou fázi onemocnění. Představovaná studie i tak předkládá hypotézu zvýšené kreativity celkově u osob s BAP. V manické fázi se dle mnohých výzkumů zvýrazňují osobnostní rysy extraverze či otevřenost novým zkušenostem a naopak je nižší míra neuroticismu; právě tyto rysy se zdají být vysvětlením vyšší kreativity. Další výzkumné hypotézy definují zmíněné osobnostní rysy jako určující kreativitu a jako možné vysvětlení odlišné úrovně kreativity u osob s BAP a bez ní. Dále dle dosavadních znalostí nejsou příliš výrazné rozdíly mezi tvořivostí mužů a žen, ohledně míry kreativity v různém věku se výsledky různých autorů rozcházejí. Jak výzkumy ukazují, jednotlivé sféry kreativity spolu nemusí korelovat, v míře korelace verbální a figurální kreativity se však výzkumy značně různí.
Předkládaná studie má průřezový kvantitativní design. Využit je Urbanův figurální test kreativního myšlení a ASK – Test deduktivního a kreativního myšlení, dále sebeposuzovací Kaufmanova škála doménově specifické kreativity a Dotazník kreativní úspěšnosti. Osobnostní rysy jsou testovány NEO pětifaktorovým osobnostním inventářem. Položky pohlaví a věku zahrnuje úvodní dotazník, obsahující i otázky na téma kreativity a v případě kontrolní skupiny i kontrolující psychiatrickou zátěž, jež je sledována i Škálou pro diagnostiku bipolárního spektra.
Výsledky výzkumu popírají hypotézu, že osoby s BAP jsou kreativnější než osoby bez této diagnózy, naopak v několika testech skóruje lépe kontrolní skupina. Z osobnostních rysů se pro kreativitu ukazuje významným jedině rys otevřenosti novým zkušenostem. Mezi muži a ženami se v některých sférách tvořivosti projevují rozdíly, podle věku vychází jako nejvíce kreativní skupina respondentů mladé dospělosti. Korelace mezi jednotlivými testy kreativity vychází různé.
Přínosem práce je zejména diskuze nad limity provedeného výzkumu, vyplývající z charakteru zkoumaného onemocnění, charakteru kreativity jako takové, z kvantitativního přístupu v psychologii, ale i z krátké časové dotace pro provedení výzkumu. Předkládá mnohé návrhy pro vyřešení těchto limitů v dalším výzkumu, například longitudinální design pro zachycení všech fází onemocnění, zahrnutí rozhovorů o podobě a průběhu onemocnění i jeho léčby, sledování kreativity kromě kvantitativních a sebeposuzovacích metod také kvalitativní analýzou polostrukturovaného rozhovoru o kreativitě respondenta a jeho tvůrčích výtvorech, doporučuje též znatelně vyšší počet respondentů.
Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. Symptoms of bipolar disorder are severe. They are different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through from time to time. Bipolar disorder symptoms can result in damaged relationships, poor job or school performance, and even suicide. But bipolar disorder can be treated, and people with this illness can lead full and productive lives. Bipolar disorder often develops in a person’s late teens or early adult years. At least half of all cases start before age 25.Some people have their first symptoms during childhood, while others may develop symptoms late in life. Bipolar disorder is not easy to spot when it starts. The symptoms may seem like separate problems, not recognized as parts of a larger problem. Some people suffer for years before they are properly diagnosed and treated. Like diabetes or heart disease, bipolar disorder is a long-term illness that must be carefully managed throughout a person’s life.
Although the belief that creativity is related to psychopathology is prevalent, empirical evidence is limited. Research findings relating to mood disorder in particular are mixed, possibly as a result of differing research approaches (e.g., assessing the creativity of individuals with versus without mood disorder opposed to the prevalence of mood disorder in creative versus noncreative individuals). Therefore, a systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to investigate prior research examining the link between mood disorder and creativity from three distinct research approaches. Multilevel random effects models were used to calculate the overall effect size for studies that assessed (a) creativity in a clinical versus nonclinical sample (k = 13), (b) mood disorder in a creative versus noncreative sample (k = 10), and (c) the correlation between dimensional measures of creativity and mood disorder symptoms (k = 15). Potential moderators were examined using meta-regression and subgroup analyses, as significant heterogeneity was detected among the effects in all three analyses. Results reveal a differential strength and pattern of effects across the three analyses, suggesting that the relationship between creativity and mood disorder differs according to the research approach. The theoretical implications of results and potential mechanisms responsible for the relationship between creativity and mood disorder are discussed.
The ability to produce novel yet appropriate (or useful) outcomes is broadly defined as creativity. Given the cultural significance of creativity, researchers have been attempting to uncover brain mechanisms underlying creative thinking since the early 1960s. However, several methodological issues have restricted researchers in uncovering the brain basis for creativity and previous neuroimaging studies have largely produced varied findings, with little overlap. Some of the methodological issues that could account for the large variance in results include treating creativity as a unitary construct, assessing creativity in a test-like environment, as well as explicitly prompting participants to “switch-on” creativity during certain parts of the experiment. To partly mitigate some of these issues, we recently developed a novel game-like and creativity-conducive neuroimaging paradigm that was employed to assess neural correlates of spontaneous improvisation and figural creativity in healthy adults (Saggar Sci Rep 5:10894, 2015). In this chapter, we provide a brief overview of the current state of neuroscience research focused on creativity. We also provide insights regarding our experimental design, challenges faced during prototyping as well as a summary of our results. Lastly, building upon our novel paradigm, we provide pointers to future work for assessing neural correlates of creative capacity enhancement and team creativity.
Bipolar disorder is a mental illness where changes in brain functions transform normal emotions/sentiments to dramatic mood swing between mania and depression. Severity in mood swing may lead to impair normal functioning at work, at school and in relationships etc. The common interventions for management for bipolar disorder include medication, psychotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as per need of patient. This observational study was carried out on 40 patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder at Punjab Institute of Mental Health (PIMH), Lahore. The main aims included, evaluation of the rationality of prescribing/use of medicines and patient - health care provider's interaction. The results indicated that three mood stabilizers, namely, Sodium Valproate (55% patients), Carbamazepine (27.50%patients), Lithium (5% patients) and combination of two mood stabilizer (5% patients) were prescribed /used. The combination of the antipsychotic, mood stabilizer and benzodiazepines was the main treatment regimen of bipolar disorder (85% Patients) in PIMH. Non-compliance/adherence was the vital issue in about 62.5% patient. 67.5% relapse was a big issue in BD at PIMH. The effective patient - health care provider's interaction was practically non-existent. Neither pharmaceutical care practiced nor the pharmacists were involved in drug use process. PIMH, Lahore is a blessing for poor people of Pakistan, but authorities need to rationalize management of BD for best interest of patient as well as society.
Objective: This is a study to evaluate the personality types based on Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) in patients with chronic vascular or tension-type headache. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted on 210 patients with tension-type and vascular headache in the Mashhad city, northeast of Iran. Patients were selected through convenience nonprobability method from December 2010 to January 2012. They were asked to fill demographic questionnaire and MBTI. Data were analyzed with SPSS using Mann-Whitney U, Chi-square and Fisher exact test. Results: The mean age of participants was 33.7 ± 8.2. Patients with vascular headache were mostly female, had higher levels of education, experienced more attacks per month and had shorter duration of headache until seeking treatment compared to the patients with tension-type headache. There was a significant difference in the distribution of personality types and frequency of each personality dimension between two groups. Patients with vascular headaches were significantly more introverted, sensing, thinking and judgmental, as compared to extraversion, intuitional, feeling, and perceiving among the tension-type headaches. Conclusion: Since there was a significant difference in the personality type of the different headache patients, further neuropsychological studies may throw light on the etiology of these chronic headaches.
Bipolar disorder (BD) has been related to heightened creativity, yet core questions remain unaddressed about this association. We used qualitative methods to investigate how highly creative individuals with BD understand the role of symptoms and treatment in their creativity, and possible mechanisms underpinning this link. Twenty-two individuals self-identified as highly creative and living with BD took part in focus groups and completed quantitative measures of symptoms, quality of life (QoL), and creativity. Using thematic analysis, five themes emerged: the pros and cons of mania for creativity, benefits of altered thinking, the relationship between creativity and medication, creativity as central to one’s identity, and creativity’s importance in stigma reduction and treatment. Despite reliance on a small sample who self-identified as having BD, findings shed light on previously mixed results regarding the influence of mania and treatment and suggest new directions for the study of mechanisms driving the creative advantage in BD.
Creativity is a complex construct involving affective and cognitive components. Bipolar Disorder (BD) has been associated with creativity and is characterized by a wide range of affective and cognitive symptoms. Although studies of creativity in BD have tended to focus on creativity as a trait variable in medicated euthymic patients, it probably fluctuates during symptomatic states of BD. Since creativity is known to involve key affective and cognitive components, it is plausible to speculate that cognitive deficits and symptoms present in symptomatic BD could interfere with creativity.
Sixty-seven BD type I patients medication free, age 18-35 years and experiencing a maniac, mixed, or depressive episodes, were assessed for creativity, executive functioning, and intelligence.
Manic and mixed state patients had higher creativity scores than depressive individuals. Creativity was influenced by executive function measures only in manic patients. Intelligence did not influence creativity for any of the mood episode types.
We propose that creativity in BD might be linked to the putative hyperdopaminergic state of mania and be dependent on intact executive function. Future studies should further explore the role of dopaminergic mechanisms in creativity in BD.
This study adopted an interactional approach to understanding how 2 of the Five-Factor traits, openness to experience and conscientiousness, are related to creative behavior in the workplace. Openness to experience is theorized to result in high levels of creative behavior and conscientiousness is theorized to result in low levels of creative behavior when the situation allows for the manifestation of the trait influences. More specifically, the authors hypothesized that openness to experience would result in high levels of creative behavior if feedback valence were positive and job holders were presented with a heuristic task that allowed them to be creative. The authors also hypothesized that conscientiousness would result in low levels of creative behavior if supervisors engaged in close monitoring and coworkers were unsupportive. The authors tested their hypotheses in a sample of office workers, and 5 out of the 6 hypotheses were supported.
Subjects were 201 college students, who used R.C. Ziller's (1990) autophotographic method to answer the question who are you? Richness of self-depiction (i.e., creative and self-expressive vs. prosaic photo essays) and interpersonal connectedness of the self were examined. As expected, Openness to Experience from the 5-factor model predicted richness of photo essays. Among women, Neuroticism and Introversion also predicted richness. As expected, Extraversion and Agreeableness related to interpersonal orientations in photo essays. Intergenerational photos had especially salient meaning for personality. Three other predictions received support, bearing on such identity-relevant categories as alcohol use, religiosity, self-exhibition in bathing attire, and identification with one's school. Results are integrated with literature on interpersonal connectedness and the relation of creativity to personality.
This article reviews how a temperament approach emphasizing biological and developmental processes can integrate constructs from subdisciplines of psychology to further the study of personality. Basic measurement strategies and findings in the investigation of temperament in infancy and childhood are reviewed. These include linkage of temperament dimensions with basic affective-motivational and attentional systems, including positive affect/approach, fear, frustration/anger, and effortful control. Contributions of biological models that may support these processes are then reviewed. Research indicating how a temperament approach can lead researchers of social and personality development to investigate important person-environment interactions is also discussed. Lastly, adult research suggesting links between temperament dispositions and the Big Five personality factors is described.
Relationships were examined among two measures of creativity level, the CPI Creativity Scale (CPI-CT) and the MBTI Creativity Index (MBTI-CI), and a measure of creativity style, the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI). Scores on these scales from various managerial samples were used in the analyses. With sample sizes ranging from 431 to 12,115, significant intercorrelations were found among the three measures. Contrary to expectations, KAI scores were related to creativity levels as measured by the CPI-CT and the MBTI-CI. Additionally, gender was found to account for little variance in MBTI-CI scores.
There is growing recognition that bipolar disorder (BPD) has a spectrum of expression that is substantially more common than the 1% BP-I prevalence traditionally found in population surveys.
To estimate the prevalence, correlates, and treatment patterns of bipolar spectrum disorder in the US population.
Direct interviews.
Households in the continental United States.
A nationally representative sample of 9282 English-speaking adults (aged >or=18 years).
Version 3.0 of the World Health Organization's Composite International Diagnostic Interview, a fully structured lay-administered diagnostic interview, was used to assess DSM-IV lifetime and 12-month Axis I disorders. Subthreshold BPD was defined as recurrent hypomania without a major depressive episode or with fewer symptoms than required for threshold hypomania. Indicators of clinical severity included age at onset, chronicity, symptom severity, role impairment, comorbidity, and treatment.
Lifetime (and 12-month) prevalence estimates are 1.0% (0.6%) for BP-I, 1.1% (0.8%) for BP-II, and 2.4% (1.4%) for subthreshold BPD. Most respondents with threshold and subthreshold BPD had lifetime comorbidity with other Axis I disorders, particularly anxiety disorders. Clinical severity and role impairment are greater for threshold than for subthreshold BPD and for BP-II than for BP-I episodes of major depression, but subthreshold cases still have moderate to severe clinical severity and role impairment. Although most people with BPD receive lifetime professional treatment for emotional problems, use of antimanic medication is uncommon, especially in general medical settings.
This study presents the first prevalence estimates of the BPD spectrum in a probability sample of the United States. Subthreshold BPD is common, clinically significant, and underdetected in treatment settings. Inappropriate treatment of BPD is a serious problem in the US population. Explicit criteria are needed to define subthreshold BPD for future clinical and research purposes.
Test scores of divergent thinking obtained between 1959 and 1972 were correlated with a variety of personality measures administered since 1980. In this sample of 268 men, divergent thinking was consistently associated with self-reports and ratings of openness to experience, but not with neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, or conscientiousness. Both divergent thinking and openness were also modestly correlated with Gough's (1979) empirically derived Creative Personality Scale. Several other personality variables mentioned in the literature were also examined; those that were associated with divergent thinking were also generally correlated with openness. These data suggest that creativity is particularly related to the personality domain of openness to experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
"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
This study examined the relationship between fluid intelligence, the Big Five traits, hypomania and three measures of creativity: Divergent Thinking fluency, Self-rated creativity and the Biographical Inventory of Creative Behaviours (BICB). One hundred and twenty eight sixth-form students took part. Fluid intelligence was found to be positively associated with DT fluency, but unrelated to both Self-rated creativity and the BICB. Hypomanic traits were significantly correlated to all three creativity criteria. The combination of hypomanic traits and fluid intelligence demonstrated the strongest association with DT fluency, accounting for 11% of the variance. Hypomania was the best predictor of Self-rated creativity accounting for 17% of the variance. The Big Five accounted for incremental validity of 5–8% depending on the creativity measure used.
This is a conference paper. This paper explores the thinking and learning styles of art-based design students, and reports a personality survey of typical design students at two UK universities. Where teaching and learning styles do not match, there may be cognitive dissonance leading to poor knowledge transfer. Students state that they have such problems with their studies. Designers' strategies for problem-solving are different to many other professionals, and an intuitive way of working is preferred strongly. It is demonstrated that designers also have related styles of learning, and suitable treatments are proposed to match teaching and learning. Though designers' learning seems to be well matched to the teaching mostly employed in UK design schools, concern is expressed about current economic and other pressures which threaten its continuance.
Recent progress toward the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders includes a proposed quantitative hierarchical structure of internalizing pathology with substantial, supportive evidence (D. Watson, 2005). Questions about such a taxonomic shift remain, however, particularly regarding how best to account for and use existing diagnostic categories and models of personality structure. In this study, the authors use a large sample of psychiatric patients with internalizing diagnoses (N = 1,319) as well as a community sample (N = 856) to answer some of these questions. Specifically, the authors investigate how the diagnoses of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and bipolar disorder compare with the other internalizing categories at successive levels of the personality hierarchy. Results suggest unique profiles for bipolar disorder and OCD and highlight the important contribution of a 5-factor model of personality in conceptualizing internalizing pathology. Implications for personality-psychopathology models and research on personality structure are discussed.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI; Myers & McCaulley, 1985) was evaluated from the perspectives of Jung's theory of psychological types and the five-factor model of personality as measured by self-reports and peer ratings on the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI; Costa & McCrae, 1985b). Data were provided by 267 men and 201 women ages 19 to 93. Consistent with earlier research and evaluations, there was no support for the view that the MBTI measures truly dichotomous preferences or qualitatively distinct types; instead, the instrument measures four relatively independent dimensions. The interpretation of the Judging-Perceiving index was also called into question. The data suggest that Jung's theory is either incorrect or inadequately operationalized by the MBTI and cannot provide a sound basis for interpreting it. However, correlational analyses showed that the four MBTI indices did measure aspects of four of the five major dimensions of normal personality. The five-factor model provides an alternative basis for interpreting MBTI findings within a broader, more commonly shared conceptual framework.
Two data sources--self-reports and peer ratings--and two instruments--adjective factors and questionnaire scales--were used to assess the five-factor model of personality. As in a previous study of self-reports (McCrae & Costa, 1985b), adjective factors of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness-antagonism, and conscientiousness-undirectedness were identified in an analysis of 738 peer ratings of 275 adult subjects. Intraclass correlations among raters, ranging from .30 to .65, and correlations between mean peer ratings and self-reports, from .25 to .62, showed substantial cross-observer agreement on all five adjective factors. Similar results were seen in analyses of scales from the NEO Personality Inventory. Items from the adjective factors were used as guides in a discussion of the nature of the five factors. These data reinforce recent appeals for the adoption of the five-factor model in personality research and assessment.
Compared 16 creative women mathematicians with 28 other women PhDs in mathematics. The 2 groups differed slightly, if at all, on measures of intelligence, cognition, and masculine traits, but creative Ss had a stronger cathexis of research activity and were highly flexible, original, and rejecting of outside influence. Personality inventories, observations of the assessment staff, and self-descriptions of research style gave consistent results. 1/2 the creatives were foreign born, and most had professional men as fathers. Interviewers judged that they had identified primarily with their fathers, and that their interest in mathematics had arisen from sublimation or search for autonomy in fantasy rather than from reaction formation or withdrawal. As compared with creative male mathematicians, the creative women had less assurance, published less, and, if they had a job at all, occupied less prestigious positions. (33 ref.)
Conducted multiple stepwise correlation analyses on each of 7 personality inventories against the rated creativity of 62 architects from a nationwide sample. In each analysis the best combination of 3 variables was identified. The equations derived from the analyses were then validated on a 2nd sample of 62 architects. Initial multiple correlations ranged from .80-.30; cross validated coefficients ranged from .55-.20. Specific cross-validated coefficients were as follows: Adjective Check List, .38; Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior questionnaire, CPI, .47; MMPI, .20; Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, .42; SVIB, .55; and Allport-Vernon Lindzey Study of Values, .38.
Subjects were 201 college students, who used R. C. Ziller's (1990) autophotographic method to answer the question who are you? Richness of self-depiction (i.e., creative and self-expressive vs. prosaic photo essays) and interpersonal connectedness of the self were examined. As expected, Openness to Experience from the 5-factor model predicted richness of photo essays. Among women, Neuroticism and Introversion also predicted richness. As expected, Extraversion and Agreeableness related to interpersonal orientations in photo essays. Intergenerational photos had especially salient meaning for personality. Three other predictions received support, bearing on such identity-relevant categories as alcohol use, religiosity, self-exhibition in bathing attire, and identification with one's school. Results are integrated with literature on interpersonal connectedness and the relation of creativity to personality.
This article reviews how a temperament approach emphasizing biological and developmental processes can integrate constructs from subdisciplines of psychology to further the study of personality. Basic measurement strategies and findings in the investigation of temperament in infancy and childhood are reviewed. These include linkage of temperament dimensions with basic affective-motivational and attentional systems, including positive affect/approach, fear, frustration/anger, and effortful control. Contributions of biological models that may support these processes are then reviewed. Research indicating how a temperament approach can lead researchers of social and personality development to investigate important person-environment interactions is also discussed. Lastly, adult research suggesting links between temperament dispositions and the Big Five personality factors is described.
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.
Creativity measurement itself has been a creative endeavor for both researchers and practitioners. When viewed as a group, the most salient characteristic of creativity measurements is their diversity. The initial purpose of this review is to integrate creativity measurements into a meaningful taxonomy and to illustrate the diversity of the available measurements by citing key examples of the many and varied ways in which creativity has been operationalized. It also is hoped that the numerous examples will give researchers a concise but thorough picture of the many options available when a measure of creativity is needed. The second goal of this review is to use the taxonomy as a framework for discussing the creativity construct in terms of several psychometric characteristics—namely, reliability, discriminant validity, and nomological validity. The third goal is to describe an analytic framework in which measurement issues can be better addressed.
Test scores of divergent thinking obtained between 1959 and 1972 were correlated with a variety of personality measures administered since 1980. In this sample of 268 men, divergent thinking was consistently associated with self-reports and ratings of openness to experience, but not with neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, or conscientiousness. Both divergent thinking and openness were also modestly correlated with Gough's (1979)empirically derived Creative Personality Scale. Several other personality variables mentioned in the literature were also examined; those that were associated with divergent thinking were also generally correlated with openness. These data suggest that creativity is particularly related to the personality domain of openness to experience.
This study used the recently revised Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and a variety of validated creativity measures to replicate a classic finding — that sensing-intuition predicts creativity — and to evaluate whether the other MBTI scales add to the prediction of creativity. 94 undergraduates completed the MBTI (form M self-scorable) and criterion measures including the Creative Personality Scale, an abbreviated Creative Behavior Inventory (self-reported past accomplishments) and the Test of Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (creative product ratings using consensual assessment). Results showed that intuition predicted all three criteria but that, contrary to expectation from past research, judging-perceiving did not add to the prediction model. Thinking-feeling emerged as a possible suppressor variable. We suggest that judging-perceiving predicts creativity as an artifact of its relation with intuition and that the combination of intuition and feeling best characterizes high scorers on a composite creativity measure.
This study sought to further validate two measures of creative imagination, and studied their relation to other creativity and personality measures. 151 college students completed the Urban and Jellen (1996) Test of Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP), an inventory of past creative accomplishments, a Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) story, and scales for creative personality and the 5-factor model 86 of these participants also created autophotographic essays depicting themselves, scored for individuality/richness by consensual assessments. TCT-DP protocols were scored according to the manual, and also consensually assessed by teams of artist- and psychologist-judges. Factorial validity and relations to consensual assessments supported convergent and discriminant validity of the TCT-DP. The TCT-DP also correlated significantly with other creative products - the individuality of photo essays and rated creativity of TAT stories. Photo individuality correlated with past creative accomplishments in several areas. Adjective Check List-based creative personality scales related to most creativity measures, as did the "big 5" openness to experience domain, although the latter results seemed particularly compelling. Results support the domain generality rather than specificity position in an ongoing controversy in creativity research.
This study examined the relations among the five-factor model of personality, creative ability, and creative accomplishments. Seventy-five subjects completed measures of verbal creative ability and openness to experience and listed their creative accomplishments. Openness to experience and extraversion were positively correlated with creative ability, controlling for measures of academic ability. Agreeableness was negatively correlated with creative accomplishments. Both verbal creativity and openness had significant positive correlations with creative accomplishments. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that these relations were qualified by significant creative ability by openness and creative ability by conscientiousness interactions. At high levels of openness, creative ability shared a positive linear relation with accomplishments. Individuals high in creative ability but low on openness to experience reported relatively few creative accomplishments. In contrast, conscientiousness was related to heightened accomplishments by individuals low in creative talent. Results are interpreted as illustrating the interplay of abilities and traits in promoting creative behavior.
Participants completed the Big Five NEO-FFI (Costa & McCrae, 1992) as a personality measure, the Wonderlic Personnel Test (Wonderlic, 1992) as an intelligence measure, and four measures of creativity: Guilford’s (1967) unusual uses divergent thinking test; the Biographical Inventory of Creative Behaviours; a self-rated measure of creativity; and the Barron–Welsh Art Scale to measure creative judgement. Extraversion was significantly related to all four measures of creativity. Intelligence failed to add any incremental variance in predicting the creativity scores. Multiple regression indicated that up to 47% of the variance in divergent thinking scores can be accounted for by the Big Five personality traits. Personality correlates to creativity vary as a function of the creativity measure.
An attempt is made in this article to relate creativity to personality in a much more definitive way than has been done previously and to use the known correlates of personality to suggest a theory of creativity that would explain many of the phenomena associated with this concept. A causal chain is suggested reaching from DNA to creative achievement, based largely on experimental findings not usually considered in relation to creativity (e.g., latent inhibition). Inevitably, the model is highly speculative, but it is testable and hence may prove useful in not only accounting for many observations and experimental results but also in suggesting new experiments and observations.
Sixty-two student teachers enrolled in an initial teacher education program in a medium-sized, metropolitan university completed the Kirton (1976) Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI), the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI; Briggs & Myers, 1976), and Khatena and Torrance's (1976) What-Kind-of-Person-Are-You checklist. Path analyses revealed a strong causal link between KAI innovator style and creative self-perceptions. Of the MBTI introversion, intuitive, thinking, and perceiver types, only intuitiveness exhibited a total causal link to creative self-perception that came close to the KAI. Creativity, personality, and cognitive style literatures are diverse and more research is suggested, although the KAI instrument appeared to be an effective predictor of scores on a creative self-perception measure.
78 students completed the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (Form S), the 1975 Barron-Welsh Art Scale, and 3 estimates of their own creativity. Multiple regressions showed openness-to-experience predicted all 3 self-estimates of creativity but not the actual creativity score. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study investigated the relationship between creativity and personality among college students from a variety of major fields of study. Indicators of creativity were ratings of written stories, lists of personal hobbies, and scores on the Creative Personality Scale (CPS; Gough, 1979). Personality was assessed broadly using the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1985) as well as measures of depersonalization, intolerance of ambiguity, faith in intuition, and problem-solving styles. The results showed a positive relationship between openness to experience and all creativity measures. Moreover, high scores on intuition and extraversion were the best predictors for creativity as measured by the CPS. Story creativity was predicted by low scores on conscientiousness. Depersonalization was not significantly related to creativity. The results of this investigation confirm and extend previous research in demonstrating a close association between creativity and specific personality traits. Future research should clarify the nature of the creative personality across individuals of differing levels and domains of expertise. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Whether levels of neuroticism or extraversion differ between patients with bipolar disorder (BD), major depressive disorder (MDD) and subjects from the general population, or between BD I and BD II patients, remains unclear.
BD patients (n=191) from the Jorvi Bipolar Study, and MDD patients (n=358) from both the Vantaa Depression Study and the Vantaa Primary Care Depression Study cohorts, were interviewed at baseline and at 18 months. A general population comparison group (n=347) was surveyed by mail. BD patients' neuroticism and extraversion scores, measured by Eysenck Personality Inventory, were compared at an index interview, when the levels of depression and mania were lowest, with scores of MDD patients and general population controls. Comparisons were also made between BD I (n=99) and BD II (n=92) patients.
In multinomial logistic regression, BD patients had higher neuroticism (OR=1.17, p<0.001) and lower extraversion (OR=0.92, p=0.003) than the general population. When entered simultaneously into the model, the effect of extraversion disappeared. In logistic regression, the levels of neuroticism and extraversion did not differ between BD and MDD patients, or between BD I and II patients.
Patients' personality scores were not pre-morbid.
Levels of neuroticism and extraversion are unlikely to differ between BD and MDD patients, or between BD I and II patients. The overall level of neuroticism is moderately higher and extraversion somewhat lower in BD patients than in the general population. High neuroticism may be an indicator of vulnerability to both bipolar and unipolar mood disorders.
Although economists have analyzed earnings, unemployment, and labor force participation for those with bipolar illness, occupational choice has yet to be explored. Psychological and medical studies often suggest an association between bipolar illness and creative achievement, but they tend to focus on eminent figures, case studies, or small samples. We seek to examine occupational creativity of non-eminent individuals with bipolar disorder. We use Epidemiologic Catchment Area data to estimate a multinomial logit model matched to an index of occupational creativity. Those with bipolar illness appear to be disproportionately concentrated in the most creative occupational category. Nonparametric kernel density estimates reveal that the densities of the occupational creativity variable for the bipolar and non-bipolar individuals significantly differ in the ECA data, and suggest that the probability of engaging in creative activities on the job is higher for bipolar than non-bipolar workers.
Enhanced creativity in bipolar disorder patients may be related to affective and cognitive phenomena.
32 bipolar disorder patients (BP), 21 unipolar major depressive disorder patients (MDD), 22 creative controls (CC), and 42 healthy controls (HC) (all euthymic) completed the Revised Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory (NEO), the Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego Autoquestionnaire (TEMPS-A), the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI); the Barron-Welsh Art Scale (BWAS), the Adjective Check List Creative Personality Scale, and the Figural and Verbal Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Mean scores were compared across groups, and relationships between temperament/personality and creativity were assessed with bivariate correlation and hierarchical multiple linear regression.
BP and CC (but not MDD) compared to HC had higher BWAS-Total (46% and 42% higher, respectively, p<0.05) and BWAS-Dislike (83% and 93% higher, p<0.02) scores, and higher MBTI-Intuition preference type rates (78% vs. 50% and 96% vs. 50%, p<0.05). BP, MDD, and CC, compared to HC, had increased TEMPS-A-Cyclothymia scores (666%, 451% and 434% higher, respectively, p<0.0001), and NEO-Neuroticism scores (60%, 57% and 51% higher, p<0.0001). NEO-Neuroticism and TEMPS-A Cyclothymia correlated with BWAS-Dislike (and BWAS-Total), while MBTI-Intuition continuous scores and NEO-Openness correlated with BWAS-Like (and BWAS-Total).
Relatively small sample size.
We replicate the role of cyclothymic and related temperaments in creativity, as well as that of intuitive processes. Further studies are needed to clarify relationships between creativity and affective and cognitive processes in bipolar disorder patients.
There is currently a great deal of interest in the use of affective temperaments as possible intermediate phenotypes for bipolar disorder. However, much of the literature in this area is conflicting. Our aims were to test the hypothesis of a gradient in affective temperament scores, as measured by the Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego (TEMPS-A), from bipolar disorder type I (BP-I), through bipolar disorder type II (BP-II), recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD-R), and a control group (CG) in the largest sample to date of 927 subjects.
Non parametric tests were used to compare TEMPS-A scores between diagnostic groups and multinomial logistic regression was used to test the association between TEMPS-A scores and diagnosis while controlling for current mood state, age and gender.
Although the BP-II group scored higher than the BP-I and MDD-R groups on several TEMPS-A subscales, these differences were not significant when confounding variables were controlled for. The dysthymic subscale differentiated between affected and controls and the anxious subscale differentiated the MDD-R group from controls.
The cross-sectional design did not allow us to evaluate potential longitudinal changes of temperament scores, which were assessed only with a self-report questionnaire.
We failed to find evidence of a gradient in affective temperament scores. Both unipolar and bipolar patients reported high dysthymic scores relative to controls, perhaps supporting a unitary view of depression across the bipolar-unipolar spectrum. Taking account of potential confounders will be important in future studies which seek to use affective temperaments as intermediate phenotypes in genetic research.
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.
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.
Using a nonclinical and noneminent population, this study demonstrates an overlap in creative and schizotypal traits in the areas of perceptual functioning, behavioral and personality styles, and interests. No such overlap is observed in the area of divergent thinking. A battery containing five creativity measures was administered to a group of college student subjects scoring high on either the Perceptual Aberration Scale or the Magical Ideation Scale (N = 52) and to a group of control subjects (N = 65). A multivariate analysis of variance indicated that subjects high on the schizotypal traits of Perceptual Aberration or Magical Ideation (Per-Mag subjects) differed significantly from control subjects on the five creativity tests. Per-Mag subjects scored significantly higher than control subjects on the Barron-Welsh Revised Art Scale, a measure of preferences for figures, and the How Do You Think, a biographical and personality measure. There was a tendency for female Per-Mag subjects to score higher than female control subjects on the Domino Creativity Scale of the Adjective Check List. Per-Mag and control subjects did not differ on the Gough Creative Personality Scale of the Adjective Check List or on the Alternate Uses test, a test of divergent thinking. Per-Mag subjects who scored above the median for their group and gender on the Impulsive Nonconformity Scale received the highest creativity scores on the Barron-Welsh Revised Art Scale and the How Do You Think, although these results only approached significance. These findings argue for the specificity of areas of similarity and difference in schizotypy and creativity.
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.
We examined differences between personality characteristics of euthymic bipolar disorder patients (BD) (n = 34) and recovered unipolar depressed patients (UD) (n = 74) using the taxonomy of the Five-Factor Model of personality (FFM) as measured by composite scales derived from the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI) and the revised NEO PI (NEO PI-R). Euthymic BD patients scored significantly higher on the Openness (O) dimension and the Positive Emotions facet of the E dimension than did recovered UD patients. For O, euthymic BD patients scored higher on the Feelings facet. These results suggest not only that euthymic BD patients are more likely to experience positive affects than recovered UD patients, but also that euthymic BD patients are more receptive to their positive and negative feelings than are recovered UD patients.
The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) was administered to a group of advertising and design creatives and to a comparable group of professionals and managers in occupations that were not evidently creative. The creatives were substantially more neurotic and more open to experience than the noncreatives, somewhat more extraverted, and less conscientious. Personality profiles suggesting low levels of ego control were more prevalent in the creatives group, but the difference was not significant. These findings are discussed in the light of Otto Rank's theory of creative development and in the context of commercial creativity. It is suggested that advertising and design creatives can be characterized as individuals at the intermediate stage of Rankian creative development.
The present article aims to examine premorbid personality traits of psychiatric patients with various diagnoses by asking their close relatives to retrospectively rate the patients' usual self with a questionnaire designed for the five-factor model of personality, a rapidly emerging comprehensive theory of personality structure. Data for 140 patients and 84 controls were analyzed. Although psychiatric patients as a group were characterized by high neuroticism and low conscientiousness when compared with the healthy controls, there were only a few traits that distinguished a particular diagnostic group from either the normal control or from the rest of the patients: neurotic disorder patients had higher neuroticism scores than the normal controls; unipolar depressives had a higher conscientiousness score than the rest of the patient group. No salient premorbid trait was noted for patients with organic mental disorders, schizophrenic disorders or bipolar disorders.
Increasingly, the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality is being used to assess personality characteristics of patients with Axis I disorders. Recent study indicates that patients with the seasonal subtype of major depression (SAD) may differ meaningfully from other depressed patients. In the present study, we further examined this finding, with attention to the stability of personality characteristics across treatment.
We used the NEO-FFM to assess the personality characteristics of two samples of depressed outpatients: patients with SAD and patients with bipolar disorder. Assessment was repeated in the SAD patients after light therapy.
Consistent with previous research, we found elevated scores on the Openness domain in the SAD patients. SAD patients also scored significantly lower on Neuroticism and significantly higher on the Conscientiousness and Extroversion domains than patients with bipolar disorder. Scores on the Openness domain remained elevated after treatment of SAD; this occurred in the context of significant decreases in Neuroticism and increases in Extroversion scores.
These results were obtained in a relatively small-sample study. Although our sample of bipolar patients were taking mood stabilizers, it is unlikely that medication effects could explain our results.
Our findings are consistent with those reported by Bagby et al. (Major depression and the five-factor model of personality. J. Pers. Disord. 1995;9:224-234) and suggests that Neuroticism and Extroversion are the FFM domains most responsive to treatment for depression. Our results also suggest that elevations on the Openness domain do not change with treatment and may be an enduring characteristic of patients with SAD.
The current study was designed to compare personality differences between bipolar patients and unipolar depressed patients, as evaluated on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ).
A group of bipolar and a group of unipolar depressed patients filled out the MBTI, the TPQ, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the CAGE questionnaire. The two groups were compared with each other as to responses on the above surveys, and subgroups of bipolar depressed and bipolar patients with manic symptoms were also compared.
Bipolar patients were found to be significantly more extroverted (p = 0.004) and less judging (p = 0.007) on the MBTI. They were significantly more novelty seeking (p = 0.004) and less harm avoidant (p = 0.002) on the TPQ. Of the above differences, only the TPQ harm avoidance scale appeared strongly linked to the patients' level of depression.
Significant differences in personality exist between bipolar disorder and unipolar depressed patients.
This study adopted an interactional approach to understanding how 2 of the Five-Factor traits, openness to experience and conscientiousness, are related to creative behavior in the workplace. Openness to experience is theorized to result in high levels of creative behavior and conscientiousness is theorized to result in low levels of creative behavior when the situation allows for the manifestation of the trait influences. More specifically, the authors hypothesized that openness to experience would result in high levels of creative behavior if feedback valence were positive and job holders were presented with a heuristic task that allowed them to be creative. The authors also hypothesized that conscientiousness would result in low levels of creative behavior if supervisors engaged in close monitoring and coworkers were unsupportive. The authors tested their hypotheses in a sample of office workers, and 5 out of the 6 hypotheses were supported.