Friday, December 12, 2014

ADHD Linked to Creativity

Albert Einstein, Virginia Woolf, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robin Williams, and Bill Gates; all well known for their creativity, have another thing in common: attention hyper deficit disorder. Stories of creative people usually feature problems they have at school, the fact that they can not pay attention and the constant bouts of day dreaming. The misconception that people with ADHD cannot pay attention to anything long enough to get anything done is wrong. When impassioned with an activity or idea, people with ADHD will often times become consumed by it, giving their full attention to it. This trend has peaked the attention of the scientific community, sparking several different studies to be achieved by different researchers.
A study done by Darya Zabelina and Mark Beeman did not focus on people with ADHD, but instead studied highly creative people and their ability to perform on two forms of attention, attentional persistence and attentional flexibility. The study was done on undergraduate students all tested by the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT), the test measures the level of creativity each person has. They divided the students into two groups: low and high creative scores. Then they tested them on their ability to focus on one task for a long time and their ability to switch between tasks. The results were very interesting. The highly creative people scored highly on attentional persistence, but when it came to attentional flexibility, their ability to switch between tasks was remarkably lower than their less creative counterparts. It seems that it is more taxing for creative people to switch between tasks. It might explain why they are so creative, their ability to stay focused on tasks of interest for extended amounts of time may be the reason why they are so creative, they have the ability to continue working until their craft or idea is perfected. Similarly, their inability to switch their attention as well as non-creative people might be the reason why they may seem so scatter-brained and unable to keep their attention on tasks that are unimportant to them and ultimately holding aspects of ADHD.
Another study was done that actually sought to see if there were any links between ADHD and the level of creativity that a person may hold. Holly White and Priti Shah performed this study on adults with ADHD and non ADHD. They measured their level of creativity using a similar standardized test as the one Zabeling used, this one was the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults and investigated the real world creative achievement that each adult held to make sure that the results concurred with their actual level of creativity. The tests showed that the people with ADHD held higher levels of creativity and also had greater achievement of creativity in the real world than their non ADHD counterparts. They also compared the creative styles of each adult with the FourSight Thinking profile which gives insight into an individual's preferred way of clarifying, generating, developing, and implementing of ideas. The results generated clearly indicated that adults with ADHD had a higher preference for idea generation than non ADHD adults.
What can be taken from both these studies is that creativity has a strong correlation with attentiveness or the lack of ability to switch between tasks. ADHD, a disorder that has been long thought to inhibit children and adults, may actually allow them to be more creative. These studies may help to understand and better use the abilities of people with ADHD. Their talents could be used in more creative careers or tasks and may even help to find ways to teach them in school. The knowledge gained by these studies could offer a better quality of life for people with ADHD and alternatives to better fit their abilities.

References:
White, Holly A., & Shah, Priti. (2011). Creative Style and Achievement In Adults with Attention                  Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Personality and Individual Differences,50 (5), 637- 677.

Zabelina, D.L., & Beeman, M. (2013). Short-Term Attentional Perseveration Associated with Real-Life Creative Achievement. Frontiers in Psychology, 4 (191), 1-8. https://luc.app.box.com/s/4c031c26bsh2bj3619si/1/2379149883/20397003703/1


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