Mental Illness and Creativity Flashcards
Structure of Kyaga et al’s (2011) study
Comparing two conditions:
- “case” group of individuals who had obtained treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, as well as their relatives
- control group: people who had had no inpatient treatment, matched to individuals in the case group based on gender and birth year.
And measuring how many people in each group are in a “creative” profession
[ Kyaga et al. (2011) ]
What were the mental illnesses examined in the case group?
What were some “creative” occupations?
Schizophrenia, bipolar, depression
University prof, visual artist, designer, display artist, musicians, authors
Results of Kyaga et al. (2011)
- cases starkly overrepresented in creative professions
- specifically, people with bipolar disorder, and non-pathological siblings of people with schizophrenia
- people with schizophrenia had no increased rate of creative profession compared to controls, but an increase rate in the subgroup of artistic occupations
- unipolar depression: neither people with the condition nor their siblings differed from controls.
(Hi Laura, if you’re wondering, this info is from the abstract of the Kyaga et al article: https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.110.085316 )
What are some critiques of Kyaga’s study? (Brought up in class)
- Reserachers examined only one class of creative professionals
- Results of Taylor et al. (2007) meta-analysis
Examined direction of relationship: Having a mood disorder doesn’t mean that one will be more creative, but creative people are more likely to have mood disorders.
Creative accomplishment & behaviours were associated with bipolar
Findings of Power et al. (2015)
Took genetic profiles of people with risk for schizophrenia, risk for bipolar, and polygenic risk. Correlated them with membership in national artistic societies.
POLYGENIC risk score associated with increased odds (1.7) of belonging to a national artistic society
Schizophrenia risk scores explained .24% of variance in creativity
Bipolar disorder scores explained .26% of variance in creativity
Simonton (2014) conducted a _______ study.
Historimetric.
Historimetry is the historical study of human progress, either of populations or certain individuals. May be measured by the number of references to an individual and/or their discoveries. Is an attempt to quantify and measure human progress.
Structure of Simonton (2014) study
Identified 204 historical creative geniuses, from 2 independent historimetrical samples. Included scientists, thinkers, artists, writers, and composers.
Creative eminence was rated by a third party, and psychopathology was independently rated.
Psychopathology was rated on a scale of 0-4 (0 = no psychopathology, 4 = severe psychopathology) based on biographical materials.
Results of Simonton (2014)
While the relationship between creative eminence and psychopathology was insignificant, differences in creative eminence BETWEEN professions were observed.
For artists, writers, composers, and thinkers, their creative eminence increased with the amount of psychopathology exhibited.
For scientists, creative eminence increased when a level of psychopathology reached a rating between 1 and 2 (out of 4). Any psychopathology ratings higher than this, and their creative eminence dropped.
What are potential mechanisms for the link between mental illness and creativity?
- Balancing selection hypothesis: Argument that alleles with disadvantageous consequences may increase fitness in other areas, so they stay in the population.
So creativity and divergent thinking styles may be an advantage of alleles that confer susceptibility to mental disorders - People with schizophrenia are less constrained by common sense (Owen & David (2007); study where they were less constrained by common sense when solving logical syllogisms)
- In bipolar disorder, mania and hypomania are associated with augmented productivity.
- People with mood swings and people at risk for bipolar disorder scored higher on measures of creativity. Many people with bipolar recognize creativity as an aspect of their condition.
- Positive symptoms* of schizophrenia linked to creativity styles
- neurological differences; neurotransmitters and the genetic component of neurotransmitter balance
- personality traits: openness to experience (Big 5/HEXACO): people with high O are more likely to have mental health concerns; approach-avoidance: people with high approach may experience greater creativity
- developmental antecedents: adverse experiences can contribute to mental illness development, do they contribute to creativity as well?
- in contrast to negative symptoms of schizophrenia
Title card: The “No” side
Hello, this title card is practical if you are studying the material in order, and/or just becoming familiar with the material. It is probably useless if you are studying with cards shuffled. :)
Briefly explain the no slide (will fill in later)
:)
Cognitive biases may be influencing people to perceive an illusory correlation between creativity and mental illness. What are those biases? (2)
Base rate fallacy: tendency to focus on specific, vivid examples, and ignore more relevant but generic information
Availability heuristic: estimating the frequency of an event by the ease with which examples come to mind. For example, vivid examples of artists with mental illness such as Van Gogh and Kurt Cobain come to mind and are easily recalled. This can cause one to overestimate the frequency of the phenomenon occurring.
Potential limitations of research in this area
- The lack of control groups, or inadequate control groups.
- Failure to control for potential confounds
- Recall bias and role adherence
- No random sampling or blinding
- Biases of historimetric studies
- Overlap between symptoms and creative process
Lack of control groups/inadequate control groups - examples
Kyaga et al. (2011) examined many classes of creative professions and only one class of non-creative profession (accountants and auditors). Can’t draw conclusions if experimental design doesn’t allow hypothesis to be falsified.
