ADHD & Creativity
In this commentary, I address the statement often made in the trade media about ADHD that it is associated with elevated rates of creative abilities. I will discuss reviews of the scientific findings on this topic. The research shows that the answer to this assertion about ADHD and creativity is a complicated one that cannot be reduced to some simplistic slogan. Whether or not ADHD is linked to elevated creativity depends on how ADHD was measured, if the study used clinical diagnostic criteria and not just elevated ratings on a rating scale of ADHD, how intelligent the sample was, and also what measures of creativity were being used in the study. So there is a lot more nuance to answering this issue than trade authors make it out to be. That said, we find that somewhat elevated symptoms of ADHD, but not high enough to be a clinical diagnosis of ADHD, are likely related to increased levels of divergent but not convergent creativity. But when clinically diagnosed groups of people with ADHD are studied, there is no compelling evidence that they are more creative, either on divergent or convergent measures. There was also no evidence that stimulant medications negatively affected creativity. I conclude that there is likely an inverted-U relationship of ADHD to creativity as has been found for other forms of psychopathology, in which slightly higher symptoms might be associated with more divergent thinking and creativity but when symptoms become high enough to be a clinical disorder they are not associated with greater creativity. And, if high enough, might even detract from creativity.
Links to articles in the video:
Healey and Rucklidge (2008) review
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Paek et al. (2016) meta-analysis review
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Hoogman et al. (2020) meta-analysis and review
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Abraham (2014) review of creativity and psychopathology – the concept of an inverted-U
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