First, although highly creative individuals tend to exhibit elevated scores on certain psychopathological symptoms, their scores are seldom so high as to represent bona fide psychopathology. Instead, the scores lie somewhere between the normal and abnormal ranges (Barron, 1963; Eysenck, 1995). For example, although successful writers score higher than normals on most clinical scales of the MMPI, and highly creative writers score higher still, scores for both groups remain below those received by individuals who are psychotic (Figure). At these moderate levels, the individual will possess traits that can actually be considered adaptive from the standpoint of creative behavior. For instance, higher than average scores on psychoticism are associated with independence and nonconformity, features that lend support to innovative activities (Eysenck, 1995). In addition, elevated scores on psychoticism are associated with the capacity for defocused attention (e.g., reduced negative priming and latent inhibition), thereby enabling ideas to enter the mind that would normally be filtered out during information processing (Eysenck, 1993). This less restrictive mode of information processing is also associated with openness to experience, a cognitive inclination that is positively associated with creativity (Peterson and Carson, 2000; Peterson et al., 2002).
Second, creative individuals score high on other characteristics that would seem to dampen the effects of any psychopathological symptoms. In particular, creators display high levels of ego strength and self-sufficiency (Barron, 1963; Cattell and Butcher, 1968). Accordingly, they can exert meta-cognitive control over their symptoms, taking advantage of bizarre thoughts, rather than having the bizarre thoughts take advantage of them. Furthermore, the capacity to exploit unusual ideas is supported by general intelligence. Although intelligence is not correlated with creativity in the upper levels of the intelligence distribution, a certain minimal level of intelligence is required for exceptional creativity (Simonton, 2000). That threshold level is in the gifted range, roughly equivalent to an IQ 120. Creators do not necessarily have genius-grade IQs, but they do have sufficient information processing power to select, develop, elaborate and refine original ideas into creative contributions.
Theoretical Interpretation
Do these results imply that creativity and psychopathology are intimately connected? Are genius and madness tantamount to the same thing? The answer to the first question is affirmative, but the response to the second is negative. The affirmation comes from the fact that various indicators of mental health appear to be negatively associated with creative achievement. This fact is demonstrated by historiometric, psychiatric and psychometric sources. The negation emerges from the equally crucial reality that few creative individuals can be considered truly mentally ill. Indeed, outright psychopathology usually inhibits rather than helps creative expression.
Even more significant is the fact that a very large proportion of creators exhibit no pathological symptoms, at least not to any measurable degree. Hence, psychopathology is by no means a sine qua non of creativity. Instead, it is probably more accurate to say that creativity shares certain cognitive and dispositional traits with specific symptoms, and that the degree of that commonality is contingent on the level and type of creativity that an individual displays. To be more specific, the relationship can be expressed as follows.
In general, creativity requires the cognitive ability and the dispositional willingness to "think outside the box"; to explore novel, unconventional and even odd possibilities; to be open to serendipitous events and fortuitous results; and to imagine the implausible or consider the unlikely. From this requirement arises the need for creators to have such traits as defocused attention, divergent thinking, openness to experience, independence and nonconformity. Let us call this complex configuration of traits the "creativity cluster."
The higher the level of creativity displayed, the higher the likelihood that the individual manifests this cluster. In addition, some domains require this cluster more than others do. For instance, scientific creativity tends to be more constrained by logic and fact than artistic creativity. Accordingly, this creativity cluster of attributes will be more apparent in artists than in scientists (Simonton, 2004). However, there will be some differences even with each of these general domains. For example, artists operating in formal, classical or academic styles will operate under more constraints than artists working in more expressive, subjective or romantic styles (Ludwig, 1998). The extent to which they exhibit the creativity cluster will reflect this stylistic contrast.
Because some psychopathological symptoms correlate with several of the characteristics making up the creativity cluster, moderate amounts of these symptoms will be positively associated with creative behavior. Moreover, more creative individuals will display these traits to a higher degree. Creators operating in less-constrained domains will also exhibit these symptoms to a greater extent.
