Negative Schizotypal Traits in the Relation of Creativity to Psychopathology

Abstract

Schizotypal traits and symptoms provide a framework for understanding an individual's proneness to psychosis. Schizotypy also has proven to be an important variable in understanding the link between creativity and the development of mental illness. Negative schizotypal traits and 3 dimensions of creativity (divergent thinking, personality, and perception) were studied in a sample of 116 undergraduates. Results indicated that negative schizotypal traits were significantly associated with creativity. Negative schizotypy, narrowly defined as social anhedonia, was related only to divergent thinking, whereas a more general measure of negative schizotypy, psychoticism, was related to creative personality and perception. When schizotypy and creativity traits were grouped separately as composite variable sets, the correlation between these 2 constructs increased. Two descriptions of the creative person likely to have negative schizotypal symptoms emerge dependent on how negative schizotypy is conceptualized. Findings confirm the contribution of schizotypy to the onset of mental illness in creative people, but also challenge H. J. Eysenck's contention that psychoticism is associated with divergent thinking, a cognitive dimension of creativity.