Do you consider yourself to be creative? If so, science says you could be a psychopath, because apparently creativity breeds psychopathy – or vice versa. Should you be a great actor, artist, writer (or have any other creative talent) and you find yourself rooting for the dark side in Star Wars, you may want to read on.
Creativity has always been deemed a cool gift, but apparently there is a flip side, of which reveals a creative person to potentially harbour dark psychopathic tendencies. A study conducted by researchers at De LA Salle University in Manila think they have discovered a clear connection between creativity and the characteristics of psychopathy.
We all have heard rich people cite the phrase, ‘you have to take risks if you want to succeed.’ Well, now we have a new appreciation for the term. The above-mentioned study involved analysing how 503 people dealt with a variety of gambling tasks, as well as questionnaires that encouraged the prospect of risk-taking, of which is a well-known psychopathic characteristics. The results showed that taking risks was the fundamental reason behind the success of creative people.
One of the study’s researchers’ stated: “We argue that emotional disinhibition, in the form of psychopathic boldness, is actually integral to some creative personalities and functionally related to the creative process.”
The researcher further added that, “Generally then, a creative field might not just shape a person into a more arrogant or dishonest personality, it might be actively selecting them, not for the sake of having disagreeable traits, but because such traits meaningfully co-vary with creativity itself.”
Should you know a creative person that is rich and successful, you now have a reason why you might not need to be too jealous. You may also want to reconsider whether getting the creeps a bit when you are near them is actually founded by pure envy.
However, if you happen to be that creative person – well, psychopathy tends to get a bad rap.
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