Preliminary Communication
The Relationship of Creativity with Schizotypy and Psychoticism in Students of Artistic and Other Domains
Maša Milas - Department of Psychology, University of Zadar, Zadar
Ana Šimunić - Department of Psychology, University of Zadar, Zadar
https://doi.org/10.21465/2016-SP-192-06
Fulltext (croatian, pages 205-215).pdf
Abstracts
The study of the relationships between creativity and clinical and sub-clinical psychopathologies is important, because it provides insight into the cognitive and behavioural correlates of creativity. It is found that milder forms of psychopathological traits, such as schizotypy or psychoticism, may be the most beneficial to creativity. Considering this fact, the aim of this study was to examine the relationship between creativity, schizotypy, and psychoticism in groups of students of artistic and other domains. The study included 104 artistic domain students and 193 nonartistic domain students.
The results show a statistically significant difference in two schizotypy dimensions (unusual experiences and cognitive disorganisation) and in the number of creative interests and activities between the two groups of students. Students from artistic colleges experience more unusual experiences such as hallucinations and delusions and have more disorganised thoughts, looser conceptual boundaries and attention deficits compared to nonartistic domain students. Also, artistic domain students reported a greater number of creative interests and activities than nonartistic domain students. Furthermore, students who have more unusual experiences and whose mood and behaviour (especially one connected with social norms and conventions) are unstable more often, have more creative activities. On the other hand, those students who are more prone to introverted, asocial behaviour with reduced ability in experiencing pleasure, have less creative interests and activities. No significant correlation was found between psychoticism and creativity.
Keywords
Key words: creativity, schizotypy, psychoticism