ADHD and Creativity: Are People with ADHD More Creative?

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD) is a child psychiatric disorder of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. In the traditional education system, children with ADHD often face challenges because they may feel uncomfortable sitting still on a chair and listening to lectures. However, outside of the academic world, there are a lot of positive aspects and strengths associated with ADHD, one of which is creativity, which includes cognitive flexibility and cognitive persistence.

What is creativity?

Creativity includes cognitive flexibility and cognitive persistence.

Cognitive flexibility involves seeing associations between concepts that are only remotely related and switching between different task approaches. An example of cognitive flexibility: divergent thinking, is the ability to generate many alternative options to a single open-ended problem. Cognitive persistence is defined as the degree of sustained and focused task-directed cognitive effort, with sustained goal-directed processes needing focused attention over an extended period of time.

Creative problems are often complex and ill-defined, and the creative process must start by restructuring the context and ultimate goals of the problem at hand. Then, a person may generate multiple potential solutions for the identified problem and evaluate the feasibility of those solutions.

How may ADHD help with their creativity?

The Torrance test is an official test to test creativity in children.

Children often give the Torrance test of creative thinking to determine four mental characteristics: fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality, which are used to deal with divergent thinking and other problem-solving skills.

In some research, children with ADHD score higher on the Torrance test than other children.

As for the proposed mechanism, studies show an overlapping mechanism between ADHD and creativity points. Hence, ADHD may help with their cognitive flexibility. Individuals with ADHD tend to use their raw material from memory and transform it into creative ideas. For example,

Another proposed mechanism is that ADHD characteristics including hyperactivity, impulsivity, distractibility, and disorganization echo those of creativity features including adventurous, nonconforming, and impulsive.

How may creativity help with their career?

Entrepreneurship: Hyperactive symptoms were positively associated with a general entrepreneurial orientation. A study conducted in Brazil shows that individuals with ADHD choose to work independently because their ADHD features can enable them to be open to new experiences and have better imagination, multitasking, and innovation. They are more prone to risk-taking and hence choose to start a business independently.

Examples of entrepreneurs with ADHD

Ingvar Kamprad: Founder of IKEA.

David Neeleman: Founder and CEO of Jet Blue Airways

Richard Branson: Founder of Virgin Airlines

How may ADHD not help them with their creativity?

Studies also show that they may not be able to score highly on the closed-ended test. It is hypothesised that individuals with ADHD may not be good at convergent thinking. This means that when the questions have some restrictions like rules and regulations, they may feel difficult to apply the rules and then deduct and conclude. And sometimes, they may be unconsciously controlled by their symptoms, such as impulsivity and inattentiveness, making it hard to sit down for a longer period and focus on solving problems.

Conclusion

Parents can see ADHD as a double-edged sword. ADHD-like thoughts, behaviours, and symptoms Parents can positively see ADHD symptoms like mind-wandering and inattentiveness because they are the entryways to creativity. They can then access their creativity if ADHD individuals consciously know their own condition and take advantage of their symptoms. For instance, mild mind wandering will help in problem-solving tasks by creating and incubating new ideas. However, people with ADHD may not feel comfortable when carrying out time-constrained tasks due to their distractibility. When nurturing and educating a child with ADHD, parents and caregivers should recognize the heterogeneity of ADHD because certain personality traits may not receive approval from the traditional education system. During the nurturing process, encourage them to use their divergent thinking and involve them in a problem solving task, and they will surprise you with their capability in the end.

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