Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) tend to excel at creativity. They are more flexible in tasks that require inventing something entirely new, and less likely to rely on examples and previous knowledge. These are advantages in fields such as marketing, design, technology, and computer engineering.
A new study at the University of Michigan recruited a group of college students with and without ADHD. They were tested on creativity tasks such as the imagination task, alien fruit. In this task, participants must come up with fictional fruit that might exist on other planets, and are different from any fruit known to exist on earth.
Students without ADHD tended to model their fruit on existing fruit; but participants with ADHD were more likely to invent original ‘alien fruit’ that differ significantly from known fruit.
In a second task, participants had to create labels for new products in three categories without copying the examples provided. The ADHD group created labels that were unique and not similar to the examples provided, compared to the non-ADHD group.
These tasks showed that people with ADHD might be more flexible in their thinking, and more innovative, compared to people without ADHD. Whereas those with ADHD may struggle in many types of job, they should be an excellent fit in creative fields.
Sources
Pedersen, T. (10 October 2018). Adults with ADHD tend to excel at creative originality. Psychcentral.com. Retrieved 8 November 2018 from https://psychcentral.com/news/2018/10/10/adults-with-adhd-tend-to-excel-at-creative-originality/139380.html.
University of Michigan. (9 October 2018). Thinking outside the box: Adults with ADHD not constrained in creativity. Retrieved 8 November 2018 from https://news.umich.edu/thinking-outside-the-box-adults-with-adhd-not-constrained-in-creativity/.
White, H.A. (30 September 2018). Thinking “outside the box”: Unconstrained creative generation in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Creative behavior. Advance online publication. DOI: 10.1002/jocb.382.