Adult ADHD facilitates Creativity

Posted on October 11, 2018

Typically, people with ADHD, a mental disorder often diagnosed during childhood, will go against conforming to societal norms and block out common information. These are highly beneficial traits for jobs in the creative industry like product design, marketing, technology and computer engineering, which encourages innovation and approaches that are different from the usual traditions.

In a creativity task research done between ADHD and non-ADHD college students, ADHD students are proven to be more creative and innovative than students without ADHD. When asked to design a foreign fruit which might exist in another universe, non-ADHD students mostly came up with inventions adapted from the common fruits which exist in our world today, such as an orange or banana. Those inventions are said to lack uniqueness and creativity. Whereas for ADHD students, they came up with fruits which were way more different than the common fruits that exist on Earth today. They were more original and novel as compared to what the non-ADHD students designed.

Another study done also showed that people with ADHD were able to generate more unique and different labels as compared to people without ADHD. This shows that people with ADHD might be more adaptive when it comes to situations or tasks that are related to creating an entirely new invention and are less probable to depend on sample examples and information they acquired from before.

Apart from coming up with more innovative and creative inventions, people with ADHD are also less likely to experience design fixation, which refers to the likelihood of being trapped into having the same old thoughts or following closely with what has already been created while generating an invention. This is useful in creative design and problem solving in the real world, when the objective is to generate or invent a new product or idea without being restricted by old examples or usual style of doing things.

In conclusion, ADHD is something which can be put into good use. It is useful in creative tasks and driving towards success in a career related to innovative designing and creating new products and ideas.


Category(s):Adult ADHD, Adult psychological development, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Life Purpose / Meaning / Inner-Guidance, Positive Psychology

Source material from EurekAlert!