There is an evolutionary puzzle surrounding the persistence of schizophrenia, since it is substantially heritable and associated with sharply reduced fitness. However, some of the personality traits which are predictive of schizophrenia are also associated with artistic creativity. Geoffrey Miller has proposed that artistic creativity functions to attract mates. Here, we investigate the relationship between schizotypal personality traits, creative activity, and mating success in a large sample of British poets, visual artists, and other adults. We show that two components of schizotypy are positively correlated with mating success. For one component, this relationship is mediated by creative activity. Results are discussed in terms of the evolution of human creativity and the genesis of schizophrenia.

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Geoffrey Miller has hypothesized that producing artwork functions as a mating display. Here we investigate the relationship between mating success and artistic success in a sample of 236 visual artists. Initially, we derived a measure of artistic success that covered a broad range of artistic behaviors and beliefs. As predicted by Miller’s evolutionary theory, more successful male artists had more sexual partners than less successful artists but this did not hold for female artists. Also, male artists with greater artistic success had a mating strategy based on longer term relationships. Overall the results provide partial support for the sexual selection hypothesis for the function of visual art.

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