Studies of creativity and affective illness typically focus on eminent individuals in specific fields. This is the first study to select subjects solely by diagnosis, and then evaluate their overall creative accomplishments. Seventeen manic-depressives, 16 cyclothymes, and 11 normal first-degree relatives we compared with 33 controls with no personal or family history of major affective disorder, cyclothymia, or schizophrenia; 15 controls were normal and 18 carried another diagnosis. Peak creativity was assessed by raters blind to subjects' diagnosis with the use of the Lifetime Creativity Scales. Orthogonal contrasts showed (a) creativity to be significantly higher among the combined index subjects (manic-depressive, cyclothymes, and normal relatives) than among controls (/>< .05), (b) no significant difference between normal and ill controls, and (c) suggestively higher creativity among normal index relatives than among manic-depressives (p < . 10). (Cyclothymes fell close to normal relatives.) Liability for manic-depressive illness may carry advantages for creativity, perhaps particularly among those individuals who are relatively better functioning.Bipolar manic-depressive illness (MDI) tends to run in families. Adoption and twin studies support a marked genetic conion to this familial pattern (e.g., Bertelsen, 1979;Mendlewicz & Ranier, 1977;Wender et al., 1986). In this study we investigated whether manic-depressive pathology might be associated with positive behavioral characteristics that run in the same families. Such a compensatory advantage to genes that increase vulnerability to illness has been proposed for behavioral disorders such as schizophrenia (e.g., Kinney & Matthysse, 1978). A rough analogy may be drawn to sickle cell anemia, although the genetics of affective disorder are likely more complex. In the sickle-cell case, individuals homozygous for the mutant gene typically have severe anemia with clinical complications and often suffer an early death. In contrast, the much larger number of heterozygous carriers of the gene are frequently asymptomatic and have the advantage of increased resistance to malaria.A version of this article was presented at the 93rd annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, August 1985.We are grateful to Paul Wendei; Seymour Kety, Fini Schulsinger, and David Rosen thai for permission to use the present sample and interview data base for this study of creativity, and to the Spencer Foundation for its support of the further development and refinement of the Lifetime Creativity Scales. We wish to thank Seymour Kety, Steven Matthysse, Sandow Ruby, and Christine Waternaux for their helpful suggestions. Sincere thanks are also extended to Beth Gerstels and Carol Paik for their assistance in making creativity assessments, and to Heidi Daniels and Karen Linkins for work on data analysis and preparation of tables.
Major depression disorder is a common psychiatric disease with a major economic impact on society. In many cases, no effective treatment is available. The etiology of major depression is complex, but it is clear that the disease is, to a large extent, determined genetically, especially among individuals with a familial history of major depression, presumably through the involvement of multiple predisposition genes in addition to an environmental component. As a first step toward identification of chromosomal loci contributing to genetic predisposition to major depression, we have conducted a genomewide scan by using 628 microsatellite markers on 1,890 individuals from 110 Utah pedigrees with a strong family history of major depression. We identified significant linkage to major depression in males at marker D12S1300 (multipoint heterogeneity LOD score 4.6; P=.00003 after adjustment for multiple testing). With additional markers, the linkage evidence became highly significant, with the multipoint heterogeneity LOD score at marker D12S1706 increasing to 6.1 (P=.0000007 after adjustment for multiple testing). This study confirms the presence of one or more genes involved in psychiatric diseases on the q arm of chromosome 12 and provides strong evidence for the existence of a sex-specific predisposition gene to major depression at 12q22-q23.2.
What (the creator) feels ... is joy, joy defined as the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that accompanies the experience of actualizing one's own potentialities.-Rollo May Our everyday creativity is not only good for us but also one of the most powerful capacities we have, bringing us alive in each moment, affecting our health and well-being, offering richness and alternatives in what we do, and helping us move further in our creative and personal development. We may nonetheless resist our own creativity and, even at times without knowing it, resist or suppress the creativity of others as well. How and why does this happen? What precisely are we giving up? If we are more consciously aware of what we are losing, might we respond differently?First, everyday creativity is not what many people expect from the word creativity. To them, creativity is about arts, or maybe sciences, or at least about special fields of endeavor. Sometimes it is about special people as well, such as famous artists, best-selling novelists, or groundbreaking scientists . Such creativity is not primarily about us.Indeed, everyday creativity is about everyone, throughout our lives; it is fundamental to our survival. It is how we find a lost child, get enough 25
A new research tool, the Lifetime Creativity Scales (LCS), is presented, along with validation evidence based on three personally interviewed, independent samples totalling 541 subjects. The LCS provide broad-based assessment of original activity at work and leisure, without the requirement that activities be socially recognized or limited to particular fields of endeavor. The LCS therefore allow study of everyday creativity in unselected populations, and they open up new research possibilities. The scales show high intcrraler reliability and multiple indications of construct validity. Findings with the validation samples raise interesting questions, including the relationship between vocational and avocational creativity.The Lifetime Creativity Scales (LCS) go beyond previous measures of creativity to assess creative accomplishment in diverse or unselected groups of people. A focus on real-life activity avoids the pitfalls of artificial measurement situations designed to elicit "creative" behaviors (e.g., Hocevar, 1981). Creativity is identified by two widely employed criteria (after Barren. 1969): (a) originality-new or unusual elements must be involved, and (b) adaptation to reality-outcomes must be meaningful to others rather than random or idiosyncratic. Creativity so defined may be identified in virtually any field of activity. Assessment need not be restricted-as it often is-to traditionally creative areas of endeavor (e.g., the arts and sciences) or to accomplishments that are socially recognized.The LCS involve two types of variables pertaining, respectively, to quality and quantity of creativity: measures of "peak creativity" and "extent of involvement in creative activity."A preliminary report on the Lifetime Creativity Scales was presented at the 138th annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association,
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