Physiological and behavioral correltes of risk-taking, along with latent inhibition, predicts creativity: Preliminary evidence for the prosocial-psychopath model

• Main Author: Galang, Adrianne John R.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: Personality and creative ability; Personality and Social Contexts; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/6268
• Institution: De La Salle University

The prosocial psychopath model of creativity (Galang 2010) proposes that some highly creative personalities share certain neuropsychological features in common with people who would be described as having psychopathic traits. A key part of the model predicts that psychopathy related traits such as risk-taking behavior and lowered autonomic response as measured by electrodermal activity (EDA) in the context of risk would be related to divergent thinking and creative achievement, and that this relationship would be moderated by reduced latent inhibition (LI). In a sample of undergraduate students (n=133), it was found that risk-taking behavior during the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) in conjunction with low LI predicted divergent thinking performance. Reduced EDA during the IGT also predicted better divergent thinking. The three way interaction between IGT, EDA, and LI significantly predicted scores on the Creative Achievement Questionnaire (Carson et al. 2005). Contrary to previous studies, LI did not directly predict divergent thinking or CAQ scores. The results point to the predictive usefulness of the prosocial psychopath model in general, but also raise some problems regarding some of its more specific claims.