Frontiers in Psychology (Aug 2014)

Creativity measured by divergent thinking is associated with two axes of autistic characteristics

  • Hikaru eTakeuchi,
  • Yasuyuki eTaki,
  • Atsushi eSekiguchi,
  • Rui eNouchi,
  • Yuka eKotozaki,
  • Seishu eNakagawa,
  • Carlos eMiyauchi,
  • Kunio eIizuka,
  • Ryoichi eYokoyama,
  • Takamitsu eShinada,
  • Yuki eYamamoto,
  • Sugiko eHanawa,
  • Tuyoshi eAraki,
  • Hiroshi eHashizume,
  • Yuko eSassa,
  • Ryuta eKawashima

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00921
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5

Abstract

Read online

Creativity generally involves the conception of original and valuable ideas. Empathizing is the drive to identify the mental status of other individuals and respond to it with an appropriate emotion; systemizing is the drive to analyze a system. Recently, it has been proposed that low empathizing and high systemizing characterize individuals with autistic spectrum conditions (ASCs). It has been proposed that this higher systemizing underlies the academic achievement of these individuals, suggesting the possible positive association between creativity and systemizing. However, previous findings on the association between ASCs and creativity were conflicting. Conversely, previous studies have suggested an association between prosocial traits and creativity, indicating the possible association between empathizing and systemizing. Here we investigated the association between creativity measured by divergent thinking (CDT) and empathizing, systemizing, and the discrepancy between systemizing and empathizing, which is called D score. CDT was measured using the S-A creativity test and the score of empathizing (EQ) and that of systemizing (SQ), and D score was measured via a validated questionnaire. The results showed that higher CDT was significantly and positively correlated with both the score of empathizing and the score of systemizing but not with D score. These results suggest that CDT is positively associated with one of the characteristics of ASCs (analytical aspects), while exhibiting a negative association with another (lower social aspects). Therefore, the discrepancy between systemizing and empathizing, which is strongly associated with autistic tendency, was not associated with CDT.

Keywords