The study's broad, long-term objectives are to advance understanding of the relation of creativity to variables that are associated with liability for schizophrenia.
The specific aims are to test hypotheses about the relation of creativity to liability for schizophrenia. The study will test: (a) whether previous reports of higher creativity in the relatives of schizophrenics and in individuals with multiple schizotypal signals can be confirmed with more rigorous methods, including new and larger samples, current diagnostic criteria, more sensitive measures of schizotypal features, and reliable measures of creativity shown in real-life activities. The study will also test (b) whether individuals with multiple schizotypal signals will similarly score significantly higher than controls on tests of creative thinking. The research design involves (a) samples of 70 schizophrenic probands, (b) 110 of their adult siblings, and (c) 110 normal controls. The sibling and control samples will be matched for age, gender, and ethnicity, and each group will be diagnosed using DSM-IV criteria and research interviews (SCID), supplemented by data from chart reviews and family informants. Schizotypal features will be assessed using the Structured Interview for Schizotypy and the Perceptual Aberration-Magical Thinking Scale. Subjects' creativity will be assessed, while blind to diagnostic data, using measures of real-life avocational and vocational creativity (the Lifetime Creativity Scales) as well as of creative thinking (the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking). Rapid advances in the ability to detect genes for schizophrenia make it increasing important to know whether such genes may also be associated with beneficial behavioral traits. Knowledge that genes which increase risk for schizophrenia are also associated with creativity-enhancing traits would have important health implications for individuals and social decisions about how to apply new genetic knowledge.
