Creativity and Psychopathy — Two Sides of the Same Coin

The recent passing of Prince reminds us of our national fascination with his sense of style and eccentric personality. While his talent was unique, many artists, actors and musicians tend to be “different” from the rest of us, and many have a reputation for being “divas” and difficult with which to get along.

Science now says it may be because creative people tend to share the same personality traits as psychopaths. So if you are creative, are you a psychopath?

Think about the really creative people you know for a moment …

Recently researchers ran an online survey examining the trifecta traits of the dark side -- narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy.

The results showed that those who tended to be more creative also had higher scores for psychopathic traits like boldness, meanness, dishonesty and deception. Researchers say you could call them “tricksters.” So which comes first, the creative chicken or psychopathic egg?

Study authors say tricksters appeal to audiences because of their ability to solve problems through cleverness. They add it could turn out that the a portion of the price of human discovery in some arenas could be to give the diva and the tricksters more credit. (Daily Mail)