Writing synopsis of creativity research has led me to realize how much my spelling has deteriorated.  Mostly I rely on the word processor’s spell check, but sometimes it doesn’t recognize the scientific terms; other times it doesn’t recognize my vague resemblance of the actual word.  But when I keep running into the same word over and over again, I learn to type it right the first time.  So after a week of researching the creative personality I can accurately type out psychoticism even though it is not in my spell checker.

What does this trait, largely associated with mental illness and criminal behavior, have to do with creativity? Hans J. Eysenck developed a personality model based on three dimensions: Psychoticism, Extraversion, and Neuroticism. Using his three dimensional model he found that people with recognized artist achievement typically have a higher score on psychotic scale than non-creative people. These traits include: