Adults with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are likely to excel at creative work-related tasks, according to a new study at the University of Michigan (U-M). The findings show that those with ADHD are more flexible in tasks that require inventing something totally new and less likely to rely on examples and previous knowledge. Study author Dr. Holly White, a researcher in the U-M Department of Psychology, said many individuals with ADHD are inclined to resist conformity and the usual way of doing things, and this can work to their advantage in fields that value innovative and nontraditional approaches such as marketing, product design, technology and computer engineering. The study compared a group of college students with ADHD to those without the disorder on tasks of creativity. The imagination task, called the “alien fruit” invention task, involved creating an example of a fictional fruit that might exist on another planet but is different from a fruit known to

Source: Adults with ADHD Tend to Excel at Creative Originality