Inside a Creativity Mirage: Bipolar Traits Are Related to Biases in Self-Evaluations of Originality
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The romanticized notion of the creative "mad genius" or "tortured artist" often places bipolar tendencies at the very center of the narrative. Yet the literature reveals a mixed relationship between bipolar traits and ideational originality. In this correlational study, we examine whether bipolar traits differentially relate to subjective and objective originality in a non-clinical sample. Three hundred participants completed four divergent thinking tasks (Alternate Uses and Consequences Tests) and subsequently self-rated the overall originality of their ideas, capturing what we refer to as subjective originality. Objective originality was assessed using a validated automated scoring technique. Creative self-identity was measured with creative self-beliefs and achievements, alongside cyclothymic (TEMPS) and bipolar traits (HPS). The results revealed a positive association between bipolar traits and subjective originality, even after controlling for creative self-identity and cyclothymia. In contrast, bipolar traits were negatively associated with objective originality, suggesting a "creativity mirage"—a divergence between perceived and observed originality. Interactions revealed that the association between subjective and objective originality was slightly positive among individuals with low bipolar traits but negative among those with high bipolar traits. Bipolar traits were measured via trait-level hypomanic tendencies (HPS), limiting inferences about self-evaluation biases during active hypomanic states. Generalizability is limited to a non-clinical population of non-eminent creative individuals. These findings show the importance of distinguishing subjective from objective assessments of creativity, revealing that bipolar traits could be related to biases in self-evaluations of originality.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".