He also found that they scored very, they tended to score very high in ego strength.
Ego strength is something that allows us to overcome obstacles.
It's very important, very good for
resiliency in life, having a really strong sense of identity.
These were strong, these people had strong sense of their self and
were able to overcome resiliency.
But he also found that they scored extremely high on almost every measure of
mental illness that he could possibly throw at them.
[LAUGH] So, Frank Barron was like, what do I do with this information?
They score almost very high on all these measures of psychological health.
The kinds of things that we study in positive psychology, resiliency,
and ego strength and healthy self acceptance.
But at the same time they also scored very high on a lot of marked metrics of
non-mental health.
But they had all these things in one body.
So, they also tended to be very highly emotionally volatile,
for instance, and reported lots of mood changes.
They tend to report being very anxious, these kinds of things.
So, it's very interesting when you look at creative people,
you tend to see these paradoxes.
You tend to see these contradictions within a single person.
So, this is a quote of Frank Baron, describing the conclusion of his studies.
Thus the creative genius may be at once naive and knowledgeable,
being at home equally to primitive symbolism and to rigorous logic.
He is both more primitive and more cultured, more destructive and more
constructive, occasionally crazier and yet adamantly saner, than the average person.
So, what do you do with that information, right?
As a young creativity researcher going into the field, and
looking at what we've known about creativity, it's like,
well how could we ever possibly study this phenomenon?
Well, we can, and I think a big way of reconciling these contradictions,
the fact that openness to experience is a big part of it.
When you're really open to new experiences,
you're open to your own contradictions, you find that the creative process itself
is a really nice way of reconciling these contradictions.
It's through the creative process that you harmonize yourself.