Some of the great thinkers of the past and present – Isaac Newton, Michelangelo, Woody Allen – have also been the most neurotic. One can’t help but wonder whether the creativity occurs in spite of their neurotic natures or because of it. There’s evidence to suggest that people who score higher on measures of neuroticism also score higher in creativity. And if there is a causal relationship, the logic behind it might go like this: People who are more neurotic are prone to overthinking, and perhaps even manufacturing threats that aren’t really there – and this overactive imagination might, under the right circumstances, give way to creative, problem-solving breakthroughs rather than nervous breakdowns. And now, say a team of researchers who study it, there’s now good brain science to back the theory up.
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