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Comment by austin-cheney | Hacker News Reader

That isn’t really correct.

Fear of observation is highly correlated with neuroticism. Creativity, on the other hand, is a component of openness which is highly correlated with intelligence. The most creative people are those who measure both high intelligence and low neuroticism, which simultaneously are the people least concerned by impacts of increased observation.

Furthermore, high trust social environments only contribute to the degree of disclosure, not creativity. In low trust social environments creative people remain equally creative but either do not openly expose their creative output or do so secretly for subversive purposes.

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I teach at an art university for 8 years now. I would highly doubt that: The most creative people are those who measure both high intelligence and low neuroticism.

In my experience that isn't the complete picture. I have met highly creative people who are extremely (unhealthy so) concerned with what others think, yet go their own path anyways. It is true that creative people often tend to do things in a way that appears as if it is outside of the frame of normal parameters. But this isn't so simple either, because maybe it is context dependent. A punk musician may live in disregard of the aesthetical conventions of society, but they also may have a traded canon of styles and works their own subculture. So maybe that punk doesn't care what society thinks about them, but they may care about what other punks think.

My experience with hundreds of art students is that there is no correlation between how independent someone works and how creative their output is. There are many ways of producing interesting ideas and the lone (usually: male) genius being the only true way is by this point a well-refuted idea.

I did not base my comment on personal observations. It comes straight from psychology and the big 5.

I was also once an art student myself. Creativity extends far beyond individual contributions, which becomes evident in resource and personnel management. Creativity is highly correlated to openness, as is intelligence, and is least restricted by those who are most eager to exercise decisions and try new things without fear of consequence, whether real or perceived.

Two folk who set the direction of the modern world - Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

https://historycollection.com/16-examples-of-the-madness-of-... https://www.science.org/content/article/origin-darwins-anxie...

Can't vouch for the accuracy of these descriptions but they don't suggest lack of neuroticism however brought on. Bodily dysfunction of whatever kind can be causative of course.

Openness is on the closed minded-openness axis. Neuroticism is on the neurotic-stable axis. These are independent things. You can be highly open-minded and highly neurotic. I’d seriously question your understanding of the Big 5.

> These are independent things.

I never claimed otherwise. You have invented your own strawman to attack.

The logic in your OP is absolutely muddled. And it's evident I'm not the only one that followed your reasoning to you implying neuroticism is negatively correlated to creativity.

To restate your argument: openness is correlated to creativity (not controversial) and being neurotic dampens that because you care a lot what people think (no evidence).

There is no correlation between neuroticism and creativity. Neuroticism doesn't effect openness so it makes no sense. Either your argument is that neuroticism influences openness and that influences creativity or your argument is I just think neuroticism makes you less creative because I just think so. You might as well not even mention the Big 5 because it doesn't effect your last point.

What are you talking about? In your previous comment you suggest I correlated neuroticism to openness, which I did not. Now you are claiming I correlated neuroticism to creativity, which I did do. Neuroticism dampens many things, not specifically because what other people think, but because it imposes hesitation and artificial restraints on decisions in general.

In order to better understand what neuroticism really is and how it really works I suggest reading about the amygdala, gaba, fear impressions, and looping. The less a person is so restricted the more free they are to universally experiment, consider alternatives, and act. That is generally how people perceive creativity.

I was saying that your argument only made sense if it was the strawman you said I created. The only other option is something that you did not show any evidence for in your argument. Please show me papers that demonstrate this link between neuroticism and creativity.

I think the idea that one must be naturally impervious to shame to be "the right sort" of creative is attractive, but it's used to disregard the courage necessary to show oneself and open up in the way that builds the creator.

Lots of amazing artists, creators and researchers are obviously highly neurotic.

This feels like it's conflating a couple of different things.

Firstly, in the Big five model, which you seem to be referencing, openness and neuroticism are separate factors- Low neuroticism isn't correlated with high openness. Yes, since neuroticism is a negative trait, one would expect people low in neuroticism to do better than people who are high in neuroticism. This does not equate to "the most creative people" though.

Secondly, I'd push back that people low in neuroticism would be "least concerned by" surveillance. While strictly technically true, that's not a helpful framing, as it seemingly implies surveillance would have a negligible negative impact for people low in neuroticism. If that's what you're implying, I'd like to see references.

I'm not able to comment at all on the conclusing about "degree of disclosure" being moderated by trust level in social environment, especially how "creative people remain equally creative but do not openly expose their creative output". If true, this implies that trust in society doesn't impact primary (unshared) creative output at all- that's a very strong claim in my opinion. I'd very much like references on this.

> Low neuroticism isn't correlated with high openness.

I never claimed this and I have no idea why you would think I did.

What I do know is that nearly 1 in 3 JavaScript developers, based upon large anonymous polls, self identify as autistic. If that is representative of software employment as a whole then software employment is full of self-indulgent and highly neurotic people at levels far exceeding the outside population. Everybody wants to think they are more awesome, creative, and highly intelligent compared to everybody else, but that is numerically irrational.

Low neurotic people are generally less scared of just about everything including third party observation. Less fear and less anxiety is the very definition of low neuroticism.

> The most creative people are those who measure both high intelligence and low neuroticism

You did claim this.

> self identify as autistic. (...) then software employment is full of self-indulgent and highly neurotic people

This is hateful and wrong. Autistic people aren't necessarily self indulgent, and not self evidently neurotic, though it happens to be the case that autistic people have a higher incidence of neuroticism, which is partially due to people describing them, for example, as "self indulgent".

You've shifted your claims, you're not supporting your claims by either argument or reference, and you've added hateful rhetoric. This is very regrettable.

You need to get over yourself. Autism is a medical diagnosis. If things like medicine and psychology and not reading people's comments correctly makes you sad then it does not matter what the comments actually say.

And yes, many autistic people, though not all, are exceptionally self-indulgent, which just literally means self-preference. Its a problem of less developed introspection which parallels a less developed interpretation of social intelligence.

I have not shifted my claims. I originally said people with fear of observation, a trait of high neuroticism, is a major constraint of many things including creativity. I also said creativity is an aspect of high openness, which is closely correlated to high intelligence. I never said neuroticism is in any correlated, either positively or negatively, to either openness or intelligence. I think you have trouble with bias, as in you want statements to imply something not stated.

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