The ADHD Skills Lab The Science of ADHD Creativity: Why Your Ideas Work Differently
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Nov 10, 2025 Will Curb, creator of Hacking Your ADHD, dives deep into the strengths of ADHD, challenging the typical deficit-only narrative. He explores how ADHD leads to originality and breaks down a 2006 study showing ADHD individuals often produce more creative ideas. The conversation highlights the trade-off between novelty and practicality, revealing that while ADHD can spark innovation, planning gaps may hinder execution. Curb also discusses how ADHD creatives thrive in teams with pragmatic partners and questions the myth that medication stifles creativity.
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ADHD Research Shows Strengths Too
- Early research shifted ADHD from a pure deficit model to include strengths like creativity.
- The 2006 paper compared ADHD, conduct disorder, and control groups to explore creative thinking differences.
Less Prone To Copying Examples
- The study used a 'recent activated knowledge' task to see if examples prime similar ideas.
- Participants with ADHD were less likely to copy examples and produced more original responses.
Conversation Jump From Shirt To Bee Sting
- Will described linking unrelated events in conversation, like shirts, picnics, and bee stings.
- He used this to show how ADHD associative thinking creates personal logical jumps.