Report British researchers report narcissists are more likely than most to engage in creative activities.

tom_mai78101

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Have you ever taken a drawing seminar or a creative writing class, looked around at your fellow students and thought, “There sure are a lot of narcissists in here”?

Recently published research suggests you were quite possibly right.

A new British study finds people with narcissistic tendencies are more likely than others to think of themselves as creative, and to engage in creative activities. If your opinion of yourself is unusually high, there's a good chance you long to share your brilliance with the rest of the world.

In the journal Thinking Skills and Creativity, a research team led by psychologist Adrian Furnham of University College London describes an experiment featuring 207 people The participants, a mix of undergraduates and college graduates, took a series of tests to measure the “big five” personality factors: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

In addition, they provided a self-assessment of their creativity (answering questions like “how innovative do you consider yourself?”), and indicated how many creative activities (out of a list of 34) they had engaged in during the past year. Those activities including “composed a poem” and “choreographed a dance."

Read more here.
 

Nyph

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You guys should see the conclusions of my sample size 1 studies.
 

Accname

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most research is done on a small scale before it moves on to a larger scale. for many reason.
One of the reasons is to deliberately look like bogus so that other researchers wont steal your idea.
 

Zakyath

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well... no ;) it's to create a foundation which other researchers can build on. besides, it's cheap, simple and less time-consuming.
 

Accname

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And completely and utterly worthless. No researcher will take a study with a sample size of 207 people serious. At least no researcher who is worth his money.
Finding 207 people who just by chance share a common trait is not hard considering brajillians of people on earth.
If you have a sample size of, say, 5000, then that is good. 15000 even better. But 207? Could just as well make all of that up and save your time.
 

Zakyath

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that simply just is not true. and your assumption that it's humbug is just speculation. it's not a grand study, but not all studies are. if you had any academic experience you would know that.

no matter what the results are they may be useful. say, for the sake of argument, they used only black women from Leeds, even though they are not representative for the whole population of the world it might be useful if the results differ from bigger studies which are more representative of the average person. it opens up new doors - why are black women in leeds different? as I said before, it may lay the foundation for other scientific studies.

and this is just off the top of my head. there may be hundreds of potential benefits from this study neither you or I can think of. if it had been a sample size of 20 people I would agree with you, but 200 isn't as few as you make it sound.

and if you read the original article, which I'm sure you haven't, you'll see that they note that the sample size is relatively small and the implications of that
 

Accname

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200 is only very very few. 200 is nothing compared to the incredible count of people on earth. The chance that 200 of all people who live on this planet share one common feature among them is quite high. I would like to calculate it if only I had a computer strong enough to calculate the factorial of 7.1 billion.

Just think about this. 200 people is nothing. I could probably survey 200 people all by myself. And we are talking about scientists here. People who get paid to do this stuff. Who have months, if not years, for their work. And they could only come up with 200 people? Really?
That is a pitiful number.
 

Zakyath

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there's a good reason for everything accname. as you said, we're talking about scientists. why would you assume you are smarter than them and have more experience when it comes to funding, performing studies, statistical significance and so on?

as I said it's not representative for the entire population of this world, but that's not the objective of the study. you're using make believe reasons to perform this study and argue against them. you're arguing against your own assumptions of what their intent is, rather than their actual intent.
 

Accname

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there's a good reason for everything accname. as you said, we're talking about scientists. why would you assume you are smarter than them and have more experience when it comes to funding, performing studies, statistical significance and so on?
When did I say that? I said I could too find 200 people. Finding 200 people is easy. There is thousands of them, like, everywhere.

as I said it's not representative for the entire population of this world, [...]
Lies. All you say. This is the title of the news:
researchers report narcissists are more likely than most to engage in creative activities
Its not "researchers report narcissists are more likely than others from a random group of 200 people to engage in creative activities".

This article claims the study to be universal, which it is not. This is a theory, with a sample size this small it doesnt show anything. They could make a claim. They could put out a theory. But if they only test 200 people nobody is going to care about the outcome of their study. Its ridiculous. What is the point?

If I take 100 random people from the street and all the blondes seem to be stupid, can I claim, that all blondes on earth are stupid? Well, technically I can, but nobody is going to take me serious.
If I take 1 000 000 people and all the blondes are stupid, it sure makes it much more believable.
 

Zakyath

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When did I say that? I said I could too find 200 people. Finding 200 people is easy. There is thousands of them, like, everywhere

They are aware of the size of the group, but they still went through with this. You said, and I quote, "One of the reasons is to deliberately look like bogus so that other researchers wont steal your idea.". I find this highly improbable and have suggested several alternative uses for this study, and if you'd ask a scholar they probably could tell you many more.

So, my point with what I said was, that you're just guessing whilst they most likely have a legit reason to conducting this study.[/quote]


Lies. All you say. This is the title of the news:

Its not "researchers report narcissists are more likely than others from a random group of 200 people to engage in creative activities".

This article claims the study to be universal, which it is not. This is a theory, with a sample size this small it doesnt show anything. They could make a claim. They could put out a theory. But if they only test 200 people nobody is going to care about the outcome of their study. Its ridiculous. What is the point?

If I take 100 random people from the street and all the blondes seem to be stupid, can I claim, that all blondes on earth are stupid? Well, technically I can, but nobody is going to take me serious.
If I take 1 000 000 people and all the blondes are stupid, it sure makes it much more believable.

now you're not even criticizing the validity behind this study, you're only questioning the journalism of "PSMAG".

As I said, if you read the original article you'll get a different perception of this study, its purpose and its claims.
 

Zakyath

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I can only argue with what you're posting. It's not my fault the best you came up with wasn't meant to be taken serious - not that anything you've posted here should.
 

Varine

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most research is done on a small scale before it moves on to a larger scale. for many reason.


Or, in stupid studies like this, because they ran out of money when the people funding it realized how stupid this study is and they had to make do with what they already had (which was probably wrong anyway).

there's a good reason for everything

I personally think he lost all credibility here.

And, apparently being narcissistic assholes makes us creative. According to the very report you're trying to defend, it probably would be advised we all act a little more like Acc so we can further our creativity. At least most of us do work in some field where creativity is beneficial... not sure about everyone.
 
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