Psychiatry Research 220 (2014) 322–327

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Psychiatry Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/psychres

Creativity, personality, and hoarding behavior Dianne M. Hezel n, Jill M. Hooley Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 3 February 2014 Received in revised form 7 June 2014 Accepted 20 July 2014 Available online 29 July 2014

Compulsive hoarding is a debilitating illness that is characterized by excessive collection of and failure to discard items, irrespective of their uselessness or hazardousness. Anecdotal evidence suggests that individuals who hoard may be more creative than individuals without hoarding behavior; however, this hypothesis has never been tested empirically. In the present study, we examined the relationship between hoarding symptoms and performance on a series of creativity measures. We also explored the extent to which hoarding symptoms were associated with factors such as personality, impulsivity, distress tolerance, and attitudes about money and the environment. Our findings revealed no significant associations between hoarding behavior and any measure of creativity. Hoarding behavior was also unrelated to attitudes about money or concern about the environment. However, consistent with previous research, hoarding tendencies were correlated with higher levels of neuroticism and impulsivity, as well as with lower levels of conscientiousness and distress tolerance. Implications of these findings are discussed. & 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Hoarding disorder Creativity Distress tolerance Personality

1. Introduction Compulsive hoarding is a debilitating illness that is characterized by excessively collecting and failing to discard items, irrespective of their uselessness or hazardousness. Until recently, hoarding was considered a subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but is now categorized as its own disorder (“hoarding disorder”) in the DSM-5 (APA, 2013). With a lifetime prevalence of 2–5% (Samuels et al., 2008; Iervolino et al., 2009; Mueller et al., 2009), pathological hoarding behavior often results in cluttered or uninhabitable living spaces, as well as significant distress or impairment to individuals with this disorder (Frost and Hartl, 1996). Cognitive-behavioral models of hoarding suggest that individuals who suffer from this disorder possess information-processing deficits that adversely affect their attention, decision-making, and memory (Frost and Hartl, 1996). However, Tolin et al. (2007) observed that many of the patients they have treated are “highly intelligent, clever and creative people” (p. 34) and hypothesize that these attributes may, in fact, contribute to their hoarding tendencies. In what they refer to as an example of elaborative processing, the authors explain that individuals who hoard see many uses for a single object, but that this “creativity exceeds [their] physical capacity to carry out the plans…” (p. 34). Indeed, it is possible that people who hoard are more creative than those who do not hoard.

n

Corresponding author. Tel.: þ 1 617 945 0317. E-mail address: [email protected] (D.M. Hezel).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2014.07.037 0165-1781/& 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

However, to our knowledge, this hypothesis has never been tested empirically. In the current study, we examined the relationship between hoarding symptoms and three distinct measures of creativity. We hypothesized that hoarding symptoms would be positively associated with performance on a divergent thinking creativity task that specifically asked about different uses for specific objects. However, we expected that this association would be confined to this one domain of creativity because it is only this aspect that seems directly relevant to the acquisition of or reluctance to discard items. Accordingly, we did not expect to see associations between hoarding tendencies and the two other measures of creativity, which assess creative achievement and creative personality attributes. If this study does identify a link between hoarding behavior and increased creativity, it may have clinical implications for people who suffer from pathological hoarding. Identifying a creative aspect of their personality may help these individuals to see themselves in a more positive light, thus potentially alleviating some of their emotional distress. Although creativity measures were our primary outcome of interest, we also examined the association between hoarding behavior and a number of other variables in an attempt to better understand factors that may contribute to the development or maintenance of this disorder. Prior research has identified increased levels of impulsivity (Timpano et al., 2013) and neuroticism and lower levels of conscientiousness (LaSalle-Ricci et al., 2006) and distress tolerance (Timpano et al., 2009) in hoarding samples relative to people with no hoarding behavior. We therefore included measures of these variables in an attempt to replicate these findings

D.M. Hezel, J.M. Hooley / Psychiatry Research 220 (2014) 322–327

in a different population. Indeed, it is possible that individuals who hoard have a difficult time resisting the impulse to collect items and tolerating the distress they feel when getting rid of objects they deem valuable or important. Moreover, other studies have failed to find evidence for differences between people who do and do not hoard in attitudes about the environment (Frost et al., 1995) or in material deprivation (Frost and Gross, 1993). In the present study, we included measures that have not been previously used in this population to further investigate the association of these variables with hoarding tendencies. Given that the Environmental Conscientiousness questionnaire used by Frost et al. (1995) was developed almost two decades ago, we thought it would be worthwhile to create an updated Environmental Concern Scale that incorporates questions about new environmentally-friendly technology such as electric cars. Likewise, whereas Frost and Gross (1993) included a single question about material deprivation in their study, we wanted to include a more comprehensive measure of early financial hardship that focused on deprivation during childhood. It is possible that both increased concern for saving the environment and a history of financial hardship can contribute to a hoarding sample's reluctance to waste (and hence discard) items. Therefore, in the present study, we predicted that hoarding behaviors would be associated with higher levels of both of these variables. 2. Methods 2.1. Participants Participants were community residents, aged 17 years or older, living in the metropolitan Boston area. They were recruited after responding to an online posting on a community study pool message board that is associated with the local university. Both students and adults in the community had access to the posting (the university posts flyers on information boards and on employment sites every week in order to recruit participants both in and outside of the university community). There were no specific inclusion or exclusion criteria; rather, the advertisement stated that both individuals who had difficulty discarding objects (or who considered themselves to be “packrats”) and individuals who had no difficulty discarding items, including people who disliked clutter (or who considered themselves to be “minimalists”) were welcome to participate.1 The sample consisted of 80 participants (46 women) with a mean age of 26.4 (S.D. ¼ 11.3). Race and ethnicity data were not collected. Participants were paid $10 for their participation. 2.2. Materials and procedures We obtained approval for the present study from the Harvard Institutional Review Board. Participants aged 18 and over signed a consent form. In the case of three participants who were aged 17, participants signed an assent form, and a signed consent form was also obtained from the legal guardian. All participants then completed the following measures. The entire study took approximately 45 min. The Saving Inventory-Revised (SI-R) is a 23-item self-report measure that assesses hoarding behavior with three subscales: a person's tendency to (1) accumulate possessions, (2) experience difficulty discarding items, and (3) have a cluttered living space (Frost et al., 2004). Individuals are asked to indicate their answers to a number of questions (e.g., “How difficult do you find the task of throwing things away?”) on a Likert scale ranging from zero to four; high scores indicate higher levels of hoarding behavior. The scale has good reported internal consistency (r ¼0.94) and test–retest reliability (r¼ 0.86), and good convergent (r¼ 0.79) and discriminant validity (Frost et al., 2004). The internal consistency in our sample was excellent (α ¼0.96). The SI-R effectively distinguishes individuals with hoarding disorder from individuals without the disorder with a clinical cutoff score of 41 (Frost et al., 2012). The Saving Cognitions Inventory-Revised (SCI) is a self-report questionnaire that measures the beliefs and attitudes about possessions that are often associated with hoarding behavior (Steketee et al., 2003). Individuals are asked to indicate on a Likert scale of one to seven the extent to which they agree with 24 different statements that assess four factors: emotional attachment to possessions, memory

1 Although we understand that some researchers and clinicians object to the term “packrat,” our participants responded very positively to this term and were generally comfortable describing themselves in this way.

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concerns, responsibility towards possessions, and need for control over one's belongings (e.g., “losing this possession is like losing a friend”). The SCI has excellent internal consistency (r¼ 0.96) and good convergent and discriminant validity (Steketee et al., 2003). The internal consistency in our sample was excellent (α ¼0.95). The Creative Achievement Questionnaire (CAQ) is a self-report measure that assesses how accomplished individuals are in 10 different domains of creativity (visual arts, dance, music, etc.; Carson et al., 2005). Carson et al. (2005) have reported that the scale has strong internal consistency (α ¼ 0.92) and good test– retest reliability (r¼ 0.81). The CAQ is significantly correlated with other measures of creative achievement and uncorrelated with IQ, resulting in adequate convergent and divergent validity, respectively (Carson et al., 2005). In our sample the internal consistency of the CAQ was low (α ¼ 0.47). What this means is that participants who noted accomplishments in one domain (e.g., culinary arts) did not necessarily have achievements in other domains as well (e.g., creative writing). The Creative Personality Scale (CPS) is a self-report measure for which individuals are required to select adjectives (e.g., clever, conservative, honest, etc.) that describe their personality (Gough, 1979). Points are subtracted for less creative personality traits such as “cautious” and “commonplace” and are added for creative personality traits such as “humorous” and “resourceful.” The CPS is a reliable and moderately valid measure that accurately predicts creativity (Gough, 1979). In the present sample, the internal consistency of this measure was α ¼0.62. The Divergent Thinking Task is a validated measure adapted from Torrance (1968). Participants are given 3 min to list as many answers as they can generate in response to each of three scenarios. In the first, individuals are asked to list different uses for a brick. In the second item, they are asked to list all of the consequences of being born with six fingers on each hand, and in the third to list as many white foods as they can think of. Answers were scored on three different domains: fluency (the number of answers listed), originality (the uniqueness of the answer relative to other participants’ answers), and flexibility (the frequency with which individuals switched between different categories of answers; Carson et al., 2003). Individual scores in each of these domains are z-scored and added to obtain an overall Divergent Thinking Task (DTT) score for each participant. To maintain consistency in scoring, the first author and a trained research assistant together calculated DTT scores for all participants. There was acceptable internal consistency among the three DTT items in our sample (α ¼ 0.78). The NEO Five-Factor Inventory – Short Form (NEO; Costa and McCrae, 1989; McCrae and Costa, 2004) is a well-validated scale that consists of 60 statements designed to capture five major dimensions of personality (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness). The measure has high test–retest reliability (r¼ 0.86–0.90; Robins et al., 2001) and acceptable internal consistency ranging from 0.68 to 0.86 (Costa and McCrae, 1992). In our sample, internal consistency ranged from acceptable to excellent (all α 4 0.77). The Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS) is a 15-item self-report questionnaire which measures the degree to which individuals believe the experience of negative affect is unbearable (Simons and Gaher, 2005). Participants rate the extent to which they agree with statements about four factors of distress tolerance: (1) ability to tolerate distress, (2) appraisal of distress, (3) absorption by negative emotions, and (4) efforts to regulate distress. These four subscales are calculated by averaging item scores and the total DTS score is computed by averaging the four subscale scores. High scores indicate a higher ability to tolerate emotional distress. The DTS has good internal consistency (α ¼ 0.89), good test–retest reliability (r ¼0.61), and good convergent, criterion, and discriminant validity (Simons and Gaher, 2005). The internal consistency in our sample was excellent (α ¼0.90). The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) Version 11 (Patton et al., 1995) is a 30item self-report measure designed to assess general impulsiveness while taking into account six first-order factors (attention, motor, self-control, cognitive complexity, perseverance, and cognitive instability) and three second-order factors (attentional impulsiveness, motor impulsiveness, and non-planning impulsiveness). The BIS has good internal consistency (α ¼ 0.83) and test–retest reliability (ρ ¼ 0.83) and shows good convergent and discriminant validity (Stanford et al., 2009). In our sample, the BIS demonstrated good internal consistency (α ¼ 0.84) The Frugality Scale is an 8-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure people's attitudes towards saving and spending money (Lastovicka et al., 1999). Individuals are asked to indicate on a Likert scale the extent to which they agree or disagree with statements about money and saving (e.g., “I believe in being careful in how I spend my money” and “There are many things that are normally thrown away that are still quite useful”). The measure has good internal consistency (α ¼0.87) and reasonable convergent and discriminant validity (Lastovicka et al., 1999). The measure had an acceptable internal consistency in the current study (α ¼0.76). In the present study, we created two additional questionnaires in order to investigate other factors that may be associated with hoarding behavior. The Environmental Concern Scale is a 20-item self-report questionnaire designed to assess a person's concerns about and actions towards protecting the environment. Individuals are asked to indicate on a five-point Likert scale the extent to which they agree with statements such as “People should make recycling a priority” and “People exaggerate the danger of global warming.” High scores indicate increased concern about the environment. In the current sample, the internal reliability of the scale was good (α ¼ 0.80). Finally, the Early Financial Hardship Scale is a 15-item

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self-report measure designed to assess people's family financial situation (i.e., their level of material comfort or discomfort) when growing up. Participants rated the frequency with which they experienced certain situations, such as going without electricity, not being able to afford food, or living in an affluent neighborhood. High scores suggest low financial hardship as a child. The internal consistency of this scale was excellent in this sample (α ¼0.90). 2.3. Statistical analysis Data analysis consisted of two parts. First, we used Pearson product-moment and biserial correlations to determine if demographic variables (age and sex) were positively associated with hoarding behavior or creativity. Because age and sex were not related to our variables of interest, we then used Pearson correlational analyses to examine the relationship between hoarding symptoms and performance on each of the above listed measures. This set of analyses allowed us to determine whether hoarding behaviors were associated with performance on each of the three creativity measures, the personality, impulsiveness, or distress tolerance measures, and also the scales designed to assess attitudes towards money and the environment. To address the issue of whether significant associations between hoarding and creativity might be apparent only above a clinical threshold (i.e., not linear) we also divided the sample based on the clinical cutoff score (i.e., 41) of the SI-R. We then used independent sample t-tests to examine whether individuals with clinical levels of hoarding performed differently on these measures than did participants who did not show clinical levels of hoarding.

3. Results 3.1. Sample description Our sample showed a broad range of hoarding symptom severity. Scores on the Saving Inventory ranged from 0 to 79 with a mean score of 26.7 (S.D. ¼19.3). Mean scores for all study measures are provided in Table 1. Age and sex were not significantly correlated with either hoarding behavior (r ¼0.14, p ¼0.22 and r ¼ 0.13, p ¼0.25, respectively) or any of the three creativity measures (all p4 0.19; see Table 2). A total of 20 participants scored above the clinical cutoff score of 41 on the Saving Inventory; 60 participants scored below it. Individuals with clinical levels of hoarding had significantly higher scores on both the Saving Inventory (t(78) ¼13.19, p o0.001) and the Saving Cognition Inventory (t(78) ¼ 6.05, p o0.001), but the groups did not differ in age (t(78) ¼1.77, p o0.08) or sex (χ(1) ¼0.07, p ¼0.79). 3.2. Creativity To test our hypothesis that hoarding tendencies would be associated with elevated levels of creativity, we conducted a Pearson correlation between scores on the Saving Inventory and the Divergent Thinking Task. Contrary to prediction, hoarding symptoms were not associated with performance on this creativity task, r ¼  0.03, p ¼0.80. There was also no association between hoarding symptoms and scores on the Creative Achievement Questionnaire (r ¼0.05, p ¼0.68) or the Creative Personality Scale (r ¼  0.09, p ¼0.44). 3.3. Personality and other variables A series of correlational analyses were used to determine if scores on the SI-R were associated with scores on measures of personality, distress tolerance, impulsivity, frugality, attitudes about the environment, or childhood financial hardship. Results indicated that hoarding symptoms were significantly correlated with higher levels of neuroticism, lower levels of conscientiousness, poorer distress tolerance, and greater impulsivity (all po0.01), but were not related to extraversion, openness to experiences, agreeableness, frugality, environmental concern, or early financial hardship (all p40.18). See Table 2 for all correlations. Finally, in order to determine if individuals with clinical levels of hoarding differed from people with low levels of hoarding on

the above variables, we repeated all analyses after dividing the sample into a clinical hoarding group and low-hoarding group based on the Saving Inventory clinical cutoff score of 41. Individuals with clinical levels of hoarding had a mean score on the SI-R of 54.30 (S.D. ¼9.03); those in the low-hoarding group had a mean score of 17.53 (S.D. ¼11.31). The high and low hoarding groups did not differ on any of the three creativity measures (see Table 3). They also did not differ in frugality, environmental concern, or early financial hardship, or any NEO personality scales with the exception of neuroticism. Compared to those in the low hoarding group, individuals in the clinical hoarding group had higher levels of neuroticism and impulsivity and lower scores on the Distress Tolerance Scale. However, despite the negative association between hoarding and conscientiousness reported above, in this analysis, people with clinical hoarding did not exhibit significantly lower levels of conscientiousness relative to the low-hoarding group. See Table 3 for results from this analysis.

4. Discussion Clinicians with experience treating hoarding disorder have stated that their patients seem to be especially creative, in that they see more possibility in and uses for the objects they collect (Tolin et al., 2007). However, using a group of individuals with hoarding behavior, we found no support for this observation. Contrary to our hypothesis, hoarding symptoms were not significantly related to performance on a divergent thinking creativity task, during which participants were asked to write down the uses for an object or consequences of a highly novel hypothetical situation. Hoarding symptoms were also not associated with self-report measures of creative personality or with creative achievement. Participants, irrespective of their hoarding tendencies, used similar numbers of “creative” and “non-creative” adjectives to describe their personality. Similarly, there was no evidence that high levels of hoarding symptoms were associated with achievement in different realms of creativity (dancing, humor, cooking, etc.). Thus, individuals with hoarding tendencies do not seem to view themselves as more creative than others, nor are they more likely to achieve high levels of success in creative endeavors. Of course, it is possible that some people with hoarding behavior are especially creative, but that on average, hoarding is not associated with increased levels of creativity. Alternatively, it is possible that people who hoard may be especially creative in finding purposes for the specific objects they collect, and that this thinking does not generalize to all items or situations. Another Table 1 Sample performance on measures. Measure

M (S.D.)

Saving Inventory-Revised Saving Cognitions Inventory-Revised Creative Achievement Questionnaire Creative Personality Scale Divergent Thinking Task NEO: neuroticism NEO: extraversion NEO: openness to experience NEO: agreeableness NEO: conscientiousness Distress Tolerance Scale Barratt Impulsiveness Scale Frugality Scale Environmental Concern Scale Early Financial Hardship Scale

26.73 63.21 17.10 6.08 0.0006 21.80 30.81 34.69 31.54 31.26 3.43 61.14 16.63 74.75 52.70

Note: NEO¼ NEO Five-Factor Inventory – Short Form.

(19.28) (31.29) (14.26) (3.61) (6.69) (10.50) (8.02) (7.44) (6.86) (8.54) (0.79) (11.61) (5.27) (11.26) (12.11)

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325

Table 2 Pearson correlations between study measures. Measure

1

2

3

4

5

6

1. SI-R 2. Sexa 3. Age 4. SCI 5. CAQ 6. CPS 7. DTT 8. NEO: Neurotic 9. NEO: Extra 10. NEO: Open 11. NEO: Agree 12. NEO: Consc 13. DTS 14. BIS 15. Frugal 16. Environ Concern 17. Finance Hard

1  0.13 0.14 **, 0.69 0.05  0.09  0.03 **, 0.41  0.16  0.11  0.12 *  0.28 **  0.47 **, 0.41 0.02 0.01  0.04

1 0.21  0.03  0.10  0.09  0.07  0.12  0.05  0.06  0.18  0.08 0.12 0.10 0.16 **  0.36 0.01

1 0.09  0.18  0.05  0.01  0.14  0.10  0.19  0.001 0.12 0.08  0.17  0.17 0.002 *  0.34

1 0.05  0.27  0.20 **, 0.36 *  0.30  0.13  0.14  0.19 **  0.44 0.21  0.11  0.14  0.05

1 0.22 0.12  0.02 0.10 *, 0.25  0.04  0.01  0.10 0.02  0.08 0.18 0.01

1 0.16 1 *  0.32 0.21 *, 0.27  0.05 0.09 0.15 0.01 0.03 0.14  0.09 0.13 0.03  0.02 0.07  0.03 *,0.22 *, 0.32 *,0.28 0.02 0.004

*

7

8

9

1  0.39 0.16 *  0.24 **  0.52 **  0.62 **, 0.38 0.06  0.05  0.05

1 0.28 1 0.34 0.12 **, 0.42  0.08 0.20 0.06 *  0.25  0.08  0.09  0.06 0.11 0.19  0.05 0.01

**

10

11

12

1 0.33 0.03 *  0.31  0.16 0.11  0.05

1 0.18 **  0.60 *  0.33 0.13 0.03

13

14

15

16

17

*, *,

*,

*

1  0.34 1 0.08 *,0.29 1 0.10  0.14  0.21 0.03 0.08 0.18

*

1  0.25 1

Note. SI-R ¼ Saving Inventory Revised; SCI ¼ Saving Cognition Inventory; CAQ¼ Creative Achievement Questionnaire; CPS ¼Creative Personality Scale; DTT ¼Divergent Thinking Task; NEO Neurotic¼ Neuroticism; NEO Extra¼ Extraversion; NEO Open ¼ Openness to Experience; NEO Agree¼ Agreeableness; NEO Consc ¼ Conscientiousness; DTS ¼Distress Tolerance Scale; BIS ¼ Barratt Impulsiveness Scale; Frugal ¼ Frugality Scale; Environ Concern ¼ Environmental Concern Scale; Finance Hard¼Early Financial Hardship Scale. a

Sex¼Biserial correlation (0 ¼ female, 1¼ male). po 0.05. nn p r0.001. n

explanation is that differences in creativity may appear only when individuals are suffering from impairing levels of hoarding disorder, which we did not assess in this study. People typically experience onset of hoarding disorder in their teenage years, though do not tend to seek treatment until later in their lives when their symptoms may be more severe and debilitating (Grisham et al., 2006). One study found that people with the disorder suffered from moderate hoarding symptoms by approximately 23 years of age and more severe symptoms by 33 years of age (Grisham et al., 2006). Our sample of participants had a mean age of 26.4. It is possible, therefore, that differences in creativity are only apparent later in life, as the severity of the illness progresses. However, age was not significantly correlated with creativity in our sample. Moreover, as noted above, our sample of participants with hoarding behavior included 20 individuals who had scores on the Savings Inventory that were above the clinical cutoff for pathological hoarding (Frost et al., 2012). Indeed, after repeating all analyses using the SI-R cutoff score to distinguish the hoarding participants from the low-hoarding participants, we still found no group differences on creativity scores. Taken together, these findings indicate that creative thinking is unlikely to contribute to the tendency to acquire or fail to discard objects in those who hoard. Our findings regarding the NEO are consistent with those of LaSalle-Ricci et al. (2006), who found that hoarding behavior is positively correlated with neuroticism and negatively correlated with conscientiousness. Neuroticism, the tendency to experience increased vulnerability to stress and negative emotions, has been associated with various types of psychopathology, including anxiety and depression (Costa and McCrae, 1992; Widiger and Trull, 1992), so it is unsurprising that this trait would be associated with hoarding behavior as well. Conscientiousness, on the other hand, is characterized by neatness, order, and self-discipline (Costa and McCrae, 1992; Costa and Widiger, 1994; LaSalle-Ricci et al., 2006). Given that these descriptors are contradictory to the very definition of hoarding, which is characterized by a cluttered, disorganized living space (APA, 2013), lower levels of conscientiousness are to be expected in individuals with the disorder. Though it is not possible to determine causality from our data, this personality

profile of high neuroticism and low conscientiousness may be a risk factor for developing hoarding disorder. This hypothesis is highly speculative and therefore merits further investigation. Hoarding symptoms were significantly correlated with increased levels of impulsivity and low emotional distress tolerance. Fullana et al. (2004) found that in individuals with OCD, hoarding symptoms were inversely correlated with impulsivity, as measured by the Eysenck Psychoticism scale, whereas another study reported no association between hoarding and impulsivity when controlling for age (Rasmussen et al., 2013). However, research shows that the vast majority of individuals who suffer from pathological hoarding also possess at least one comorbid impulse control disorder (Frost et al., 2011). Moreover, a more recent study by Timpano et al. (2013) indicates that two separate samples of people who hoard (in both Germany and the United States) had higher scores of impulsivity than did healthy controls. The authors concluded that these elevated levels of impulsivity may increase the likelihood that individuals who hoard will give into their urges to buy or keep objects, thereby resulting in the excessive accumulation of items (Timpano et al., 2013). Our findings are consistent with this hypothesis. Likewise, in agreement with prior research, hoarding symptoms were associated with a decreased ability to tolerate emotional distress. Timpano et al. (2009) found that intolerance of distress, or the inability to cope with negative emotions, was uniquely associated with hoarding and may be a partial risk-factor for the disorder. Indeed, individuals with hoarding behavior may have a difficult time enduring negative emotions associated with discarding items (Timpano et al., 2009). Finally, we found no association between hoarding behavior and frugality, concern for the environment, or early financial hardship. Prior to this study, the measures we used had not been used to assess hoarding behavior, yet we obtained results similar to those of other studies that have used different scales to measure the same variables. Specifically, Frost and Gross (1993) found no association between material deprivation in early life and hoarding. Furthermore, Frost et al. (1995) failed to find strong evidence for a relationship between responsibility towards the environment and hoarding (in one sample they found no association whereas in

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Table 3 Group performance on measures. Measure

Clinical hoarding group (n¼ 20) M (S.D.)

Low-hoarding group (n¼ 60) M (S.D.)

t(78)

p

Saving Inventory-Revised Saving Cognitions Inventory-Revised Creative Achievement Questionnaire Creative Personality Scale Divergent Thinking Task NEO: neuroticism NEO: extraversion NEO: openness to experience NEO: agreeableness NEO: conscientiousness Distress Tolerance Scale Barratt Impulsiveness Scale Frugality Scale Environmental Concern Scale Early Financial Hardship Scale

54.30 93.65 19.50 5.55 0.15 27.30 27.95 32.95 30.55 28.90 2.92 67.85 16.40 74.20 52.35

17.53 53.07 16.30 6.25  0.05 19.97 31.77 35.27 31.87 32.05 3.60 58.90 16.70 74.93 52.82

13.19 6.06 0.87 0.75 0.12 2.79 1.87 1.21 0.74 1.44 3.54 3.15 0.23 0.25 0.15

o 0.001 o 0.001 0.39 0.46 0.91 0.007 0.07 0.23 0.46 0.15 0.001 0.002 0.83 0.80 0.88

(9.03) (31.07) (16.71) (4.25) (5.50) (9.87) (8.94) (8.15) (7.52) (8.08) (0.79) (13.78) (4.57) (0.52) (13.28)

(11.31) (24.11) (13.41) (3.40) (7.08) (10.26) (7.53) (7.16) (6.67) (8.60) (0.72) (9.95) (5.52) (11.58) (11.81)

Note: NEO ¼NEO Five-Factor Inventory – Short Form.

a second they found only a weak association). Although other life experiences such as trauma have been identified as risk factors for the disorder (Hartl et al., 2005; Cromer et al., 2007), our data suggest that experiences with and attitudes about money and the environment are unlikely to contribute to the onset of hoarding. There are a number of limitations to our study, including the use of a community sample. We did not assess participants for hoarding disorder using DSM-5 diagnostic criteria, nor did we screen participants for general psychopathology. However, the use of a community sample (as opposed to a clinical sample) might have provided a better test of our hypotheses because our community participants were likely less generally impaired (and thus perhaps more able to demonstrate creativity, if present) than would likely be the case in a clinical sample. Moreover, our sample consisted of 20 individuals who suffered from clinical levels of hoarding, as measured by the SI-R. Yet even after grouping participants according to this clinical cutoff score, our results remained consistent with those from the correlational analyses. Another limitation is that we used only self-report measures in the study. Future studies might benefit from using more varied methods, such as clinical interviews and behavioral tasks to assess the same variables we examined in the present study. It is also the case that the Creative Achievement Questionnaire had rather poor internal consistency in our sample. This may have been because our sample was quite young overall and had therefore had less time to develop a broad portfolio of creative accomplishments. Regardless, considering all the creativity findings together, it seems unlikely that the relatively low reliability of this particular measure could explain the overall lack of association between hoarding tendencies and creativity. Nonetheless, it is possible that different measures might still reveal potential associations between hoarding symptoms and creativity. Future research in this area may benefit from using visual cues such as illustrations or physical objects to assess creativity in this population. Previous research indicates that relative to people without the disorder, individuals who hoard are more likely to rely on visual cues to remember and organize information, and to possess a strong desire to keep objects in sight (Frost and Hartl, 1996; Hartl et al., 2004). Given their reliance on visual cues, people afflicted by hoarding disorder may perform differently on visual creativity tasks than they do when prompted on paper (as is the case with the Divergent Thinking Task) to brainstorm responses to hypothetical situations. However, arguing against this idea, there was no evidence from the CAQ that those with more hoarding tendencies reported more creative achievements in the area of visual arts.

In conclusion, contrary to anecdotal evidence, we found no support for the idea that hoarding behavior is associated with higher levels of creativity, either in the form of creative personality, creative achievement, or divergent thinking. We did, however, find evidence to support a link between hoarding tendencies and high levels of neuroticism and impulsivity and low levels of conscientiousness and distress tolerance. Finally, though research has previously identified environmental risk-factors in hoarding, we did not find any evidence that attitudes about money or the environment were related to this disorder. Future research on hoarding might benefit from targeting personality factors, impulsivity, and distress tolerance in the treatment of hoarding disorder.

Acknowledgments The authors thank Alison Hird for her valuable assistance with this study.

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Creativity, personality, and hoarding behavior.

Compulsive hoarding is a debilitating illness that is characterized by excessive collection of and failure to discard items, irrespective of their use...
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