The Mad-genius controversy: Estimating the creativity of suicide poets via a dual model

Abstract

The "mad genius" controversy concerns the intricate relationship between creativity and psychopathology. Poets, for instance, are often noted for their mental health challenges and elevated suicide rates. This study investigates the link between creativity and suicide among modern and contemporary Chinese poets by employing computational techniques to analyze semantic creativity in their works. Examining 16 poets who died by suicide alongside 21 non-suicidal counterparts, we introduced a dual model that combines flow distance and co-occurrence networks to assess creative cognition. The findings indicate that suicidal poets exhibit significantly higher local and global flow distances, reflecting greater divergent thinking. Furthermore, their co-occurrence networks display more tightly interconnected and efficient structures, suggesting enhanced cognitive flexibility. By demonstrating that heightened creativity, characterized by distinct semantic network properties, is associated with mental health challenges, the study provides empirical support for the "mad genius" hypothesis. These results contribute to the understanding of the creativity-psychopathology nexus, offering novel insights and advancing computational methods for analyzing creative expression.