New Study on Marijuana and the Creative/Programmer Set
It was the mantra of arts/technology classes that marijuana gets the creative juices flowing. From Paris in the 1920s to Silicon Valley in the 2000s, cannabis has held a special place. Stephen Jay Gould was a fan, and Louis Armstrong called marijuana “an assistant and friend.”
It begs the question, is there something special about the world’s most popular illicit substance that makes it more conducive to creativity? Well, now there’s a study that throws under this premise could be watered down.
“Almost everyone thinks cannabis makes them more creative. And it appears that this assumption is not supported by the data,” said Christopher Barnes, professor of organizational behavior at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business and author of a recent study.
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Researchers originally hypothesized that cannabis indirectly increases creativity by making users feel happier. Cannabis tends to elevate mood, which in turn could lead to a mindset shift that fuels creativity.
At the end of the study, the study had creativity ratings from third parties who did not know who had used. They rated the responses for novelty and usefulness, but found no difference in creativity between users and non-users.
To test this idea, the researchers designed a randomized controlled trial comparing the creative outcomes of light cannabis users who had just drunk versus those who hadn’t. Researchers conducted a second experiment that showed similar results on a work-related creativity task.
In both cases, participants who used marijuana believed their own ideas were more creative compared to control participants, while outside evaluators did not. Cannabis members also found other people’s ideas more creative.
Another recording is from a 2017 study previously published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition came closer to this conclusion by using cannabis smokers who creatively outperformed non-smokers over the course of two tests. The researchers used the Big 5 personality model to assess mainly 979 undergraduate students. They then asked the group to rate their own level of creativity and completed this by objectively measuring the students’ creativity – a divergent reasoning test and a separate convergent reasoning test.
The results show that cannabis users outperformed non-users on the test that measures convergent thinking, although there was no significant difference between the two groups on the divergent thinking test.
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According to the study, cannabis users may be more creative than non-users, but cannabis is not a creativity enhancer. The psychoactive compounds in the cannabis plant have a stimulating effect, thereby enhancing performance of all kinds. Ultimately, the results suggest that marijuana use does not affect creativity, but it does affect perceptions of one’s creativity.
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One finding from these studies is that cannabis users tend to exhibit different personality traits — for example, being more open to experience than non-users — something that is associated with both cannabis use and increased creativity.
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Many creative people claim that cannabis plays a key role in their creative process, but whether it enhances creativity probably depends on the personality of the creative person. Your tolerance, quantity, and how you go through the process will affect results. With the focus on AI and other technologies, there will likely be more research to create even more artistic and technical breakthroughs.
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