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The Effects of Modafinil on Convergent and Divergent Thinking of Creativity: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Author(s) -
Mohamed Ahmed Dahir
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the journal of creative behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.896
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 2162-6057
pISSN - 0022-0175
DOI - 10.1002/jocb.73
Subject(s) - modafinil , divergent thinking , psychology , placebo , convergent thinking , confidence interval , randomized controlled trial , creativity , clinical psychology , cognition , psychiatry , medicine , creative thinking , social psychology , alternative medicine , pathology
Modafinil is a drug licensed for the treatment of narcolepsy and sleep apnea. Recently, modafinil has been reported to be used as a pharmacological cognitive enhancer by healthy individuals with no psychiatric disorders. This paper reports on a study that investigated the effects of modafinil on divergent and convergent thinking tasks of creativity. Sixty‐four healthy male ( n = 31) and female ( n = 33) volunteers participated in a randomized double‐blind placebo‐controlled parallel group design study. For the convergent thinking tasks, modafinil had no significant main effect on the Group Embedded Figures Task and the Remote Associates Task ( RAT ). However, a median split analysis showed that modafinil participants low in creativity personality trait had significantly higher RAT scores (Mean [ M ] = 6.85, SD = 3.39; 95% confidence interval [95% CI ]: 5.53–8.2) than those high in creativity personality trait ( M = 4.27, SD = 3.0; 95% CI : 2.4–6.0). For the divergent thinking tasks, relative to placebo ( M = 1.195, SD = 0.28; 95% CI : 1.0–1.3), modafinil ( M = 0.77, SD = 0.37; 95% CI : 0.63–0.92) significantly reduced the performance of flexibility scores and marginally reduced the elaboration scores as measured by the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults ( ATTA ). Overall, participants on modafinil ( M = 6.3, SD = 2.6; 95% CI : 5.3–7.4) had significantly lower ATTA scores relative to participants on placebo ( M = 9.5, SD = 2.3; 95% CI : 8.6–10.4). These results indicate that modafinil might reduce divergent thinking of creativity in healthy individuals. They suggest that, rather than being a more general cognitive enhancer, modafinil might have negative and subtle effects on creativity. However, the results are from a small‐scale trial, which tested a small number of participants. Therefore, the results need to be interpreted with caution. A replication with a large sample of participants is recommended.