The Most Depressed College Majors

These college majors have a higher risk of serious mental illness, including depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

These college majors have a higher risk of serious mental illness, including depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

People studying artistic subjects like painting, music or drama are 90 percent more likely to be hospitalised for schizophrenia later in life, research reveals.

The epidemiological study adds weight to the argument that creativity is linked to madness.

Among almost 4.5 million Swedish people, those studying creative subjects were also 62 percent more likely to be hospitalised for bipolar disorder.

Similarly, they were 39 percent more likely to be hospitalised for depression.

Hospitalisations were most likely to occur when the person reached their 30s.

Those in the visual arts — like painters, designers, photographers and so on — had the strongest link to mental illness.

The authors write:

“…the association with mental illness was strongest for core creative subjects, especially for visual arts.

It is notable that, in the visual arts, most if not all practitioners are engaged in the creative process, whereas performing arts place more emphasis on interpretation.

Hence, the core creative subjects, particularly visual arts, may capture the concept of creativity most closely, supporting the idea that mental disorder is associated with creativity per se.”

The study was published in the The British Journal of Psychiatry (MacCabe et al., 2018).


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Hello, and welcome to PsyBlog. Thanks for dropping by.

This site is all about scientific research into how the mind works.

It’s mostly written by psychologist and author, Dr Jeremy Dean.

I try to dig up fascinating studies that tell us something about what it means to be human.

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Author: Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book "Making Habits, Breaking Habits" (Da Capo, 2013) and several ebooks.