Creative types tend to be a little crazy, right? Psychologists have now found that comedians actually demonstrate a lot of the same characteristics as people with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

As one of the researchers on the study, Gordon Claridge, told the Guardian,

“The creative elements needed to produce humour are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis – both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”

Study participants included more than 500 comedians, 350 actors (a career considered creative but not necessarily funny), and 800 non-creative types, as a control. They came from the U.K., Australia, and the U.S.

Each participant filled out a survey [doc] asking about various feelings and experiences he or she had had. The questions were designed to identify psychotic traits in people who don’t have mental illness: traits such as anti-social behavior, belief in telepathy, and difficulty in organizing one’s thoughts.

Read more at Discover