ABSTRACT
Participants were recruited online and asked to fill in an online questionnaire. Recruitment of comedians was carried out by emails to online comedian agencies, comedy clubs, comedian associations and comedian societies mainly in the UK, USA and Australia; these were found by a Google search or on recommendation from other comedian or comedy societies. Using actors as controls for our comedian sample proved informative in several ways. It showed that although both groups had performing in front of an audience in common, they had distinctly different personality profiles. The O-LIFE factors are regarded conceptually as trait dimensions, intended as descriptors of predispositions to disorder – in the case of manic-depressive traits the tendency to experience consecutive changes in mood. Cognition in full-blown schizophrenia is associated with confusion, disorganisation, fragmentation, and thought and speech containing illogically connected ideas – the form of thought disorder known as 'overinclusive thinking'.
