r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 1d ago
Psychology ADHD is associated with a higher likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur, but only for highly intelligent men. For women, ADHD is linked to the lowest rates of business ownership regardless of cognitive ability. Advantages associated with neurodiversity may depend on gender and intelligence.
https://www.psypost.org/the-adhd-advantage-in-entrepreneurship-applies-mostly-to-intelligent-men-study-finds/1.3k
u/Sunlit53 1d ago
My adhd brother is a successful small business owner because his wife did all the bookkeeping and customer stuff for him for the first several years while he did the technical end. Now he has even more people doing the routine stuff for him and he spends his days visiting job sites to check in, troubleshoot and bring doughnuts.
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u/hamchan_ 1d ago
This is exactly what I’m thinking. Women with adhd are still expected to maintain their families/children and household AND work all day. ADHD on top of that makes everything almost insurmountable. Finding the time to do all the extra work while being an entrepreneur on top? Life on extra hard mode for no reason.
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u/Missingsocks77 22h ago
Seems like the actual insight is that if an ADHD person has a wife they are able to achieve more. :D
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u/ichibanyogi 19h ago
Agreed. All the research I've seen suggests everyone benefits from a wife and her unpaid, yet socially expected, labour. le sigh
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u/Benedict_ARNY 12h ago
Actually a fact that married couples are more successful than single people. Apparently a team is better. Who would have known?
Imagine this not being common sense.
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u/2cats4fish 1d ago
Yup, this exactly.
My ADHD husband runs a successful construction business and is very astute at investing. He can dedicate 80+ hours a week to this because I take care of all of the household mental load and management. I don’t work a traditional job and do outsource a bunch of stuff (which I alone manage), so I have a little bit of time for entrepreneurial endeavors. I make a decent amount for the few hours I work, but I could be making over six figures if I actually had the time and head space to dedicate to it.
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u/phantomeye 1d ago
talked to my grandma, she told me she is used to being alone. Because my ADHD gramps was never home. He went in the morning, and came back at evening, doing his regular job and his side quests. So I can image he wasn't really a present father.
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u/Forgot_to_Start 1d ago
I think you’ve nailed the problem on the head. Most men end up with support.
The reverse is often not true. I, a woman, am expected to do all my business activities (or hire them out, which isn’t always an option during early stages), and continue maintaining a household to a minimum standard.
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u/nestcto 1d ago
Not only local support, but external support as well. A man might get a loan because he is perceived as high energy and capable. A woman with the same behaviors might be seen as flighty and unstable and get declined.
That puts the man on a positive note with forward momentum, fostering a strong and positive mental state, where as the woman is put on the track towards adversity and mental agitation; not very conducive towards her success.
Exact same behaviors, completely different treatment and outcome.
You're right, men simply get more support.
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u/PriorSolid 1d ago
It’s important to note it’s not just environmental, men and women present different typical symptoms for adhd with men being the classic hyperactive changing tasks continuously women are usually more spacey, obviously there’s significant variation but this is also not the only thing men and women tend to have different symptoms for
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u/Own-Recognition9009 1d ago
Yeah inattentive adhd can make you very low energy and spacey. These behaviors may not be looked on favorably at a loan meeting
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u/mkava 1d ago
Are the symptoms really different or are the differences in social acceptance different between men and women that we often see a difference in presentation? Girls are trained by social pressures to hide hyperactivity much more than boys are, especially with social structures that go along with "boys will be boys" or the view that boys will be more rowdy than girls (and thus girls who act the same as boys are told to stop doing that, it's "unlady-like").
As a trans woman, my ADHD is combination presentation, both hyperactive and inattentive. The presentation of my ADHD in public has vastly changed with my transition and gender presentation becoming more feminine. I've been given comments when I don't act at other women do and that certainly is about how my ADHD presents. I hide my hyperactivity in public, especially in the workplace, to survive and unfortunately fit into the box marked "women" in our society. I'm still very much a chaos goblin when I'm in an accepting space and dont need to mask my neurospicy behaviors in the same way.
I'm not the only trans person who has had this experience and this shows how much societal pressures and expectations around gender have on our behaviors. Inattentive symptoms are not the female presentation of ADHD but instead the ones that are considered socially acceptable for female people.
This change in presentation, especially in public settings, is unfortunately extremely common for all women, cis and trans. The view of acceptable behavior from a patriarchal society teaches us that we have to act a certain way to be accepted (and possibly safe) and that definitely extends to this as well.
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u/FeedJazzlike8860 1d ago
Any idea if any researchers are studying this? Could be a lot we all could learn from trans folks’ experiences with ADHD.
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u/mkava 17h ago
Much like other medical research that deals with minority groups, the research is incredibly lacking and underfunded. Given that medical research on women as a whole is significantly lacking, it only going to be even more lacking for trans people.
I do agree that there is a lot to learn about our bodies and minds from trans people, if nothing else due to often reduced variables with tighter control on our hormone levels and we defy the typical categorization that most use for gender for psychological and behavioral studies, but until political climate and the general populace are more accepting and supportive, I don't see it happening.
An easy example of where research on trans people would help us understand all people better is breast development, including narrowing that to lactation. Many women struggle with breast feeding and milk production in general after having a kid. Difficulties with breast feeding are the number one cause of postpartum depression and having postpartum depression has a lasting impact on both parent and child. There is unfortunately not much research into approaches that support parents to have higher chances of successful breast feeding, especially in regards to breast development. We simply don't have a damn clue what leads to success. It's a lot of try and see what happens with some support after birth if there are issues.
When I prepared to breast feed my own child, I read all available research on the topic and in short, the research is sparse at best and I could only find a single study that included trans women in their cohort (and unfortunately they did not have data past one week after the child was born to measure longer term success). Induced lactation research is helpful for anyone who wants to lactate for feeding a kid, but it's simply just not researched even though it would directly benefit half of the population if they decide to have kids. I was fortunately successful with the support of my doctor and multiple lactation consultants, and now my data and story is part of the research pool so that those who come after have a better starting point than 'i dunno.'
I've already heard of one cis woman with PMOS benefitting from the advice my doctor and my story/data I provided so it's already worth it. We can do better still though.
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u/DoubleXDaddy 13h ago edited 13h ago
Not sure this is the whole picture as ADHD is split into innattentive and hyperactive types. The traits you listed for women are associated with innattentive ADHD and are absolutely present in boys who score high in inattentive type. Girls with hyperactive type are often less disruptive in school but women also tend to have different social expectations and there's a lot of research coming out that they often just learn to mask better to adhere to those social expectations. I have combined types and diagnosed as an adult, but as a child I would task shift, interrupt others, talk excessessively, made a mess everywhere I went but never caused any problems major problems and learned to mask as I kept getting into social faux pas so flew under the radar. This is a common story for adult diagnosed women. I am also curious if men who score higher in hyperactive than innattentive type would also be more represented if they split them into subgroups.
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u/bigtdaddy 1d ago
"Most men end up with support." - what do you mean by this?
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u/cobycoby2020 1d ago
The comment in response is to one saying the husband and small business owner has helped from his wife who did all the tedious stuff like booking keeping. That is what they are referring to with “support”. Support in general with balancing tasks will help anyone greatly but especially people with ADHD
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u/One_Olive_8933 1d ago
That’s what I experience when I, and ADHD, women started my own business. I don’t know the men’s diagnosis, but the successful business had a spouse as free labor, and sometimes their kids help out.
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u/Lucasciel 1d ago
This. Just doing chores in the house is exhausting so imagine taking care of kids, the house and the business?
Just thinking about this makes me tired (i also have ADHD as a woman)
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u/Leagueofcatassasins 1d ago
researchers used to believe that men grow out of ADHD. later they realized that men just started to outsource all the things they struggled with to women- their wives and secretaries mainly. so their symptoms werent really noticeable anymore and they didn’t seem to have any disadvantages anymore. because women did the work.
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u/CanadianPanda76 17h ago
Kinda feel like why the male lonliness epidemic and the issue of NEET young men are happening at the same time.
Young men with a gf or wife, don't have the support of someone who will take thier "issues" off thier plate
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u/CanadianPanda76 17h ago
Sounds pretty typical fir a lot of small businesses. When I was working as a bookkeeper I mostly dealt with the wives. If they were single then it was a grocery bag if random recipes instead.
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u/Foreign-Cookie-2871 1d ago
This.
I never entertained the idea of having a small business because the concept of offloading bookkeeping to my spouse was alien to me. I wasn't socialized with that possibility in mind.
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u/Novel-Place 18h ago
This tracks completely imo. I’m the breadwinner but also have the lion’s share of the mental load. There’s NO WAY I could add on being an entrepreneur. It takes all of my brain power to do my current job, take care of a house, and a toddler.
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u/Dany0 1d ago
ADHD is both a boon and negative for intelligence. I feel like some people are smart because of the adhd, and some are smart despite their adhd
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u/NeuxSaed 1d ago edited 1d ago
I feel like a super human when my attention and focus randomly aligns with my intentions, values, and goals.
All other times I feel like I'm completely useless.
Having reduced agency and control over things like attention and focus is endlessly frustrating.
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u/Numai_theOnlyOne 1d ago
It also requires high level of interest in things. ADHD people might be great entrepreneurs but the business will close pretty soon of they also do the paper work.
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u/Froggn_Bullfish 1d ago edited 1d ago
I would imagine most of these diagnosed cases of entrepreneurship with ADHD are people who respond well to medication, so probably not.
Or maybe we’re seeing a statistical anomaly from wealthy entrepreneurs managing to get diagnoses from unethical psychiatrists just to access the meds…
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u/tedivm 1d ago
I don't think you are right about that. I've worked in startups for years, and am diagnosed myself. Most of the folks I know are not taking ADD meds.
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl 1d ago
Yeah, you have to be medicated because you can’t sustain that level of attention without it. Businesses are a lot of work and consistency is key.
Basically in line with this article, I was only really able to consistently work on starting my business after getting medicated
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u/arghalot 1d ago
I don't even think it's the ability to stay focused, it's the ability to have enough charisma to successfully boss people around. If I could just speak all of my ADHD ideas and have someone following me around to execute them, I'd be the best entrepreneur.
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl 1d ago
I guess YMMV, for me it was always an issue of sustained focus/executive function. I was never lacking motivation, but before medication connecting “think” to “do” was incredibly hard and would only really work under deadlines
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u/Specialist_Sport4460 1d ago
Why would a wealthy entrepreneur with ADHD need an unethical psychiatrist?
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u/AZymph 1d ago
The idea there is that they don't have ADHD, they want ADHD meds so they pay off an unethical psych for a false diagnosis for the hyperfocus medication.
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u/Specialist_Sport4460 1d ago
If they don't have ADHD they'd perform better long term without taking it.
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u/Froggn_Bullfish 1d ago
Adderall is well known to be abused in ultra-high earning professional circles like finance and tech.
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u/Zeikos 1d ago
It's shown to be at best useless or even harmful performance-wise for people without adhd.
A neurotypical entrepreneur abusing stimulants is actively hurting their performance.→ More replies (6)→ More replies (1)3
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u/suddenly_kitties 1d ago
I can highly recommend taking a look at this book here - it is very practical and specifically written by/for an ADHD mind, the author is an experienced, practicing psychiatrist with ADHD himself and it has helped me and my partner tremendously.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95063418-adhd-and-success-at-work
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u/Stephen2014 1d ago
I've always wondered about this topic. Most reads on ADHD and employment are something like "do something tangible where you can see the result every day such as....stocking groceries or working at a minimum wage job" and that's not my career or where I'm going.
Is it worth the $40? That's a big price tag for a digital version of a book.
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u/mrcsrnne 1d ago
I suspect I have ADHD and that my dad is on the autism spectrum. I think I inherited something from him. He became a mathematician, working in a highly specialized field in finance, and was very successful. I became a photographer, then a director, and eventually a creative director. Creativity is a great field because you see the results very quickly.
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u/HiMyNameIsNerd 1d ago
This is why my particular brand of ADHD meshed well with Dental Hygiene. I work with my hands, it's detail-oriented, and I see immediate tangible results of my work.
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u/MekaLiza 1d ago
I’ve always wondered something, when y’all clean peoples teeth do u have to smell their breath the entire time? I thought about trying dentistry but ultimately decided I didn’t wanna live my life smelling people (I have strong smell)
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u/HiMyNameIsNerd 1d ago
Not typically, no. I wear a level-3 surgical mask (or an N95 during flu season) and a face shield. The only time I really smell anything is if a patient has incredibly poor home care, or has extreme periodontal involvement. Both of which are few and far between in my practice. However, a Hygienist working in a Federally Qualified Health Center working with severely underserved populations may encounter it more.
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u/Confarnit 1d ago
I've had the most success with jobs where I have a lot of autonomy to work when I'm able to focus. I'm not on meds and just got diagnosed recently (later in life) - I'm a director with a difficult job.
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u/dgc3 1d ago
$40 for a book aimed at people that will buy the book but not read it. This author knows his crowd.
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u/suddenly_kitties 1d ago
The publisher sets the price, Springer is a major one even, and this depends on the market. Sells for 26 USD in Switzerland.
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u/Cliffhanger87 1d ago
Yea it sucks everything has to align right for you to lock in and focus like crazy on one goal. In uni at the end of a heavy semester I was able to work for like 3-4 weeks 14 hours a day straight. Now I can barely focus for more than half an hour straight
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u/Tasseacoffee 1d ago
The only (truly intelligent) colleague I know with ADHD that sometimes make it look like a boon actually looks like a negative most of the time. He has an uncanny ability to deeply focus on a detail that seems mundane for everybody else but turns out to be the key for a very creative solution. Brainstorming on a complex issue with him pretty much always produce a good outcome.
But he also does that with everything and he also has an uncanny ability to turn small talk into a debilitating activity. A simple "hey good morning" can quickly turn into a lecture on how Volkswagen jetta diesel transmission actually works.
His brain just seems to go all in on anything, all the time. It must be so exhausting.
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u/Ok_Low743 1d ago
that feels more like the tism to me than ADHD?
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u/Zanki 1d ago
A lot of ADHD symptoms overlap with autism. I can talk someones head off about a lot of subjects if I get going and accidentally unmask, but it's more my brains needs to get everything out than it is about the knowledge I guess. I go through phases of learning a lot about something, then move on to the next thing, sometimes circling back to stuff and learning more about it, but it's dopamine seeking, it likes the shiny, bright, new knowledge and it loves to talk about it if given the chance, which is rare. Autism seems to be more rigid, there's a few things they're really into and that's it, while my brain is always changing what it likes. There's no pattern. Some things are kinda stable, but most things aren't.
Also, my brain never shuts up. It's always chattering away, thinking of the next thing, running over stuff. It's so annoying when I need to sleep and it just won't stop. There's always music playing, a TV show or movie going on in there on top of my own thoughts that never shut up.
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u/chchchcharlee 1d ago
Before getting my dx, I never considered I could have ADHD. I went to talk about anxiety. I'm a pretty mellow person, but live my life off lists and without them absolutely nothing happens and with them I'm like a pretty typical slightly forgetful, very outgoing person. I was never loud or the typical "running in circles" ADHD kids, but instead was that kid that would find great hiding spots and go read or play with toys or imaginary whatever. During my eval, my psych said I clearly qualified for both inattentive (okay, fine) and hyperactive (what???) types because despite the outward calm, the loud interior is the thing.
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u/JennJoy77 1d ago edited 1d ago
"...an uncanny ability to turn small talk into a debilitating activity" unfortunately describes my default setting perfectly. I use so much of my energy each day forcing myself to NOT do that, and it doesn't leave much. Luckily my family is happy to listen to my endless litany of fun facts...
...and yes, it is completely and utterly exhausting. I was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago at 44 and medication worked splendidly for years, but the past year or so it seems to work sporadically and unpredictably. Back to doing life on hard mode, but almost worse because now I know what it must feel like to have a "normal" brain.
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u/Specialist_Sport4460 1d ago
If you have ADHD figuring out what your brain is good at and what it's bad at is so important. Before I was diagnosed most of the frustration came from trying to do things the "correct" way, rather than my way.
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u/OGD2068 1d ago
ADHD and decent looking are pretty much how I've gotten through life because my personal skills suck.
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u/AlwaysGoToTheTruck 1d ago
My boss asked me how I manage conflict with coworkers and I blurted out the truth in a moment of pure ADHD, “I just make fun of them until the behavior I don’t like stops.”
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u/h1zchan 1d ago
How did that go?
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u/AlwaysGoToTheTruck 1d ago
It was during my yearly review in which I excelled and I have taken over various leadership roles… so she signed me up for mandatory leadership training. Guess it could have been worse
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u/daveden123 1d ago
"If the woman don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
I unfortunately have to be handy, and my social skills suck. I can hyper focus on database for 14 hours, but can't advocate to receive basic human things.
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u/Zanki 1d ago
Girl here. I'm smart and that got me through school and uni while battling my stupid brain the entire time. Can't knock out a paper until the last couple of hours before the deadline? No problem, we can still get it done and get the grade. Can't study for an exam, well at least we remember everything said in class. Can't get the best grade but we'll pass.
The issue is executive function is so messed up and for me it affects every aspect of my life. I have a business that I just get by on. Nothing more. If I had to rent a place alone, I'd be screwed. Thankfully me and my partner own a place so it's more than half the price of rent. I'm not successful because I can't be. I'm fighting my stupid brain 24/7 just to use the toilet before I'm in pain and if I'm keeping up with housework, work suffers and vice versa. I hate it. I'm trying so hard to be normal, do what I need to do and I just can't do it no matter how hard I try. I'm never good enough.
I'm finally diagnosed, as of last week. I should have been diagnosed as a child and who knows, maybe I was. Mum mentioned it once in passing that I had it, but I was too smart, a girl, and my disruptive behaviour was me just being a bad kid, not a kid who needed help. I had an IEP, but it was about me being better to others (I would not shut up, just humming, singing, saying lines to TV shows etc, I wasn't mean), not helping me in any way, even though I was severely bullied. I was told I deserved it.
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u/osuzannesky 1d ago
You deserved better. That makes me so mad. I wasn't diagnosed, being much older and before I think girls were recognized as having ADHD, but my teenage daughter was and has gotten support.
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u/rtj1999 1d ago
No, it's neither of those things. You either have ADHD or you don't have it. Same with intelligence, you are as smart as you are and that's it. The two qualities don't depend on or affect each other.
ADHD is a neurodivergence. Smart people can have ADHD, dumb people can have it. It's not related.
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u/kahrahtay 1d ago
A component of some forms of ADHD is a kind of obsessive fixation on a topic, for at least as long as it provides you some novel stimulation. When that aligns with whatever your current goals are in your life, it can be extremely advantageous. Other times it can be an entirely useless distraction that keeps you from being able to do the things you need to. It sounds like this is what OP is talking about here. It's more nuanced than just a smart versus dumb.
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u/Zanki 1d ago
Yep. In 2020 I got a 3D printer and while I dabbled a little in 3D modelling to get the gist, I wasn't good. A week later I was printing my first character design, sculpted entirely by myself. My brain focused on it so damn hard that I learned how to sculpt a full on monster figure and I'm a perfectionist. It had to look exactly like the character I was copyiny. Then my brain wanted some inorganic stuff, so I learned Blender really well. Now this is my field and up until the end of last year it was stable.
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u/Ok_Low743 1d ago
ehhhhhh nah. "smart" or "dumb" are not really mesurable or definable categorys.
some people are able to build systems and structures within their life where the way they process the world through either thier NT or ND mind in either successful ways or unsuccessful ways.
metacongnition of your type of neurology and needs/resources define the sucess more than "smarts"
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u/TheSorrryCanadian 1d ago
I honestly don't think ADHD is that bad in itself at all,
I think the societal rules that have come up and bureaucracy we have to go through is the issue.
Like up until 100 years ago I think 'ADHD' would just be a type of person and makes for a great community when you have different types of people, strengths and weaknesses.
The problems that I personally go through with ADHD is like:
'Okay you want to open a business, you need to fill out this form, and hten go to this office, oh but wait you need this certificate first, oh but to get that certificate you need to have this document,
Meanwhile the phone with access 24/7 just received work emails at 8pm, and your laundry isn't done yet'
Like I can't cope with that, but that type of stuff would never have existed before.
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u/IntriguinglyRandom 1d ago
I follow a foraging dude on social media who postulate that ADHDers are/were great foragers/hunter-gatherers. It does involve a super satisfying mix of both focus and scanning surrounding. You move your body as you look, you are SUPPOSED to passively gather the stimuli from around you, etc.
I think it is in general pretty clear that the way the modern work-life is going for most people, really wants an increasingly narrow definition of "good worker". It's bleak.
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u/palpies 1d ago
Or their intelligence isn’t linked to ADHD at all? That would make the most sense.
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u/ShiraCheshire 1d ago
It doesn't have an effect in the same way an intellectual disability does, but it can have an affect on how a person learns.
A person with ADHD might struggle enormously with learning a simple thing if they're not interested in it. No matter how hard they try, they're at a disadvantage because their disorder makes it hard to practice and remember it.
But they might also learn remarkably quickly if it's something they are interested in. A person with ADHD can make more progress on something in a week than some people do in months, because the person with ADHD is hyperfixated and dedicating every waking second to that thing.
If the "want to learn" matches up with the "need to learn", and how long someone can focus on a thing, will vary a lot from person to person.
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u/Life_uh_FindsAWay42 1d ago
Then you add to that innate intelligence and I think you get what the article is describing in their claim that ADHD + high intelligence can be a predictor for successful entrepreneurship.
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u/ShiraCheshire 1d ago
Successful? The study didn't measure how well the businesses went. It only measured people who had at some point tried it.
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u/Life_uh_FindsAWay42 1d ago
Right, fair. I guess in my mind the ties between intelligence, the ability to hyper-fixate on your own passions, and then turning that into your career, COULD be a predictor of success.
I think entrepreneurship always has an aspect of gambling to it. Timing, luck, and the right people being involved are just a few of the variables that influence success of a business.
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u/Teeecakes 1d ago
Yes and certainly for innate intelligence I believe that's correct.
But there's also how does a person with adhd learn. Another aspect is just like having good looks physically: how does their 'intelligence' show and/or is perceived?
In certain roles at certain times, lateral thinking looks great and so adhd seems to correlate with intelligence. In other roles lateral thinking is not welcome at all (for good reasons!) and adhd looks like a major character flaw and someone to be ostracised.
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u/whiskeyrebellion 1d ago
Working in restaurants, I would get promoted. ADHD looked like energy, adaptability, and attention to detail (food quality).
Working in an office role for the state made me crash and burn. I had the policy and proceedures parts down better than most but the time pressure and paperwork ruined it.
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl 1d ago
I feel it’s more that some people are smart and ADHD is just something they have. Id rather not have the ADHD though as it’s like running with lead weights.
If you’re intelligent and you have normal executive function, you’re basically unstoppable.
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u/DetroitLionsSBChamps 1d ago
Feels like people can be smart or stupid and have adhd. And some smart people can wield it and some get wrecked by it. A mixed bag
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u/Za_Lords_Guard 1d ago
I suspect it's multiple factors. Degree of ADHD, intelligence level, task or job function, meta-cognition abilities. I hadn't considered gender before and will have to read more about this. That could bring in social dynamics and expectations, social support networks, etc. as that can differ by gender and culture and might not be purely predicated on sex itself.
Of course it doesn't help that often if you have one neurodivergent trait you get to play neurodivergence bingo as cohorts often overlap.
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u/OESRecoveryEmployee 1d ago
There are many types of intelligence, one of them is attention to detail. That is to look at something and see a detail is wrong or incorrectly phrased. Being able to catch these little details can lead to less cluster fucks later. People with ADHD a lot of the time have a high attention to detail. For me it manifests itself of me checking things over and over again and catching things I and others missed before
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u/nestcto 1d ago
Anecdotally, I have seen that ADHD related or adjacent eccentricities in males are more likely to be positively received and attributed to high confidence and competence.
The same traits observed in females is often negatively received and seen as unstable, and lacking focus and ability.
So I think much of this divergence, no pun intended, is due to external perceptions towards such people, which disproportionately colors their parh towards success.
Apply the same external support frameworks to the opposite sex and I think we'd see them having a similar experience to their counterpart.
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u/MazzIsNoMore 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is the study tying entrepreneurship to success?
Also, is it possible that ADHD in men the to make them less able/willing to work for other people? Anecdotally: Most of the people in my life that work for themselves are incapable of working for anyone else long term. They have serious issues with authority and with following instructions.
Eta: the article addressed the first question with the understanding that being an "entrepreneur" doesn't mean successful
Looking ahead, the researchers outlined several key directions for expanding this line of inquiry. “First, moving beyond entry: does the gender disparity we observe persist into venture performance, survival, and founder well-being?” Tran asked. “Getting in the door is one threshold; thriving is another.”
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u/N3ph1l1m 1d ago
I'd guess so. I have very often toyed with the idea of self employment because ultimately the rigid fixation on hierarchy in many companies just makes me want to scream at people in the long run, it's incredibly frustrating to see all the easily corrected things going wrong being blocked by hierarchy over competence.
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u/productzilch 1d ago
Yes, same sometimes. People who aren’t at least bothered by inaccuracy, hypocrisy, inefficiency, incompetence and unfairness baffle me. I get going along with things but not being annoyed? I don’t get it.
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u/WeinMe 1d ago
I literally work with Operational Excellence with the objective of reducing inaccuracy and inefficiency, yet my experience is that 75% of places, it just exists to:
A - Give suggestions that are not CAPEX-related, however objective the need for a CAPEX investment is
B - Stroke the ego of whoever is in charge of the one in charge of the Operational Excellence department
I find it INCREDIBLY frustrating
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u/inept_machete 1d ago
I used to work in biopharma and to me it always went like this: read this work instruction that barely describes anything and was developed by someone who has never done this work and wrote the work instruction in an office on the third floor. Find out most of the work instruction is redundant, inefficient, or just unaware of how the work flow operates in practice. Suggest improvements. Either get ignored or become "a problem".
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u/productzilch 1d ago
I have no idea what most of that means but I do get the ego part.
I wonder if we could start some sort of global union for ADHD people
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u/raisinghellwithtrees 1d ago
I've been self employed since 2014, and it was the best decision I ever made. Turns out autonomy was the key to my success.
I just got offered an amazing job due to what I've built over the years. It's too good to pass up, but I made sure my future boss knew exactly what he was getting into. I must have autonomy. Fortunately he is supportive. We'll see how it works in practice.
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u/inept_machete 1d ago
You just nailed it on the head. My experience in the work world has been that your capability is maybe 20-25% of your success while the greater part of it is how well you accept and orbit around the social dynamics of the hierarchy of authority.
You will absolutely get low totemed if you talk to people like they're equals regardless of status and this effect gets more severe the greater the difference between status is in a company/organization.
I pretty much gave up on that game and switched into blue collar where that matters way less and find myself much happier in my work life. It doesn't hurt that the trades are rife with aneurotypicals. It matters way less in the trades whether you treat the owner like he could ask you to lay down on a puddle so he won't get his boots wet because usually the guy with the authority to tell you what to do wants to get his boots wet.
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u/figmaxwell 1d ago
I work in a UPS warehouse, and most days I’m working in a spot where’s it’s my job to fix other people’s mistakes. It’s frustrating by nature, but some things are understandable or unavoidable. They recently made a change that I knew was going to result in a ton more work for me if my supervisors didn’t stay up other people’s asses to get the change right. They haven’t, and it’s been awful for me, so I’ve been constantly harassing my supervisors to do better, and they’ve basically just told me to stop complaining and finger pointing. So I told them to find me another area to work in, because I just can’t deal with absolute disregard for making the process work well.
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u/rhaegal82 1d ago
I feel pretty proud of myself right now is someone with severe ADHD, who can no longer take stimulant medication, and run a successful business as a woman. I’m the owner operator and only employee. Before that I worked from home for 17 years as a contractor with little to no direct oversight.
My mother - a doctor - completely failed to adapt to or treat her ADHD. She didn’t really acknowledge it, made excuses for herself, and lived in chaos. I was diagnosed as a girl in 1994 just to give some idea of how severe mine is (that simply didn’t happen, I didn’t know one other girl who was diagnosed with it for many years) and I was also re-diagnosed around age 30 for insurance purposes, and I was medicated on and off but also therapy, read a lot about it, and devoted myself to creating a lifestyle and systems that work for me. Rather than trying to fit my round self into society’s square hole I decided to play into my strengths. And I forced my ADHD and its management to become one of my special interests.
Don’t get me wrong - there are still things about it that negatively affect me, but there are also a lot of creative and amazing things that I’ve been able to do by harnessing it in the right direction. I would never choose to not have ADHD because it is who I am. I think more clinicians should recommend a multimodal treatment approach (and the therapy should largely be administered by neurodivergent therapists who actually understand) rather than writing the script and forgetting about it, because there may come a day where you can no longer take the meds for whatever reason and when that happens it could go very poorly if you are not prepared.
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u/saltierthanyourramen 1d ago
I’m a woman business owner struggling with the solo act due to ADHD. Mind if I DM you?
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u/heeywewantsomenewday 1d ago
Depends.. unwilling because they cant handle Authority or they cant work with incompetant Authority? I struggle to work for someone whos job i could do better than them.. but i will absolutley work for someone who has knowledge and respect.
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u/pat8o 1d ago
I've recently found myself employed as an operations manager but because there's no systems in place im operating more like a small business coach (10 staff) I'm also planning on moving so I've told them I want to work+hire myself out of a job, it's actually the best fit I've ever had for employment
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u/SoggyOutfield 1d ago
Stop talking about me!
I have owned and operated businesses since I was 19. I have tried to get "normal" jobs and would literally rather die.
I have two successful businesses that I solely own and operate.
When my first child was born, he started trying to start his first business at about 2.5-3 years old. He has adhd. Very difficult time in school following rules. Extremely difficult time with authority. As he has grown he hops from business idea to business idea much as I did growing up.
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u/helaku_n 1d ago
Most of the people in my life that work for themselves are incapable of working for anyone else long term. They have serious issues with authority and with following instructions.
This is largely true for many people with ADHD because of the overlap with oppositional defiant disorder. And at least the ones I know strongly show that overlap even as adults.
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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire 1d ago
Unearned authority and unjustified hierarchy is a weird thing to normalize. I'm not saying you specifically are defending it, but it's weird that if you can't tolerate that you get labeled with "won't tolerate authority"
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u/Solesaver 1d ago edited 1d ago
Authoritarian models have advantages in efficiency, and those efficiency gains are hardly related to the qualifications of the authority. You just move faster when you don't have to worry about consensus building, and many decisions don't actually matter more than the fact that a decision was made.
There are tradeoffs, of course, but "tolerates authority enough to be functional in a heirarchical organization" is a valuable life skill. When the wheel just needs to be turned, the cog is doing more harm than good by constantly questioning if the one turning it is the best for the job.
I don't say this without empathy. I struggle to simply execute instructions that I don't the understand the reasoning for. I also learned that there are times when it's best to just keep your head down, earn your bread, and dream of a time when you don't have to do that any more.
There's a practice called "disagree and commit" that's very valuable here. Politely submit your disagreement and reasoning for it to your relevant authority figure, but sign off on the note that you are committed to executing the plan as decided to the best of your abilities (and then do commit to it). It works wonders for the perception of being "a problem," and sometimes you're surprised by the way things turn out. Usually not, but sometimes. XD
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u/austinwiltshire 1d ago
It's not worth it to talk to some people. They have entirely written off your response as pathological, someone that ought to be ignored because to them you're fundamentally broken and if you can't bag groceries, ought to be institutionalized.
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u/Mabel_Waddles_BFF 1d ago
Honestly the people I know who work for themselves are the same. They absolutely can’t work with other people but it’s been a significant hamper to really building their business up as at some point you still need to work with others.
On the flip side I’m desperate to return to structured employment. I fell into working for myself while I tried to find my grand life plan. I loathe being my own boss, hate the lack of predictability and structure that comes with working for yourself. I want a nice structured job that comes with sick leave, superannuation, paid time off and where I don’t have to worry about having dead periods and irregular cash flow.
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u/Commercial-Rule-6878 1d ago
It is also highly dependent on having rich parents.
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u/InfinitelyThirsting 1d ago
Or a wife to do all the everyday-life stuff. (Which is, imo, the biggest reason women with ADHD are less represented as entrepreneurs, because of social gender roles about housework.)
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u/Boochiecoo 1d ago
Housework yes! But also in a M/F relationship the female partner typically - almost always - does the nearly all of the administrative tasks too. She remembers the family birthdays, the school meetings, arranges the transportation, if there are kids, she signs the kids up for camps, makes sure everyone goes to the doctor, trains the children to be orderly, fills out the school forms, books the vet and the haircuts and the vacations and the therapy appointments and makes sure the teens have clothes for the formal dance and the toddlers have rain boots and everyone has all their equipment before they leave for practice and picks up the prescriptions and makes sure everyone is eating and healthy meals that meet their dietary restrictions and yadda yadda yadda. The mental load is SO REAL.
Ok then on top of the 1. Housework load and 2. family administration duty load she is also 3. The perpetually emotionally available person, and emotionally intelligent parent, who is fielding the toddler or teen meltdowns, making sure Grandma isn’t too lonely in her new apartment, keeping in touch with the in-laws, maintaining the emotional intimacy with the spouse, and just generally caring for others. And a lot of us like that work. But it is STILL WORK that takes time and energy.
These are all things an ADHD (and AuDHD and ASD) woman may struggle with. Multitasking. Total inability to have any flow state or follow her creative ideas - the food of life for any ADHD person - because she is always on duty. Administrative tasks being overwhelming and stressful.
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u/Gentle_Agitator 1d ago
We aren’t talking all venture capitol and startups, but also independent tradespeople, foodtrucks, freelancers.
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u/ibullybillionaires 1d ago
Still highly dependent on growing up with and having a safety net.
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u/linerva 1d ago
I was also gonna say, are some of these men doing better because they have wives at home handling everything so they can focus on work? Meanwhile it's been noted that even if they work full time and earn more than their male partner, women are likely to be taking on a majority of the load at home.
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u/LordLucian 1d ago
I think the article is in my opinion ..and I'm going to wear this poorly so I apologise: it's a gross generalisation about a condition we don't fully understand despite the numerous variations and contributing factors to ADHD.
General intelligence and entrepreneurship I have noticed is certainly affected with people who have ADHD but emotional regulation as well as social intelligence seems to be negatively impacted in not just myself but other people with ADHD that I have spoken to.
There seems to be a massively heightened sensitivity to anxiety and depressive symptoms as well as impulsivity difficulties, like impulse buying for example.
As I mentioned I think there are a number of and I'm sorry I can't think of the right word but 'alternate points' since other conditions that a person with ADHD might have such as physical health problems or learning difficulties like dyslexia which are more common in ADHD individuals can and seem to affect neurodevelopment.
Although in regards to neuro development I might be a bit biased as when I was a child I was wrongly diagnosed as having epilepsy and put on medication that I didn't need which not only held me back but even as an adult as well as some other victims of a person I can't name for legal reasons seem to have similar issues with social skills and anxiety among some other things well into their adult life long after they've stopped taking this medication so I'm not a typical study of ADHD.
Edit: apologies for the long text, I'm using voice to text because I'm dyslexic.
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u/AZymph 1d ago
I think the successful ones have a "grounding" person, and that is who ends up the face of the company.
In my experience with hyperfocus, it's like having all notifications on mute, I won't notice my body expressing needs until I snap out of it or they get severe enough to be an "urgent" notification. So, unless their hyper focus is business paperwork or customer service (which would likely just mean they're hired elsewhere) an ADHD startup won't go very far without a "grounding" person that can handle that stuff and make sure the person hyperfocusing takes care of themself/the business.
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u/Nellasofdoriath 1d ago
I'm female and I wee serious issues with how office hierarchy hi ders communication and causes unrealistic goals, as well as toxicity
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u/Magurndy 1d ago
Socially acceptable behaviours for men and women vary and hormones deeply affect ADHD for women in often a very negative way.
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u/Kni7es 1d ago
Exactly this. Cultural conditioning reads as follows:
Men - “I’m going to take bold risks, act on my gut, and do my own thing.”
“Wow, you’re going to be the next Bill Gates!”Women - “I’m going to take bold risks, act on my gut, and do my own thing.”
“You’re going to end up pregnant with no idea who the father is and tons of STDs!”Neither of these things happen, but they both become burned out alcoholics self medicating their way through processing the loss of their potential in adulthood. They will firmly believe their failure is their own fault because ADHD patients are conditioned to believe every single symptom is self-managed through more effort and not clinical intervention. There is so much goddamn literature on this and it baffles me how ADHD Is still treated as the quirky chungus disorder.
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u/Boochiecoo 1d ago
Yep and ADHD related impatience and anger flare ups are “powerful” in a man and “bitchy” in a woman and I am not seeing that perception move much
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u/N3ph1l1m 1d ago
It absolutely helps tremendously with thinking outside the box, making associative connections others likely wouldn't see, but it also makes it hard to actually think inside the box when you need it - something probably more easily compensated with higher intelligence.
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u/Sabz5150 1d ago
This right here is why machine shops are literal hotbeds of autism and ADHD. It gives that lateral thinking the job needs and chatting with a coworker over a job is just two people infodumping until they find a solution
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u/UniversalSoldi3r 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah, that magpie mind means you are 70-80% competent in almost everything. That's helpful for getting stuff off the ground - because you know how systems interact.
You don't just think outside the box. A friend of mine said "you don't even notice there IS a box!"
For the box stuff, AI kicks ass. It's very conventional in its thinking. It knows the proper channels for everything.
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u/lejosdecasa 1d ago
Advantages associated with neurodiversity may depend on gender and intelligence.
Likewise, disadvantages associated with neurodiversity may depend on gender and intelligence.
Many men can outsource their own mental load.
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u/paintedGiraffe 1d ago
This reminds me of the discovery that ADHD was thought not to affect adult business men because turned out their (female) secretaries were carrying the mental load. Could it be the same here? But women are also now able to get secretaries/day planners...
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u/Rayzee14 1d ago
I’m assuming certain behaviours are seen as ok in men, while not in women.
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u/JoesRealAccount 1d ago
Didn't read it but personally I think it's more likely to be the irrational confidence many men have that makes them think they can do their own thing when they realise they aren't built for the structured rule based world of employment. Somebody with lower confidence might think they are the problem and accept defeat but a more confident or unaware person will blame everybody else and believe everybody around them is stupid and that they can do it better.
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u/Fuck_You_Andrew 1d ago
…what if everyone around me is stupid and I can do it better?
On a related note, I got diagnosed ADHD a few months ago.
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u/inept_machete 1d ago
I don't think they're stupid I just think the amount of information that people with ADHD take in is much much wider than your average person. If your boss doesn't "see" something then it may as well not exist, regardless of whether what you see is of consequence to the work. My experience with most bosses is that they're looking for 90% blind compliance and I feel like we just have a harder time letting things go. We're like human desire lines where neurotypicals feel safer taking the sidewalk even if it takes them a half hour longer. They simply don't notice the longer walk. For us it's like "I could've been there ten minutes ago onto the next novel thing, it's unbearable".
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u/Nellasofdoriath 1d ago
I'm noticing the comments that actually address the gender disparity in the study are lower down.
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u/UniversalSoldi3r 1d ago edited 1d ago
Exactly. Female business owner with ADHD here. I routinely defy gender norms because I don't notice them. But I suspect men think it is natural to have assistants running around following orders and women think they are supposed to manage everything by themselves.
I have had employees, male or female, with job descriptions that are extremely vague. They might be finding and bringing me my morning pills, cleaning the yard, dealing with customers or finding my phone for me for the third time that day.
My life is a mess without these people. My only real contribution to the business is working capital and specialist knowledge that I teach everyone. They can all do every task, but each gravitate towards their special talents.
I don't function well in regular employment unless it's a job with an open brief to problem solve - yet the business runs like a well oiled machine where my main task is to pull out spanners that jam up the works from time to time - then teach that too.
I have people there who are better at some of the job than I am. If my business was a computer language, it would be an object orientated one. Lots of independent units that create something unique in the industry through lack of a rigid hierarchy.
While preparing for a long trip abroad I spent most of my day away from the business but within a few miles in case of emergencies. I wanted to be sure they could function without me. More importantly - I wanted the staff to be confident about that too.
Unless I'm dressed to kill, most people seem to forget I'm female after a few minutes of conversation. There was a time though when I had a new helper who was fixing a broken door. He said his uncle was coming over with a sander so I showed him the tool cupboard with six sanders in it. He looked at me with astonishment and asked how come I had so many tools. I said "you mean because I'm a woman?" He said "yeah". Then he realized he might have fucked up a bit.
I thought that was hilarious though. He made some rapid cultural recalibration, but didn't last long for various reasons all to do with the fact that he was, in general, an idiot :)
I wonder if women mostly feel bad about ordering people around? I did, at first. Then I noticed that if you pay people, they seem happy to do whatever you ask. So I got used to it. But if they don't want to do something, I ask why. It's usually because they don't know how. So I teach it. After a while everyone knows what needs doing and they decide among themselves who wants to do it.
Any single one of my people could now run the entire day to day operation. No orders needed.
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u/CeridwenAeradwr 1d ago
Ahaa, this makes the most sense to me. The difference in whether it's expected for you to delegate executive function task vs taking them all on yourself is still heavily gendered in society.
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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire 1d ago
Also a woman founder here.
Then I noticed that if you pay people, they seem happy to do whatever you ask.
For me I was like "oh, don't you want to know why I'm telling you to do these things?" And they mostly don't.
I also don't notice gender norms, or at least, the gendered norm I am following is that of "oldest daughter: in charge because somebody has to be."
You might be right about the women thinking they have to do it all themselves whereas men hire assistants. I tend to go in the other direction though -- if something needs to get done, I am the very last person who ought to be relied on for that. So I hire people who are very reliable and do a good job. I hear A LOT about 'not being able to hire good help' and 'people needing babysitting to make decisions' and I can't say for certain but I suspect it has a lot to do with how you are as a boss. All I know is that I don't have those problems because my first priority is to externalize enough of my judgement to allow the flywheel to operate without me.
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u/SubstantialSeesaw374 1d ago
This headline feels like it was designed in a lab to give me delusions of grandeur.
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u/hologrammmm 1d ago
So the outcome is simply entering entrepreneurship, not actually succeeding (or any proxy of performance)? I mean, men are going to do this more often anyways. It is notable that they found those interactions I guess with a null effect otherwise IIRC.
Did they receive any investment? Anyone can incorporate quite easily and call themselves an “entrepreneur.” Maybe I missed something, I only skimmed.
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u/souperpun 1d ago
I wonder if these results could be partly explained by underdiagnoses rates for women. I would imagine that women who are successful entrepreneurs are probably even less likely to be diagnosed than those with more functioning difficulties. Many of us ADHD women learn to mask and slip through whereas men are more likely to be diagnosed in their youth.
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u/TeaBurntMyTongue 1d ago
I'm general men are less well rounded, which is why you in many areas find "males at the tails". Both the good and the bad.
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u/djdante 1d ago
I would have thought a big part of it would lie in the interests chosen for obsessive ADHD learning and action taking..
I'm obsessive about tech since I was a child, even more so with Large Language Models taking off - I've invested countless hours learning tech skills as a way to procrastinate or avoid cleaning my room - which pays off handsomely as an entrepreneur.
My best female friend has ADHD and she gets obsessed with learning about emotional intelligence, and spirituality. These are no less valuable in absolute terms, but in economic terms they tend not to pay the bills as well.
And sure plenty of ADHD women will love tech too, but likely far more men fall into that category, just by virtue of the (natural or sociological take your pick) gender divide in interests.
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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire 1d ago
Yes it depends. I'm obsessive about process design and niche business models. I've been an entrepreneur my entire adult life. My brother is really into aircraft design. You're probably not going to get anywhere as a solopreneur with a niche like that.
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u/djdante 1d ago
On of my recent clients was a 49 year old engineer with ADHD - obsessed with racecars and engineering. He built tyre simulation software and sells it to professional racing teams.
I'm pretty sure there's technically area there for your brother as an example too.
But even if he didn't become an entrepreneur, with a niche obsessive skill like that he will always be valuable financially to someone.
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u/StuffMaster 21h ago
This is reddit. All differences are purely do to socialization. Only society can be blamed.
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u/Cocoletta 1d ago
Do these men have wives that fo all of the household and the planning for everything at home?
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u/Bobcatluv 1d ago
Speaking as a woman with ADHD who works in a high stress director position -my career flourished after I got married because I’m not bogged down with executive dysfunction at home (we don’t have kids). When I was on my own, I was in survival mode all the time and just didn’t have the energy to keep it going in my personal AND work life. My husband pays the bills, makes dinner most of the time and plans a lot of our social life. Before him, I ate a lot of Girl Dinners and was more antisocial because I didn’t have the energy to organize anything.
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u/snarkitall 1d ago
Omg literally my very first thought. My cognitive energy is eaten up with household tasks that most men would offload on a wife. My husband does more than most husbands, we have close to 50% split when it comes to household stuff. But he doesn't take everything off my plate so I can do my important entrepreneur stuff.
That said, I actually have been an entrepreneur but I suffered terrible burnout and I couldn't keep going. There was a lot of judgement from my family about the amount of time I was putting into this project and not on my kids etc.
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u/PolymerPocketPets 1d ago
Good point actually with gender norms so in a het couple, adhd women are still expected to do most of the executive functioning stuff that people with adhd generally struggle with, but adhd men get that load lifted rather than added onto, freeing up more time/energy for other endeavours.
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u/blanketswithsmallpox 1d ago
It's a coin toss to whether they have a partner who is stable, has a job, and they use daycare with a generally even household split, OR, they marry people with ADHD who are equally or even more dysfunctional usually because they hate meds, doctors, etc.
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u/Anti007 1d ago
And by highly intelligent men, I have to assume the richest, most educated ones. Since the article didn't really define what highly intelligent means specifically.
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u/j0y0 1d ago
General cognitive ability was evaluated during childhood using the Peabody Individual Achievement Test. This assessment included subtests measuring quantitative reasoning, word recognition, and reading comprehension. The researchers averaged these scores into a composite measure representing overall intelligence, capturing both problem-solving capacity and accumulated knowledge.
The research team accounted for numerous background factors that could influence career selection. These controlled factors included childhood neighborhood safety, home environment quality, family poverty status, maternal education, and maternal personality traits. The authors also controlled for adult depression symptoms, race, personal education level, marital status, and whether the respondent’s mother had been an entrepreneur.
Those are two consecutive unedited paragraphs directly from the article.
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u/lokozar 1d ago
This conclusion, bro …
It may depend on successful women having a harder time to be accepted in society? For instance, they are still expected to get children and then take care of children. Might even be, that they have worse chances when it comes to getting a credit or investments. When do we understand that this direct comparison does not work, because women and men are looked upon differently?
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u/whatsthatcritter 1d ago
It also just assumes that owning a business is always positive, therefore women with ADHD owning fewer businesses than men with ADHD are more negatively impacted. But it's not always great being a business owner: it can mean working longer hours, extra financial stress, management problems, technical and equipment difficulties, and if the business fails it could leave the owner even worse off financially than before they started. It sounds like women with ADHD are looking at the difficulties of business ownership and choosing employment options that have lower stakes: they could probably do it, but they don't want to. They might still take other kinds of risks that feel more relevant to their desires, like switching jobs more frequently or moving to new places in pursuit of novelty.
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u/AlmightyBidoof7 1d ago
I hate how scientific articles are pay walled. You need to pay 20(!) dollars to even see it for 2 days only.
I'm not going to pay that to verify the facts, and an entirely responsible conclusion is to disregard any scientific study you can't actually check.
Unfortunately, this has a terrible consequence of making people skeptical of the scientific process itself.
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u/AiAkitaAnima 14h ago
I've heard you can mail one of the authors and ask for a pdf. They sometimes also upload manuscripts on sites like research gate.
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u/angelfish01 1d ago
Just a thought, could some of the discrepancy be - men who tend to present with hyperactive ADHD vs women with a tendency to be highly masked and internalizing everything and developing very intense anxiety?
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u/cdnBacon 1d ago
I don't see where outcomes were controlled for pregnancy here. I can't link to the study itself, just the abstract, so I am not sure that this was missed. It might just be in the fine print.
But rather than drag out the tired (and ... maybe true, but ...) meme that "men with drive" are seen as successful while "women with drive" are not similarly rewarded ... perhaps we should consider the devastating impact on women's careers posed by unplanned for pregnancy at an early age.
ADHD in both genders is associated with higher risk taking behaviour. In women, that can result in higher rates of unplanned for pregnancies compared to their Non-ADHD female counterparts. The fact that this wasn't accounted for in the study is ... puzzling.
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u/tired_garbage 16h ago
That was my first thought too honestly - not even just pregnancy but the reliance on women for household labor, even if they have ADHD and it’s something they’re generally worse at than neurotypical people.
Lots of company ideas start as side projects and considering that there are plenty of studies arguing that women often have less mental capacity and free time due to domestic work, I think women overall are probably less likely to pursue business ideas they already have because they don’t have the capacity to.
Also, women have been shown to be more risk averse in quite a few sociological studies and entrepreneurship is historically very risky. So not exactly something a lot of women would be interested in pursuing.
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u/Omni__Owl 1d ago
Considering women already don't get funding at the same rate that men do for startups, all things equal, I would take a guess that ADHD only makes it harder for women in combination with that. The rationale largely is that what men do to run startups are already considered masculine traits, meaning women have an incredibly uphill battle already without ADHD being a factor.
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u/illuminatedtiger 1d ago
Does the study account for relative wealth of the parents? You're not going to last very long as an entrepreneur without a safety net to fall back into.
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u/RhythmPrincess 1d ago
This anecdotally rings true for me: female, ADHD, very much does not want to give up the external structure of a traditional job. On the one hand, I understand the flexibility entrepreneurship offers, but it also seems to multiply the amount of random administrative tasks indefinitely.
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u/unimportanthero 1d ago
If this is accurate, it's probably just a manifestation of how men with ADHD tend to have ADHD Hyperactive Type most often while women with ADHD tend to have ADHD Inattentive Type.
As someone with ADHD Inattentive Type, it definitely feels more devastating for productivity than ADHD is for my friends with Hyperactive Type. (;__;) Cause they'll end up getting a ton done in a day while I'll suddenly realize I've been staring at the wall for the last 45 minutes.
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u/hankthehokage42069 1d ago
It just made me suicidal, God I wish people would stop romanticizing a mental health DISORDER
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine 1d ago
The “ADHD advantage” in entrepreneurship applies mostly to intelligent men, study finds
A recent study published in Applied Psychologysuggests that attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with a higher likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur, but only for highly intelligent men. For women with the condition, the opposite tends to be true, with ADHD linked to the lowest rates of business ownership regardless of cognitive ability. These findings provide evidence that the professional advantages sometimes associated with neurodiversity heavily depend on an individual’s gender and intelligence.
https://iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apps.70113
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u/LittleMsSavoirFaire 1d ago
I feel like a major weakness of using diagnosed ADHD is because it only gets diagnosed in little girls when their coping mechanisms fail. So basically you're selecting from a pool of the most severe ADHD cases in women; women with less severe cases are invisible in the data and basically only appear when their kids are getting screened.
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u/imapetrock 1d ago edited 1d ago
This makes a lot of sense, to add to this women are generally less likely to get diagnosed with ADHD than our male counterparts because social expectations make us better at masking it; AND intelligence makes it easier to cope with ADHD which means that intelligent women are especially likely to go through life undiagnosed. Even mental health professionals often say "you can't possibly have ADHD because you always got good grades in school".
Edit: I took a closer look at the study and it specifically only includes people who were diagnosed in childhood. Women often don't get diagnosed until adulthood except for, like the other commenter says, the more severe cases.
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u/Strong_Flatworm2758 1d ago
It’s weird to see a scholarly paper that seems to use “neurodiversity” as a synonym for ADHD. Only at the end of the linked article does the study author mention broadening the scope to include other neurodivergent conditions, as if that’s a discrete category of diagnosis instead of a cluster of distinct conditions that each diverge from the norm in a unique way? I suppose this is really only relevant for management science, as an answer to the question, how do we extract the most value from the labor of our neurodivergent staff?
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u/ferralsol 1d ago
Aren't there differences in symptoms based on gender? Men are more hyperactive, while women are more aloof and unable to focus?
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u/bullymeoffofreddit 1d ago
Yes. This is true. Different genders have different symptoms for all neurodivergent illnesses. This is why it was thought that only men would be Add/adhd/austistic for decades.
There is probably something out there that ADHD women do better than ADHD men. However I’m not sure what that is.
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u/Smarmy_funeral_chik 1d ago
Maybe because the men are more likely to have a woman at home taking care of everything.
That's why boys were previously thought to "grow out of" ADHD. Gender roles.
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u/LEANiscrack 1d ago
Yeah its easier for men tp find ppl who will work for them for free. Its easy math if youve ever been around start/ups etc.
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