Definition: In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.
Input: LONDON Having an unusual personality structure could be the secret to making other people laugh, scientists said on Thursday after research showed that comedians have high levels of psychotic personality traits. 
  
 In a study in the British Journal of Psychiatry, researchers analyzed comedians from Australia, Britain and the United States and found they scored significantly higher on four types of psychotic characteristics compared to a control group of people who had non-creative jobs. 
  
 The traits included a tendency towards impulsive or anti-social behavior, and a tendency to avoid intimacy. 
  
 "The creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis - both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder," said Gordon Claridge of the University of Oxford's department of experimental psychology, who led the study. 
  
 Although the traits in question are known as "psychotic", Claridge said, they can also represent healthy equivalents of features such as moodiness, social introversion and the tendency to lateral thinking. 
  
 "Although schizophrenic psychosis itself can be detrimental to humor, in its lesser form it can increase people's ability to associate odd or unusual things or to think 'outside the box'," he said. 
  
 "Equally, manic thinking - which is common in people with bipolar disorder - may help people combine ideas to form new, original and humorous connections." 
  
 The researchers recruited 523 comedians - 404 men and 119 women - and asked them to complete an online questionnaire designed to measure psychotic traits in healthy people. 
  
 The traits scored were "unusual experiences", such as belief in telepathy and paranormal events, "cognitive disorganization" such as difficulty in focusing thoughts, "introvertive anhedonia" - reduced ability to feel social and physical pleasure, and "impulsive non-conformity", or tendency towards impulsive, antisocial behavior. 
  
 The same questionnaire was also completed by 364 actors - who are also used to performing in front of an audience - as a control group, and the comedians' and actors' results were compared to each other as well as a general group of 831 people who had non-creative jobs. 
  
 The researchers found that comedians scored significantly higher on all four types of psychotic personality traits compared to the general group. Most striking were their high scores for impulsive non-conformity and introverted personality traits, the researchers said. 
  
 The actors scored higher than the general group on three types - but did not display high levels of introverted personality traits. 
  
 (Editing by Sonya Hepinstall) ||||| Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Some comedians may use performance as a form of self-medication, say researchers 
  
 Comedians have personality types linked with psychosis, like many other creative types, which might explain why they can entertain, researchers claim. 
  
 They score highly on characteristics that in extreme cases are associated with mental illness, a study by Oxford University researchers suggests. 
  
 Unusually, they have high levels of both introversion and extroversion. 
  
 The team says the creative elements needed for humour are similar to traits seen in people with psychosis. 
  
 The idea that creativity in art and science is connected with mental health problems has long captured the public imagination. 
  
 However, there has been little research on whether comedians have some of the traits - in a healthy form - associated with psychosis (delusions or hallucinations that can be present in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder). 
  
 Unusually introverted 
  
 Researchers from the University of Oxford and Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust studied 523 comedians (404 men and 119 women) from the UK, US and Australia. 
  
 The comedians were asked to complete an online questionnaire designed to measure psychotic traits in healthy people. 
  
 The four aspects measured were: 
  
 Unusual experiences (belief in telepathy and paranormal events) 
  
 Cognitive disorganisation (distractibility and difficulty in focusing thoughts) 
  
 Introvertive anhedonia (reduced ability to feel social and physical pleasure, including an avoidance of intimacy) 
  
 Impulsive non-conformity (tendency towards impulsive, antisocial behaviour). 
  
 The questionnaire was also completed by 364 actors - another profession used to performing - as a control group, and by a group of 831 people who worked in non-creative areas. 
  
 The researchers found that comedians scored significantly higher on all four types of psychotic personality traits than the general group, with particularly high scores for both extroverted and introverted personality traits. 
  
 The actors scored higher than the general group on three types - but not on the introverted personality aspect. 
  
 The researchers believe this unusual personality structure may help explain the ability of comedians to entertain. 
  
 Thinking 'outside box' 
  
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Susan Murray: Comedians are 'naturally shy people' 
  
 Professor Gordon Claridge, of the University of Oxford's Department of Experimental Psychology, said: "The creative elements needed to produce humour are strikingly similar to those characterising the cognitive style of people with psychosis - both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder." 
  
 He said although schizophrenic psychosis itself could be detrimental to humour, in a lesser form it could increase people's ability to associate odd or unusual things or to think "outside the box". 
  
 Manic thinking, which is found in those with bipolar disorder, may help people combine ideas to form new, original and humorous connections, he added. 
  
 Prof Claridge told BBC News: "Comedians tend to be slightly withdrawn, introverted people who may not always want to socialise, and their comedy is almost an outlet for that. It's a kind of self-medication." 
  
 Dr James MacCabe, of the Institute of Psychiatry, at King's College, London, said: "Psychosis is not a problem with personality, it's a more severe disorder than that. 
  
 "People with psychosis and schizophrenia have a very impaired ability to appreciate humorous material. 
  
 "This study tells us some interesting things about the differences between comedians and actors but not about the link with psychosis." 
  
 Paul Jenkins, CEO of the charity Rethink Mental Illness said these were interesting findings, but we must guard against the "mad creative genius stereotype". 
  
 "Mental illnesses like schizophrenia can affect anyone, whether they are creative or not. Our knowledge and understanding of mental illness still lags far behind our understanding of physical illnesses, and what we really need is much more research in this area." 
  
 The research is published in The British Journal of Psychiatry. |||||
Output:
Plenty of people would agree comedians are a bit crazy—but are they psychotic? Not quite, but they measure as having higher levels of psychotic personality traits than those in "non-creative" professions, a new study finds. Researchers had 523 comedians, 364 actors, and 831 people in the "non-creative jobs" group answer a survey that assessed four psychotic qualities, generally: a belief in things like the paranormal, difficulty focusing, a tendency to avoid intimacy, and antisocial or impulsive behavior. Comedians' scores dwarfed those of the non-creative group in all four areas; actors scored higher than that group on three, but didn't show high levels of introverted personalities, Reuters reports. This certainly doesn't mean comedians are psychotic, says lead author Gordon Claridge. Here's his assessment: "The creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis—both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Although schizophrenic psychosis itself can be detrimental to humor, in its lesser form it can increase people's ability to associate odd or unusual things or to think 'outside the box'. Equally, manic thinking—which is common in people with bipolar disorder—may help people combine ideas to form new, original and humorous connections." For comedians who may have some psychotic traits, "their comedy is almost an outlet for that," Claridge tells the BBC. But a psychiatrist downplays the findings: "People with psychosis and schizophrenia have a very impaired ability to appreciate humorous material. This study tells us some interesting things about the differences between comedians and actors but not about the link with psychosis."