New Study on Successful Hunters Who Thrive
what the study makes clear is that within the ADHD mind there are strengths that can be harnessed.
When we talk about ADHD in our culture we almost always talk about what’s missing. We talk about the deficits. We talk about the chaos. We talk about the impulsivity that makes you late and the distractibility that leaves your desk a mess and the inability to sit still in a world built for people who can.
In a Farmer’s world that deficit frame makes sense: you rise at dawn, you follow the rows, you do the same tasks again and again and again. In that world, traits like routine and consistency are rewarded and the mind that wanders feels broken, like it can’t keep up with the plow.
But human beings weren’t always Farmers. For most of our evolutionary history we were Hunters, roaming across the savannah, moving in tribes or packs, scanning for patterns, reacting to opportunities and threats in real time. In that landscape, the traits we now label as “symptoms” of ADHD aren’t bugs. They’re the very qualities that made you a successful hunter.
A new study published in Psychological Medicine by researchers at the University of Bath, King’s College London, and Radboud University upends the deficit narrative and shows what many of us with ADHD have known intuitively all along: adults with ADHD frequently endorse psychological strengths like hyperfocus, humor, creativity, spontaneity, and intuitiveness more strongly than neurotypical peers, and knowing and using those strengths is linked with higher well-being, better quality of life, and fewer symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress.
This isn’t fluff. It’s the first large-scale, empirical lens on strengths in ADHD instead of deficits.
They asked 200 adults with ADHD and 200 without ADHD to rate themselves on 25 positive traits. And while people with ADHD often face real struggles in work, relationships, and mental health, they were just as likely to recognize their own strengths and apply them in everyday life.
That matters in the Hunter in a Farmer’s World model because it reframes the narrative. A Hunter mind isn’t flawed just because it doesn’t thrive in a sedentary, siloed, production-line world. Instead, the Hunter mind is optimized for scanning the horizon, seizing opportunities, and shifting focus quickly. It’s optimized for conditions of uncertainty, novelty, and change.
When you take those traits and try to squeeze them into a commodified, routine-oriented Farmer’s world, of course it feels like a deficit. Of course you get labeled restless or unfocused. You are essentially being penalized for not being built for that world.
But what the study makes clear is that within the ADHD mind there are strengths that can be harnessed.
Hyperfocus, for example, is a trait that looks like trouble when you can’t finish your taxes, but it looks like genius when you’re building something you care about. Hyperfocus is the ability to lock in deeply on something that grabs your attention, to go down the rabbit hole of complexity and emerge with insight. In a Hunter’s world that’s adaptive. In a Farmer’s world it’s misinterpreted as inability to switch off a task. A Farmer wants you to switch tasks at predictable intervals. A Hunter needs to zero in when target conditions are right. (SciTechDaily)
Creativity and spontaneity get the same treatment. In a routine-based context they’re messy. But in a world where rapid adaptation and novel solutions make the difference between resources and starvation, creativity and spontaneity are not just useful: they’re essential. And intuitiveness, the ability to read context and pattern faster than someone who is following a checklist, is a Hunter’s secret weapon.
The study also found that across both groups, whether you have ADHD or not, the more you know your strengths and use them, the better your life satisfaction and psychological health. That’s a profound point for how we think about human capability.
We’re all better when we know what we bring to the table, but for people with ADHD, who have long been told what they lack, the cultivation of strengths is not just an add-on. It’s a reorientation.
In the Hunter’s world, the mind isn’t measured by how well it sticks to one thing indefinitely but by how well it navigates complexity, how quickly it spots opportunities, and how flexibly it responds to change. That’s why Hunters are good at problem-solving in open-ended environments. That’s why many of the most creative thinkers, entrepreneurs, artists, explorers, and innovators recruit people with the very traits labeled as ADHD deficits.
They’re drawn to ambiguity and possibility. They find patterns where others see noise. They pivot without hesitation. These are competitive advantages in any domain that rewards exploration and invention.
But western society is still overwhelmingly Farmer-oriented. We build systems, institutions, and workplaces that reward consistency, predictability, and stability. So someone with a Hunter’s mind gets judged against Farmer criteria and inevitably falls short. We call it a “disorder” rather than a difference and then wonder why the person feels misunderstood.
This new research gives scientific backing to a different way of seeing it: that there are identifiable strengths in ADHD that can be cultivated, and that awareness of that strength correlates with well-being.
Imagine what happens when we take this insight deeper than today’s therapy models. What if schools, workplaces, and communities started to ask not “What’s wrong with you?” but “What are your strengths and how do they serve you?”
What if instead of punishing spontaneity we encouraged it in creative contexts?
What if instead of suppressing hyperfocus we taught people how to channel it into projects that matter?
The Hunter isn’t broken in the Farmer’s world: he or she’s misplaced.
The takeaway isn’t that ADHD is easy or that struggles disappear. It’s that there’s a whole suite of internal capabilities that have been overlooked because we’re judging brains built for dynamism by standards built for routine.
And when you recognize and use your own psychological strengths you don’t just cope better. You thrive.
For a mind built to hunt, a life that demands directionless compliance will always feel constricting. But when you understand what’s in your toolkit and start using it on your terms, you begin to rewrite the narrative.
This study doesn’t just challenge the deficit model of ADHD. It gives us a language to talk about ADHD the way Hunters would: a set of evolved capabilities that, when supported, can offer real psychological strength and resilience.