Focus on Hyperfocus: How ADHD Symptoms Impact Difficulty with Disengagement and Inattention

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a chronic neurodevelopmental disorder marked by patterns of inattention and hyperactivity. Hyperfocus (HF) is a concept that has heavily been associated with ADHD; however, it is not part of any diagnostic criteria and the literature pertaining to HF is rather underdeveloped. The present study adds to existing research by examining how HF differentially impacts ADHD populations compared to non-ADHD populations. The three main hypotheses explored in this paper are that ADHD positively predicts HF in the moment, HF in the moment negatively predicts inattention in the moment, and that the correlation between HF and inattention is made even more negative when ADHD moderates the relationship. The present study used baseline measures for ADHD and Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) surveys to gather in the moment data on HF and inattention. 101 undergraduates participated in the data collection last spring, giving information on overly positive automatic thoughts and other measures. Multilevel modeling for the hypotheses were conducted in R using the lmer and glmer packages. Results indicate that ADHD positively predicts HF in the moment, HF positively predicts inattention, and the relationship between HF and inattention is made even stronger with the introduction of ADHD. Results of this study can be used to support the claim that HF may impact those with ADHD differently than those without ADHD. Additionally, it calls for future research that can better explore the relationship between HF and inattention as there was a significant correlation in the direction opposite than predicted