The Adult Hyperfocus and Motivation Scale: A Pilot Study

Abstract

The clinical colloquialism “Hyperfocus” (HF) has been used over the last few decades to describe the seemingly paradoxical mental state of acutely sustained attention in neurodivergent adults diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). HF research has only recently emerged and adult ADHD continues to be diagnosed and treated as a unipolar disorder of deficient sustained attention while little is known about motivational factors that lead to a “hyperfocused” state. Consequently, the current study aims to (1) offer an operational definition for HF (excessive on-task focus, deficient off-task awareness), and (2) develop a preliminary set of literature-based items for a new adult ADHD questionnaire called the Adult Hyperfocus and Motivation Scale (AHMS). The purpose of the AHMS is to measure the frequency that adult ADHD respondents self-report (1) a “general propensity to HF,” and (2) HF motivated by: (a) concurrent reward, (b) pain-avoidance, (c) novelty of the activity, and (d) direction of focus (internal/external) required to complete a task. A preliminary draft of this measure (i.e., the P-AHMS) was generated by the Primary Investigator, and a focus group of ten ADHD experts rated the “goodness of fit” of each item and provided qualitative feedback via Qualtrics survey. Focus group responses were tested for internal reliability and used to edit and eliminate items with poor face validity. The resulting set of items (i.e., the R-AHMS) will set the groundwork for finalizing AHMS items and testing its reliability, dimensionality, and validity in a population of ADHD adults in a follow-up study.