Those with a messy desk are smarter

2023 Author: Devin Ellington | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 01:33

A messy desk indicates intelligence, but accumulators and latecomers don't joke too: here are 7 bad habits at work that mean something else

Having a messy desk is a symptom of intelligence

According to a research carried out by University of Minnesota there are significant benefits to being messy, at least in the workplace.

To prove this, the researchers have formed two groups and they put them on one in an extremely tidy office, the other in a environment with sheets scattered everywhere.

At that point, some were asked to find new uses for common table tennis balls, while others have been given the possibility to choose whether to deal with new products or with others already known.

The results of the experiment

In the first experiment, the one in which new uses had to be found for ping pong balls, the participants proposed the same number of ideas, whether they were in the tidy room or the messy one.

What made the difference was the quality of the proposals: in the second case, in fact, they were definitely more innovative.

As for the second experiment, those who were in the most cluttered office chose for the most part new products, as opposed to their counterpart in the tidy room, which he preferred focus on already known objects.

«Being in an upside down room stimulates creativity. Messy environments give a sense of breaking, they make us feel like we can break the rules, which produces a positive sense of freedom that generates new insights.

On the contrary, the rooms are perfectly tidy they encourage to stay within certain boundaries, to respect tradition and be conventional,”explains psychologist Kathleen Vohs.

Other behaviors to watch out for

There are, however, many studies that they focus on how the workplace is experienced, investigating how certain attitudes affect and what they mean.

The office is in fact the place where we spend the most of our waking day.

So easy to understand how this place is the way we live it they can be extremely indicative to discover sides of one's personality that perhaps we tend to underestimate or of which we are not aware.

Here are the main (and most curious) studies that have been done about it.

The serial sighs

If you often find yourself sighing, maybe without even realizing it, don't blame yourself.

Psychologists from the University of Oslo have shown that this gesture can also have a "mental reset, like a button" function, to put an end to the sense of frustration or uncertainty and to give relief to start again.

“The act of sighing conveys two messages - write the scholars Donald McCown and Marc S. Micozzi - First, there is something wrong, a discrepancy between how we would like it to be and what reality is.

The second message implies a sense of acceptance, something we have to let go of”.

Result? Serial sighs are not lacking in tact, but they are simply more intuitive and paradoxically more responsive and ready to start over.

The peasant devourers

Eat at the desk, in a hurry and regardless of the mayonnaise of your sandwich that falls on the documents?

It can be considered carelessness or sloppiness, but also a way to understand your status within the workplace.

A team of scholars from the University of California at Berkeley has found a correlation between bad table manners (or rather, on the desk) and the perception of power.

In what they call the wise Cookie Monster, the researchers gave a plate of biscuits to the group of volunteers, in which a leader was assigned in a completely random way, while they had to perform simple tasks.

So it turned out that the person identified as the leader was inclined to eat with his mouth open or making chewing noises.

Therefore? “When you feel powerful, you tend to be more impulsive and less restrained, you lose touch and inhibition. We don't care what people think explains one of the study's psychologists.

Who always complains

There is always someone in the office who can't stop complaining, whether it's the rain, the slowness of the coffee machine or your boss.

Now, however, you will have a good reason why respond and suggest to stop.

Scientists argue that this attitude is deleterious, both for the body and for the mind, as negative thoughts create a vicious circle in which the brain transmits the perception of stress in the whole organism.

However, complaining can also be a way to bring people together.

"It is a mechanism through which relationships are established" explains Joanna Wolfe, a professor and researcher at Carnegie-Mellon University.

This is a process that scholar Eric Zimmer defines as co-pity, it can make people feel closer and create a sense of solidarity”.

Who is always tired

Dragging you to work every day is a feat are you considered the lazy pandas in your office?

A 2016 study from Hokkaido University, Japan noted laziness in ant farms, discovering that 30% of the insects observed did nothing, at most wandered wearily.

In the short term their role did not appear clear or useful to the group, but in the long term, the researchers found that these ants helped the rest of the colony to develop resilience.

This is because when the most active ants fell, lazy ones took over as reinforcement.

Laziness is also a factor that scholars often link to a high IQ and at a deeper level of thinking.

The hopeless latecomers

You are always in a hurry and, inexplicably, always late. This is why you are considered chaotic and unreliable. Yet these judgments do not take into account the big picture, at least according to what scientists believe.

Researchers argue that people who never arrive on time are also the most optimistic by nature and, as such, they always are convinced of being able to do things in less time.

"They really believe they can do a huge amount of things in a short time," explains Diana DeLonzor, author of the book Never Be Late Again.

Optimism brings with it a whole host of other benefits which can have positive repercussions in the workplace, starting from keeping the mood of colleagues high to creating a sense of unity and participation.

Studies show that people who have a relaxed perception of time they are more creative and successful of those who constantly look at the clock.

The compulsive accumulator

If your desk is a graveyard of objects that will never feel the thrill of being used again, but that will always have a place in a drawer, know that you could be little geniuses.

“Serial accumulators are convinced that everything they keep both in the same way as a jewelry box », Explains Nicholas Malby, a psychologist specializing in OCD.

There is actually a positive side of the coin:

“They tend to be extremely intelligent and well-educated people. They have a more creative mind than the average and they manage to think about different uses of objects in their possession compared to what we do », he concludes.