Many of my students, particularly the more
friendly ones, express surprise when they see my obviously messy office and
offer to help arrange my office, but I have always resisted their help.
Interestingly, whenever I did take steps to organize my mess of mostly papers
located on 3 desks, 1 table, and, in and on top of 3 bookcases and 4 filing
cabinets, I have had difficulty finding what I looked for. So, I was
happy to come across in this month’s Monitor on Psychology a report on
a study by Vohs, Redden, and Rahinel (2013), which found that participants
assigned to a disorderly environment produced more creative solutions than
those assigned to a neat and tidy environment. Additionally, they found
participants assigned to an orderly environment were more likely to (a) choose
healthy snacks, (b) donate more money, and (c) prefer the health-boost option
labeled as “classic” as opposed to “new,” but participants in the disorderly
environment were more likely to prefer the “new” option.
Vohs et al.’s fascinating findings are consistent
with the notion that environmental cues play an important role in determining behavior.
They noted the famous broken-windows theory that an unrepaired broken window
can lead to a domino effect of negative consequences. Vohs et al.’s findings
are remindful of the film “White Lotus Rising”. This award winning film
(2013 American Psychological Association Film Festival Award “Best Documentary
Short”) documents the successful efforts of the artist and peace activist Indira
Freitas Jhonson’s in curbing violence by placing emerging Buddha sculptures in
Chicago’s low-income high crime neighborhoods.
According to Vohs et al., environmental cues
“activate different mind-sets, which in turn benefit different outcomes” (p.
1861). An orderly environment implies conventional or conforming attitudes;
whereas a disorderly environment implies “breaking with convention” (p. 1862).
Assuming that creativity often requires unconventional thinking, a disorderly
environment would work better to promote divergent thinking and greater risk-taking.
Citing Abrahamson and Freedman (2007), Vohs et al. noted that many notably
creative individuals cultivate messy environments to facilitate their creative
efforts. They also noted Einstein’s famous remark: “‘If a cluttered desk is a
sign of a cluttered mind, of what then, is an empty desk a sign?’
The study findings raised several questions in my
mind: Are there people in real life who are messy, but not creative? Are there
people in real life who are neat and tidy, but highly creative? Do messy
individuals have high tolerance for differences in thinking and are less
concerned about whether someone fits into their expectations, possibly giving
them the freedom to differ from others and conventionally set ways? Is it
possible that habitually messy persons become less creative over time in the
same environment and need to move temporarily to a tidy environment to
rejuvenate their creativity? Since creativity requires not only the generation
of novel ideas (divergent thinking), but bringing ideas into fruition through
logical or convergent thinking, is it possible that idea generation is more
fruitful in untidy environments, but bringing them to a logical development and
conclusion is better accomplished in tidy environments? Or, is it that a mere
change from one work environment to another might reboot one’s creativity?
Creativity is an amazing cognitive process that
can baffle even the most creative individuals as to how they came up with some
of their significant ideas. An acclaimed Indian Poet Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869)
noted:
“These ideas come to me from the unknown
O Ghalib, the sound produced by the
scratching of my pen
Is the voice an angel.”
More
than likely, there is no one way to be creative and possibly people have to
find what works for them to be creative on a regular basis. I suspect that as
novelty of ideas is basic to creative process, a change of one’s environment,
messy or tidy, might be helpful to get away from habitual ways of thinking.
In
any case, I hope the study findings will help boost my image to visitors to my
office as some one who might be sometimes creative. The Einstein poster, with
his disheveled hair, on the door of my messy office, hopefully, presents
additional cues to activate a strong creative mind-set, especially in my
students who come to discuss their research ideas with me. However, I hope that
my office messiness does not produce a mind-set to crave unhealthy snacks or to
engage in unruly behavior in my visitors or me. Perhaps I need to place a
Buddha’s statue on one of my desks to project peacefulness cues to reduce the
likelihood of this latter behavior.
References
Abrahamson, E., & Freedman, D. H. (2007). A perfect mess: The
hidden benefits of disorder. New York, NY: Little Brown.
Dar, B. A. (2013). Mirza Ghalib’s poetry, art, and philoshopy. Indian
Streams Research Journal, 3(4), 1-4.
Vohs, K. D., Redden, J. P. & Rahinel, R. (2013). Physical order produces
healthy choices, generosity, conventionality, whereas disorder produces
creativity. Psychological Science, 24, 1860-1867, DOI:
10.1177/0956797613480186
Wilson, J. Q. & Kelling, G. L. & (1992, March). Broken
windows. The police and neighborhood safety. The Atlantic Monthly,
pp. 29-36, 38.
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