Your messy desk might give a bad impression, says new study | Life

NEW YORK, Nov. 28 – A new American study has shown that people in disarray can be considered more neurotic and less pleasant than their more common counterparts.

Conducted by psychologists from the University of Michigan, the new study recruited about 160 participants and randomly badigned them to one of three experiments.

In the course of the experiments, participants were asked to sit in a clean, organized and clear research office, which was either "a little messy" or "very" messy.

All offices were identical, with the exception of the level of disorder, and included various personal items suggesting that it belonged to a researcher.

Then, the participants were asked to guess the researcher's personality based on the appearance of the office using the following five broad personality traits: Extraversion, Friendliness, Consciousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience.

The results, published in the journal Personality and individual differences, showed that participants were more likely to attribute one or more negative personality traits to the researcher who worked in a messy office.

Participants felt that the researcher who worked in the office somewhat or very disordered was less conscientious, less pleasant and more neurotic than the researcher working in the office.

Since neuroticism, lack of awareness and lack of usability are potentially unwanted qualities in an employee, keeping your desk tidy at work could help make a better impression.

"When there are reasons related to less cleanliness, order, organization and clutter on the main territory of an owner, the tax collectors attribute a lower conscience to the owner, that this owner is a real-world worker (office), a job seeker (apartment), a student (bedroom) or a researcher from a university (lab), "said lead author Terrence Horgan.

"Once target information is activated in the minds of users, consciously or unconsciously, it can then affect how it handles the information, the type of questions that it asks. they pose and their behavior towards the target, possibly bringing out the information on the traits they expected from the target in the first place, "said Sarah Dyszlewski, co-author of the study. – AFP-Relaxnews