Ceiling Height May Affect Problem-Solving Skills

An anonymous reader writes to mention that a recent University of Minnesota study suggests that ceiling height may affect problem-solving skills. "'When people are in a room with a high ceiling, they activate the idea of freedom. In a low-ceilinged room, they activate more constrained, confined concepts.' Either can be good. The concept of freedom promotes information processing that encourages greater variation in the kinds of thoughts one has, said Meyers-Levy, professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota. The concept of confinement promotes more detail-oriented processing."

Comments

Interesting Thought

[MyLongNickName]

Wealthier individuals with the larger home... does the environment itself produce children who are less restricted in their thinking?

Re:Interesting Thought

[jmashaw]

"The concept of confinement promotes more detail-oriented processing." Except that less restricted thinking does not always lead to wealth. Sometimes the people who are the most detail oriented are better prepared to handle the rigors of society. I can't imagine that you would prefer a open-thinking surgeon to one who is going to make sure that every stitch inside and out is perfect.

Re:Interesting Thought

[WilliamSChips]

Interestingly, the best surgeons appear to be the ones who played a lot of video games as a child.

On a more serious note

[ls -la]

From TFA:

In one test subjects were more critical of a product's design flaws when evaluation took place in a shorter room. This result could have important implications for retailers.

I wonder how many stores are going to see this and move to a larger, more spacious facility like most Barnes and Noble and Best Buy stores I see. Personally

Re:On a more serious note

[ls -la]

Oops, wrong button...

Personally, I wouldn't mind a more spacious store. They should do a study that shows people prefer aisles wide enough to walk through.

Ah, modern psychology research

[idontgno]

I wasn't aware that cognitive psychology was a branch of marketing.

That's like saying that automotive engineering is an offshoot of ricer tuning. (To coin a car analogy)

It's true for me, at least.

[Control Group]

This, while news to me, doesn't actually surprise me at all.

I've encountered this effect personally - working on cars, the thought and problem-solving processes I go through when lying on the driveway under the car are notably different than those when I shimmy out and stand up next to it. Case in point: the starter/solenoid assembly on a 1977 Caprice is practically a topological brain teaser if you're trying to put it in or take it out without removing significant sections of the frame. There's literally one correct ordered set of rotations and translations that must be performed to do so.

Standing next to the car with the starter, I had an incredibly hard time solving this problem. Once under the car, however, it was a matter of a few minutes before I could "see" the solution. Before everyone points out the obvious, no, it wasn't a matter of being able to literally see the solution; given the available vantage point due to the right front tire, the jack, and a frame member, you really couldn't see any more of the problem than the first opening.

That's the most specific example I've got, but a similar thing has happened to me multiple times. At this point, I spend most of my planning time under the car with rust falling in my eyes, because I think better that way.

Einstein

[iplayfast]

Interesting, in that Einstein liked to go for long walks under the open sky.

From the headline. When people are in a room with a high ceiling, they activate the idea of freedom and The concept of freedom promotes information processing that encourages greater variation in the kinds of thoughts one has, said Meyers-Levy...

What About Tall People?

[Chagatai]

I'm nearly 7 feet tall, so how does this affect my ideas? Can I call in a "ceiling bias" at work when a short coworker comes up with a great, broad idea and I tend to develop something more constrained and compact? How about when I run into a doorjamb? How does that affect my ideas?

General Observations

[RockoTDF]

As a psychology student/researcher, I must say our worst enemy is the media. The way these stories are reported sometimes distorts the research or the conclusions drawn from it. If you were to read the actual journal article when it is published, it will likely be far less B.S. like "activating inner creativity" and more like "participants in the higher ceiling room demonstrated more creativity as measured by (variable)." Although the article may have used BS terms since its a marketing journal and not a proper psych journal. The publication standards in education, communication, and marketing journals are generally less demanding and so sometimes crap gets through and makes all scientific research outside of bio/chem/physics look bad. Also, since correlation does not imply causation it is possible that as previously mentioned certain jobs will intentionally create different environments for whatever reason...ie graphic designers may care more about an open aesthetically pleasing office than engineers who sit in cubicles and just want to do their work. In addition this article fails to give any actual statistics, which limits how much we can critique it...so if it has a correlation of .9 there is probably a good connection between ceiling height and creativity, but if its only .3 it could just be coincidental or due to many outside factors.

Ceiling Height Variety

[bmajik]

More people discovering what Christopher Alexander discovered, and what thousands of years of humans knew before he re-discovered it.

Pattern #190: Ceiling Height Variety

http://www.ahartman.com/apl/patterns/apl190.htm

Re:Science

[Bearhouse]

Slow down, Pete... from /.'s favourite source:

'The meaning of the word professor (Latin: "one who claims publicly to be an expert") varies. In most English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, generally as head of the department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor

I've worked with some top-level marketing guys. Can't comment on the 'pure marketing' stuff, but I'm not too shabby at applied statistics, (post-doc level), and some of these guys were, within their specialisation, very impressive, (survey design, etc.). Think that qualifies as 'science'... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science

Less convincing is why a marketing 'prof' would be credible about creativity, which one would assume should be more in the domain of applied psychologists.

Re:Just work outside

[simm1701]

Yes..

Until you start to sky dive

No I'm not being sarcastic I'm serious.

After sky diving regularly (to the point of being licensed and in control of yourself in the air) you start to look at the sky differently. It ceases to be just something that is there, instead its a medium that is yours, you can move with it in, you feel as though you have an extra degree of freedom - its changes your perspective.

I'm told many pilots and other aerial sports people feel the same way - ditto for divers and the water.