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

Glass Ceilings

[TheCouchPotatoFamine]

Obviously, they're doing it wrong.

Re:Glass Ceilings

[ThePromenader]

"Ceiling Height May Affects Problem-Solving Skills"

Whoever wrote that headline must have a low ceiling.

May affects?

[patternmatch]

It may affects grammar skills too.

Re:May affects?

[maxwell demon]

Where is the problem? The ceiling height May (obviously not every May is a ceiling height May; I wonder what's special about those, and if May 2007 is one) affects problem-solving skills (i.e. whenever we have a ceiling height May, the problem-solving skills are either increased or reduced significantly).

Given the amount of spelling errors on Slashdot lately, I guess May 2007 is a ceiling height may, and it actually reduces at least the skill of solving the problem "is this spelled correctly?"

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

[tedgyz]

Wealthier individuals with the larger home... does the environment itself produce children who are less restricted in their thinking? Ummm... Paris Hilton? She's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

Re:Interesting Thought

[MyLongNickName]

Amazing how folks' minds go to Paris. I would argue her thinking is not restricted at all. This does not translate into "intelligent".

Maybe...

[eln]

I can buy the idea that the ceiling tends to stifle my creativity, but I think the chain attaching me to my desk and the guy who comes around every 15 minutes with the whip probably don't help either. And if all that weren't bad enough, they haven't changed the variety of snacks in the snack machine in like 3 years. There has to be something in the Geneva Conventions about that.

Ceiling Height May Affects Grammar Skills

[hexed_2050]

I think you made a mistake in the title.

From the title "Ceiling Height May Affects Problem-Solving Skills"

Should be "Ceiling Height May Affects Grammar Skills"

h

Science

[pete-classic]

"professor of marketing"

Is marketing a Science now?

-Peter

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)

TPS reports

[Dachannien]

Umm, we just read a report that ceiling height affects detail-oriented thinking. Mmmkay? So, I'm gonna have to ask you to mount this sheet of plywood across the top of your cubicle. If you could just take care of that, that'd be really great.

I'd normally come up with a witty comment

[CaptainPatent]

But the ceiling is closing in on me!!!

Re:Next step

[the phantom]

You get wet when it rains.

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?

Re:What About Tall People?

[TeknoHog]

I'm nearly 7 feet tall, so how does this affect my ideas? Can I call in a "ceiling bias" at work

On the other hand, didn't Newton say something around the lines of "If I have been able to see further, it is because I have been surrounded by midgets"?

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:On a more serious note

[0rionx]

1. Write up an interesting comment
2. "Accidentally" cut it into two separate posts
3. ???
4. Karma!

Re:fascinating

[Puff of Logic]

Correlation doesn't PROVE causation,

I see that maxim quoted a lot these days. I see the point it's making, of course; but I can't help wondering: what does prove causation, then?

If a phenomenon is observed only when something is present but never when it is not, a causal relationship can reasonably be construed. The other point is, at least in science, nothing is ever proven!

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.