BIG SURPRISE?
SEPTEMBER 19, 2013, 12:01 AM 277 Comments What a Messy Desk Says About You By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS Illustration by Ben Wiseman For some time, psychologists and other researchers have been studying how personality traits affect health and health-related choices. Not surprisingly, they have found that people blessed with innate conscientiousness, meaning that they are organized and predictable, typically eat better and live longer than people who are disorderly. They also tend to have immaculate offices. This article appeared in the Sunday, Sept. 22 issue of The New York Times Magazine. What has been less clear is whether neat environments can produce good habits even in those who aren’t necessarily innately conscientious. To find out, researchers at the University of Minnesota conducted a series of experiments, the results of which were published online last month in Psychological Science . In the first experiment, they randomly assigned a group of college-a...