Ben Mauk
Special to LiveScience
LiveScience.com1 hour, 31 minutes ago
Workers have long been
concerned about glass ceilings at the office. Now they can wonder if the
physical ceiling is keeping them from their full mental potential.
A recent study at the University of Minnesota suggests that ceiling height affects
problem-solving skills and behavior by priming concepts that encourage certain
kinds of brain processing.
"Priming means a concept gets activated in a person's head,"
researcher Joan Meyers-Levy told LiveScience. "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.
The study consisted of three tests ranging from anagram puzzles to product
evaluation. In every tested situation a 10-foot ceiling correlated with subject
activity that the researchers interpreted as "freer, more abstract
thinking," whereas subjects in an 8-foot room were more likely to focus on
specifics.
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.
Religious experience
The theory that priming a concept in someone's brain might encourage a certain
type of mental processing is not backed up by much evidence from neuroscience
or even experimental psychology. However, one 2002 study found that priming
subjects with either the concept of "self" or that of
"other" encourages types of processing that reflect themes of
isolation or unity, respectively.
Meyers-Levy and co-researcher Rui (Juliet) Zhu of the University of British
Columbia formed their new hypothesis after this and other work that has shown
how conceptual priming affects perception and behavior.
The labeling for their somewhat abstract concepts, "freedom" and
"confinement," comes from a speculative paper on how lofty cathedral
ceilings might encourage a different religious experience from the low ceilings
of a modest chapel.
Theirs may be the first empirical study to make use of these terms in
describing concepts that influence behavior.
Meyers-Levy and Zhu will publish their results this August in the Journal of
Consumer Research. But Meyers-Levy thinks her study has wide-reaching
applications outside the marketplace.
"Managers should want noticeably higher ceilings for thinking of bold
initiatives. The technicians and accountants might want low ceilings."
There could be consequences in the world of health care as well, she said.
"If you're having surgery done, you would want the operating room to
encourage item-specific processing."
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