WHAT does your personal space say about you? Taking a look at someone’s room can accurately reveal certain character traits, according to Samuel Gosling from the University of Texas at Austin. His team asked 15 volunteers to try to guess other people’s personalities just from seeing their offices or bedrooms. Photographs and other clues to the appearance or identity of the occupant were removed. The assessors didn’t do well at rating extroversion, agreeableness or emotional stability, but were remarkably accurate at assessing conscientiousness and openness (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 82, p 379). These are traits that can be hard to gauge just from…
To continue reading, today with our introductory offers
Advertisement
More from ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓÆµ
Explore the latest news, articles and features
Popular articles
Trending ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓÆµ articles
1
The best new science-fiction books of June 2026
2
Does gravity create reality? A shocking path to a theory of everything
3
Glaciers in the 'roof of the world' have suddenly started melting
4
Pancreatic cancer halted by virus injection in three patients
5
Where did the laws of physics come from? I think I've found the answer
6
Putting CO2 into rocks and getting hydrogen out is climate double win
7
How a radical new view of life could reveal its origin – and aliens
8
Unsettling dance piece explores how AI is warping human relationships
9
Rapid bursts of ageing are causing a total rethink of how we grow old
10
NASA plans a base on the moon spanning hundreds of square kilometres



