Ceiling Height Can Influence Your Thinking. Really?

Yes, really! Researchers from University of Minnesota and University of British Columbia have indeed shown that ceiling height can affect your thinking. They argue that low versus high ceiling can activate different concepts in your brain, and this will affect the way your brain process new information and do problem solving. A high ceiling would evoke concepts of freedom (abstract, relational thinking) while a low ceiling would evoke concepts of confinement (attention to details). By no means should you have the idea that one thinking method is better than the other. They are just different tools that can be used to solve different kind of problems.

The research results are about to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research. The researcher web page can be found here, and a copy of the research paper can be found here.

Now, if ceiling height can affect your thinking, what about your office color, layout, and furniture?

What about the software tool you use? Do some experiments yourself. Try to remodel your office space, and test different software tools until your find a best fit, which really improves your performance.