#Article: Studies show messy people and those who swear may actually be smarter and more creative

It’s the bullet proof excuse office slobs have been waiting for. “I’m not messy, I’m just creative”.

Well, that’s the line provided by new research published in the journal for the American Association for Psychological Science.

The run is… if you’re work space is crowded, stacked with towers of paper teetering on collapse, sitting atop a kaleidoscope of scribbles and random numbers written down on the twenty plus notepads that are always within reach, then it may encourage creative thinking.

However, on the other side of the coin, the “clean freaks” far from being sterile, clinical, and boring, may in fact be generous, more prone to practicing healthy living, while thinking conventionally.

The study was carried out on a number of participants, asked to complete tasks in either a clean, or messy environments. At the end, they were asked if they would like to give money to charity, and also if they’d like to take an apple or chocolate bar.

At the end of the exercise, while both groups completed their set tasks, judges found that work produced in the messy room was far more creative and displayed ‘out of the box’ thinking.

And, those in the clean room were more inclined to donate and take the apple.

The research, spearheaded by psychological scientist Kathleen Vohs, at the University of Minnesota found that “Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights.”

The more you swear… The smarter you may be

Have you ever thought someone who swears like a trooper might be a bit daft and only do it because they simply can’t think of anything ‘smart’ to say?

Well, it turns out you could be dead wrong. That’s according to research published in the journal of Language Sciences, which states people who swear, may in fact be more intelligent.

Two researchers in the North East United States carried out a study where they asked people to name as many swear words as they could in 60 seconds. They then followed this by asking people in the same time to rank as many words as they could starting with ‘a’, ‘f’, or ‘s’ and again with animals.

The conclusion was those who knew the most amount of swear words, also performed better in other parts of their vocabulary… Meaning that people do NOT just swear because they cannot think of anything else to say, and if fact do so because they have the vocabulary to find the vulgar phrases they’re looking for.

Article from Ten Play