Not long ago, two of my colleagues and I speculated that messiness, like tidiness, might serve a purpose. Since tidiness has been associated with upholding societal standards, we predicted that just being around tidiness would elicit a desire for convention. We also predicted the opposite: that being around messiness would lead people away from convention, in favor of new directions.
We conducted some experiments to test these intuitions, and as we reported in last month’s issue of the journal Psychological Science, our hunches were borne out.
Click here for the rest of the article.
***
[Middle English mes, course of a meal, food, group of people eating together, from Old French, from Late Latin missus, from Latin, past participle of mittere, to place.]
John Candy - Mess Around
3 comments:
Hi. My name is JAL. And I am messy.
I guess.
Oh man, I used to be such a neat-freak, honestly, it was like a neurosis or something, a place for everything and everything in its place, that's what I used to say, but now, oh shit!
Sorry, knocked over a Pepsi, I'll wipe that up later, now I'm a lot more rela...fuck! tipped the ashtray, anyway more relaxed about mess and clutter, oops, but I noticed sometimes, hang on the phone, it's around here somewhere, okay wait.
Hung up. Sometimes like in the kitchen I gotta watch where I set the kniv...ACK!...knives because those things can hurt, and the workshop gets glue and paper all OW! Damnit, all over the place, and in the dark I trip all over my clo..d'oh! That's why being neat is anal retentive.
Penny on The Big Bang Theory gets the messy/tidy balance just right.
The problem is you can't date a girl forever.
Post a Comment