Snooping through a friend's bookshelf, refrigerator, or cd collection (if anyone still has one) can reveal more about that person than we might think. Sam Gosling, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, studies stuff for a living to determine exactly what we can assume from someone's space, and the assumptions we make that we probably shouldn't.
There were a couple surprise findings: did you know that the more alcohol bottles in a room the more likely the person is conservative? And a couple "gee...ya think...?" obvious ones: men are more likely to have a hat collection. But otherwise, I didn't learn much from the book. And, in what I would consider a huge flaw in his research, all of the bedrooms his team studied belonged to college students at the University of Texas, Austin. So the findings of this book apply to a very specific group: 18-22 year olds in Austin, Texas who can afford a college education (and have the grades/test scores to be accepted), live on campus, and have enough of an interest in psychology to be willing to participate in an unpaid experiment that requires allowing strangers into their room to analyze their personality.
So, let's take a step back to the findings I noted. I would guess that college students have more alcohol bottles sitting around than the average 40 year old. I would also guess that despite Austin being a pretty liberal city, that the average student is more conservative than someone at UC Berkeley. So, is there a really a strong correlation between the amount of booze and their political leanings, or is each one individually correlated to being in college and their geographic location? As my favorite statistics professor once said, "correlation does not imply causation", and that's exactly where I think the problem lies with this book.
Putting the major issues aside, there's not nearly as much information as I would have hoped. A large and diverse book collection is a sign of someone's openness. A highly organized space can give you clues about someone's conscientiousness. Lots of photos of friends can give clues about their level of extroversion, and dark clothing or motivational posters indicate the person is a little bit neurotic. But, there are quite a few caveats: just because their space is organized the day you see it, doesn't mean they always keep it that way (I am a prime example of this). Geographic location and season heavily influence a person's clothing, as does their profession. And of course, we all have things lying around that are unwanted gifts (or gifts we like but might not necessarily have bought for ourselves), items left by a friend, and if we share our space with a roommate or significant other, things that don't actually belong to us.
So how useful is "snoopology" really? Why not just ask a date or friend about a piece of artwork on their wall or the crazy light hanging over their dining room table? Isn't it kind of invasive to go poking through someone's medicine cabinet when you excuse yourself to use the bathroom? I'd be weirded out if I came back to find someone checking out the insides of my refrigerator; which sometimes resembles a health food store, sometimes is filled with takeout and/or leftovers, and other times contains a redbull and some hot sauce...What would they assume about me based on each of those scenarios?
Despite there being 230 pages of text about it, ultimately it seems there's a very limited amount of information you can learn from someone's stuff, and the risk of being caught rifling through someone's personal belongings...well, hopefully that's enough to keep even the most curious snoopers out of my underwear drawer.
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