Where You Are Shapes Who You Are

I recently discovered a set of studies that allow me to blame science for my unreasonable obsession with light spaces, tall buildings and nature-inspired décor.

It’s true, some of us are more sensitive to our environment than others, but to what extent have you ever considered how the everyday places you live and work are affecting your mood, your behaviour and your decisions?

Join me on this whistle-stop tour of five environments that can shape us, even without us realising it.

The IKEA Store

Whenever we consider how environment shapes our reactions to the world around us, there’s no better place to start than an IKEA store. Cast your mind back to the last time you set foot inside one. They’re very deliberately built.

First, there are no windows in the main shopping area: this ‘warehouse feel’ is more than just a money-saving hack, the lack of natural light distorts our sense of place and time. Like a casino, we lose track of how long we’re in there.

Wayfinders on the floor guide us along a one-way system, with very few moments where sections can be skipped, so we browse more than we originally intended. It replaces your own mission-focused journey with another more convoluted one where more products can catch your eye.

Jen Clinehens (MS, MBA), founder of Choice Hacking explains that in IKEA “impulse buying is due to two features of the store layout: its one-way system and a circular design.” The store design drives a “scarcity effect” that makes it inconvenient to return to collect items (redoing the full circuit) if you change your mind.

Imagine a light, airy IKEA with direct access to the section you came for, and you’d end up with a very different basket at checkout.

The Corporate Office

As consumers we know that the stores we visit are designed to encourage us to buy more items — it’s a reality we’ve come to accept and to, on the whole, ignore.

But in B2B scenarios, we tend to focus more on people’s behaviour: we assume “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” and focus on what an individual might want from us, rather than how the environment around us shapes our decisions.

It’s fair to assume that corporate offices are often built in tall skyscrapers to flaunt status, to maximise central urban space or simply for aesthetic purposes. But behavioural science reveals that there could be other advantages at play.

It’s thanks to construal level theory, which explains that if we can clearly see that we’re far (in distance, space or time) from a place or an event, our brain focuses much more on the long-term than short-term.

Researchers have found that when participants are primed with the idea that they are higher or north of others (such as “you’re staying in the north of the city” or moving someone into a tall building) participants make longer-term decisions, and the opposite (being told they’re staying “in the south of the city or moving them to a more grounded space) leads them to shorter-term financial decisions.

This suggests that in a large boardroom looking down at a distant view, our mind naturally wanders to longer-term decisions and steers away from short-term impulses, causing a subtle shift in our decision-making.

Kaylee Somerville, researcher at the University of Calgary suggests using construal level theory to more deliberately shape our home environment — facing the window for bigger picture tasks and sitting lower to the ground for more detail-oriented tasks.

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The Messy Desk

If we’re making long-term decisions in airy boardrooms, what kinds of decisions are we making whilst sat at a messy desk in our cluttered home offices?

Many of us take a perverse pride in our untidy desks, sparked by Einstein’s famous quip “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?”

And rightly so, subsequent studies have shown that a messy desk promotes creativity, specifically improving the quality of people’s creative ideas.

Kathleen Vohs and her team at the University of Minnesota gave half their participants a clean and tidy office in which to fill in some forms, then offered them to donate to charity and choose between an apple and a chocolate bar on their way out. The other half followed the same procedure but with a messy desk strewn with papers.

You guessed it, the half with the clean desk donated more to charity and were more likely to choose the apple. She explains that a clean desk makes people more compliant, whilst a messy desk increases the quality of experimental ideas and encourages people to do differently.

If the state of your desk affects the state of your day, is it time to tidy up or to embrace chaos?

The Natural Oasis

Enough of work, back to shopping. One of the world’s most distinctive shopping spots is São Paulo’s Iguatemi, the city’s most premium mall filled with foliage, green spaces and wooden interiors. Sunlight streams through expansive glass roofs and ceiling fans create a natural breeze.

In a city starved of access to nature, it provides an oasis of calm for visitors, encouraging them to linger and savour the experience.

This extreme contrast between bustling city and quiet nature haven helps us understand the positive effects of adding even a small dose of nature to our environment. Research indicates both physical and mental benefits from nature, including stress and anxiety reduction, tension release, lower blood pressure and more.

But like Iguatemi, only accessible by car and filled with even less accessible designer stores, access to nature comes at a price, meaning it’s hard for everyone to have access to such a valuable resource.

What can we do but start small? The Sill explains that adding just one plant to your home or office environment can make a difference to your health.

The Suburban House

Lastly, let’s head to a five-bedroom family house in Omaha. Quite a humble abode for one of the world’s richest men: Warren Buffett.

“In some places, it’s easy to lose perspective. But I think it’s very easy to keep perspective in a place like Omaha,” Buffett says.

Buffett recognises the importance of environment for clarity of thought, keeping his desk free from distractions if he’s writing or reading.

He also recognises how the city and the people around us change the way we think, and that the peace and quiet of suburban Omaha is much more conducive to deep thinking, reading and writing than the hustle and bustle of New York.

How can we do more to manipulate our environment so we can get the ‘real work’ done? Whilst it won’t transform our productivity on its own, creating an environment conducive to the work we want to do is a small step in the right direction each day.

Maybe indulging my obsession with light spaces, tall buildings and nature-inspired décor isn’t such a bad place to start.

Thanks for reading! I hope I've sent you down a "Warren Buffett house Omaha" rabbithole.

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