Physical Order Produces Healthy Choices, Generosity, and Conventionality, Whereas Disorder Produces Creativity

Order and disorder are prevalent in both nature and culture, which suggests that each environ confers advantages for different outcomes. Three experiments tested the novel hypotheses that orderly environments lead people toward tradition and convention, whereas disorderly environments encourage breaking with tradition and convention—and that both settings can alter preferences, choice, and behavior. Experiment 1 showed that relative to...