Under the right circumstances it might instill traits we consider desirable, namely creativity. Will a great enough mess turn the best of us into scoundrels? Must we straighten up or risk depravity? Rather than dismiss disorder, Vohs and her colleagues followed that experiment with another, which hints that an unorganized life might have some redeeming qualities. Our surroundings, it seems, can influence whether we make the choices society deems proper.

On the way out, when offered an apple or a chocolate bar, they were also more likely to take the healthy snack. In one experiment, they asked participants for charitable donations those in the tidy room gave more than twice those in the messy room. Broadly speaking, they guessed that people in uncluttered settings would follow social convention, while those in cluttered settings would break with it. The research cited most commonly on this subject dates to 2013, when a trio of marketing professors - Vohs among them - explored the effects of order and disorder on human behavior. The question is, did it help? Disorder Moulds the Mind Clearly their messiness didn’t hinder them. He wasn’t the only unkempt colossus, either - Mark Twain and Steve Jobs also toiled at tumultuous desks. The confusion of Einstein’s office did not prevent him discovering previously unimagined secrets of the universe. Yet from this muddle arose perhaps the greatest intellectual, not to mention creative, feats of the 20th century. Photos of his study, taken after his death in 1955, reveal a scene of scattered papers, heaped books and displaced odds and ends. With a quick wit you might counter: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” That quip is often misattributed to Albert Einstein, whose own clutter was indeed commensurate with his towering genius. Suppose an overbearing manager scolds you for your slovenly workspace.

Cleanliness, as the proverb says, is next to godliness.” Another school of thought, however, preaches the value of disarray. “Historically, the evidence has favored the tidy camp. “Messy or tidy - which is better?” writes University of Minnesota researcher Kathleen D. Spick and span share a long association with morality and righteousness. But what if our immaculate home and work environments are holding us back? What if beautiful, novel ideas prosper in a state of disorder? As children we’re told to keep a clean bedroom, as adults a clean office. Throughout life we are trained in the art and virtue of tidiness.

Tidiness theory