mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
I’m not talking big house vs. small house — that’s too easy, and simplistic. A new study in The Journal of Political Psychology looks at the state of your house — are you messy or a neatnik? — and what that says about your politics. According to the study, liberals are messier, conservatives neater. Liberals’ homes tend to be “colorful and awash in books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia.” Items you’re more likely to find around a conservative’s home include “calendars, postage stamps, laundry baskets, irons and sewing materials.”
I’m not sure what this says about me — I’m pretty liberal, but unless I’m in the midst of some huge project, my house is usually pretty clean. (The study’s predictions about my library and music collection are spot-on, however.) I have an iron and a full-size ironing board, perhaps a rare item for an urban-dwelling late-20s dude.
The study moves from the conservative living room into other parts of the conservative home, where “bedrooms and offices are well-lighted and decorated with sports paraphernalia and flags—especially American ones.” Using myself as the liberal litmus test, I have to admit that the above sounds nothing like my bedroom or office — no flags or sports paraphernalia of any kind. (I’m an absolute sports moron.) When it comes to lighting, it depends on what they mean by “well-lit” — I despise bright overhead light, preferring numerous low-key sources spread around the room. Dark spots are OK.
So what do the living situations of liberals and conservatives say about them — at least, according to this isolated study? The researchers concluded that “liberals gravitate toward art and things that aren’t as concrete,” whereas conservatives “have a need for order” and despise “ambiguity,” which is expressed by “being more orderly, having more cleaning supplies, needing to have everything lined up and organized so that one feels one’s environment is predictable and therefore safe.”
We want to hear from you — does your living space line up with your politics, as defined by this study? Or are you a neat liberal or a messy conservative?
Comments (30)
Comment
- Follow mental_floss
Politicaly wise, I’m kind of on the neutral side. I don’t really like to classify myself as either a liberal or a conservative. According to my apartment, I’m pretty liberal!
posted by Tara on 10-15-2008 at 7:24 am
I’m a messy liberal, but my music library isn’t terribly diverse. Most of my books cover philosophy or foreign languages though.
posted by Zach on 10-15-2008 at 7:32 am
Our house is always ready for company, a party or white glove inspection. No piles, no clutter, no crap. We have plenty of books, but my CDs are put away in storage. My PC is filled with 80 gigs of music of every possible style. Full size ironing board, iron, we have an American flag displayed ouside. Do Tour de France posters and cycling posters count as ’sports memoribila?’ I doubt it. I have a calendar, postage stamps and even return address labels. Number 10 business size envelopes, too.
Another not-so-useful study. We’re lefty liberals, we just like things neat and clean.
posted by fixedgear on 10-15-2008 at 7:34 am
It’s right on the money for me. Messy messy liberal
posted by Vickey on 10-15-2008 at 8:05 am
Goofy pop-Psychology. I am guessing that this study was done with a tax dollar funded grant…
So much for fighting stereotypes!
Good job bringing up the study and dealing with it, but it’s sad that this sort of thing is called the science of psychology…
I hope that folks on both sides of the line and those (like me) who aren’t excited about either side’s offerings can live and vote how they want…
posted by Brucesquatch on 10-15-2008 at 8:17 am
My walls are colorful and covered with art, my books are sci-fi/fantasy and post-colonial lit, my music is folksy indie stuff . . . but everything is pretty neat and I have the ironing board, laundry basket, and cleaning supplies. Which I suppose suits me, as I’m kind of a fence sitter. Variety is the spice of life, right?
posted by nutmeag on 10-15-2008 at 8:26 am
I label myself as an independent. I lean liberal on some things and conservative on others. I’m clean at work, but very messy at home. I live like a mole barely turning on enough light to see what I’m doing. My musical and literary tastes are far reaching and eclectic. My boyfriend (who lives with me) is very neat. He’s always got pretty much every light in the house on (I run around after him turning them off). He has a great interest in travel and listens to and reads all sorts of different things and he’s quite liberal. I think saying you can pin down a person’s politics from their living environment is too simplistic and relies too heavily on stereotypes.
posted by Jen on 10-15-2008 at 8:30 am
Pretty overly simplistic, but what’d'you expect? I’m actually super-conservative, and spare surfaces in my home are littered with concert and plane tickets, art supplies, and taxidermy.
Can’t trust stereotypes, I guess. Go figure.
posted by Alice on 10-15-2008 at 8:30 am
I can’t help but feel like that’s the cliched/stereotypical answer. The free-thinking, tree-hugging, book-reading, well-traveled liberal v. the cleanly, orderly, uptight conservative. Please. Aside from the bed not getting made every day, my wife and I keep our house pretty clean. We don’t leave books out, neither of us are artistic, and I can promise you that there is a book of stamps in the TV stand for mailing out the bills, but neither of us are conservative, by any measurement. We’re just educated– I am an electronics engineer and my wife is finishing her PhD in biology– and as study after study has shown, the more educated a person, the more liberal that person tends to be.
posted by Joel on 10-15-2008 at 8:32 am
I am a conservative, it kind of matches, I am messy, but wife wife is very neat so our house is clean (No, I don’t make her do the work, she makes me get off my duff and do it.) No flags in the office, but I have an American Flag I put outside most days, I leave it in if it is going to rain, and take it in when I get home from work in the early evening.
In my (work) office the only sports related thing I have is a very cute picture featuring my infant son sitting in my lap playing with a Dallas Cowboys logoed football while we wear matching Tony Romo jerseys.
Our home office is somewhat divided, indeed my wife’s area is covered with sewing materials, she loves to make quilts. My area is covered in computer equipment (I do computers by trade) and I have two large bookshelves filled mostly with history books and biographies.
posted by Witty Nickname on 10-15-2008 at 8:34 am
“I can’t help but feel like that’s the cliched/stereotypical answer. The free-thinking, tree-hugging, book-reading, well-traveled liberal v. the cleanly, orderly, uptight conservative. Please”
I couldn’t agree more. My husband and I are both conservative. We have 15 bookcases full of books, the house is comfortably askew most of the time ( unless company is coming) and there is art everywhere.
Ironing board? I’m sure I have one someplace….
posted by Mary Beth on 10-15-2008 at 9:43 am
I think my incredibly messy surroundings probably have less to do with my liberalness and more to do with being a lazy bastard.
posted by Sebastian on 10-15-2008 at 9:55 am
I think this whole study is pretty meaningless. The Journal of Political Psychology??
posted by mike on 10-15-2008 at 10:04 am
Conservative, Christian (Southern Baptist even), educated, well traveled, artistic, flag waiving, clean, ironed, music loving, anti-authority Republican. Most of my friends are confused Catholic Democrats. Where does that put me in this ridiculous study (that I HOPE was privately funded)?
posted by Karen on 10-15-2008 at 10:27 am
Completely ridiculous.
My mother is a complete neat freak, yet she is also very liberal. She does own many, many books (including some old antiquarian ones that used to be mine – bah) and a varied music collection. My uncle, who is a Reagan fan who is one of those few people who still like Bush, owns numerous travel books, is a little messy, and has traveled around the world. I’m liberal, have an awesome music collection (if I may say so myself…), and a varied book collection, are very messy, and am very liberal, yet I also own dozens of cleaning supplies (that are gathering dust… *cough*). So, no, does not fit whatsoever.
posted by NicoNico on 10-15-2008 at 11:11 am
I’ve certainly known people who fit this stereotype, but I have a hunch the authors of this “research” had a particular finding in mind and made sure they found it! This is nothing but yet another study that tries to convince the public that conservatives aren’t well-read (did they bother checking library cards?), well-traveled (did they check passport stamps?), or creative (did they bother seeing how prolific conservative bloggers are in their organized, well-lit offices?).
Bah.
posted by Kimberly on 10-15-2008 at 11:50 am
I’m thinking this is not very scientific. Maybe they had too small of a pool to base their hypothesis on. I would say I am a liberal conservative. My house would be considered messy at first glance but….I can lay my hand on anything at any time. My music collection is eclectic and I hang Van Gogh repoductions next to Guinness Advert posters. I have Frommer’s guide to Ireland and Freakonomics next to Harry Potter.
posted by JaneM on 10-15-2008 at 11:56 am
This seems pretty accurate, my neo-con roommate and I always argue over which lights to have on, he wants the overhead bright ones and I normally just want one in the corner.
I also found a method for dispelling conservatives from my room. My roommate always wants to talk politics and he bugs me while I try to get work done. I noticed once I put up some art that he doesn’t understand and especially a nude painting (classy not vulgar) he stares at it uncomfortably when in my room and lately he doesn’t bother me at all.
posted by Kevin L on 10-15-2008 at 12:05 pm
This is pretty stereotypical: it’s what I think of when I think of conservatives & liberals, but completely flipped with the people I know. Me and my other liberal friends tend to be neat–my house is always pretty clean (except I never, ever make the bed), and a good friend of mine, who’s more liberal than me, has a house that could be an Ikea showroom. My conservative parents (charter National Right-To-Life members) have a house that I’m always vaguely embarrassed to be around, and there’s always crap lying around.
Interesting study, though, hey?
posted by 42 on 10-15-2008 at 1:02 pm
it’s an interesting idea. and some of my friends fit the profile of being conservative equating to being organized and loving concrete things, but I myself am definitely not conservative and still like things lined up, in order, and to be cleaned in a particular way. Although, now that I think about it, those tendencies might have more to do with my latent OCD than my political leanings.
posted by Celeste on 10-15-2008 at 2:47 pm
Messy conservative!
posted by Elizabeth on 10-15-2008 at 3:46 pm
I think that in the footnotes of the original research document, you find that all data was gathered from watching various episodes of “Dharma and Greg”.
To echo what a lot of people here have already said, this is pop-psychology trash.
posted by Byrd Brain on 10-15-2008 at 3:48 pm
“”There’s a lot of bad science here,” says Charney, a fellow at the Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy at Duke University.”
My thoughts exactly.
For starters, how, precisely, was the data collected.
posted by John Fembup on 10-15-2008 at 3:50 pm
what??? I’m a messy liberal… no fair…
posted by ann on 10-15-2008 at 4:24 pm
I grew up as a moderate conservative and my boyfriend claims liberal status- he’s the neat freak and I’m the messy one. I guess we don’t fit in this study.
posted by Kelly on 10-15-2008 at 4:37 pm
I’m really conservative. My dorm lives up to expectations!
posted by Meg on 10-15-2008 at 5:45 pm
i completely agree with this study… as a strong liberal my room is messy and awash in art and sculptures from around the world….
same is true for my parents; my mom is liberal and very messy, my dad conservative and extremely ordered and neat.
posted by oneita on 10-15-2008 at 11:10 pm
A person may hide their political ideology from others, including from pollsters, but the researchers were delighted to learn that a peek into subjects’ living quarters or even workspaces could give that away.
posted by Attin on 10-16-2008 at 3:08 am
Super neatnik yellow dog liberal here…this reminds me of the horoscope study. You can make just about anything fit anyone if you make it broad enough. I have one Red Sox shirt that was a gift, no flags of any kind, everything is in its’ place nearly all the time, I have a book of 39 cent stamps………I care more about the inside of the voting booth right now than the inside of my house.
posted by frida tastic on 10-16-2008 at 4:43 am
Sounds pretty close to me…
posted by Josh on 10-21-2008 at 4:59 am