Ceilings High and Low
Does ceiling height affect the way you think? asks Mixing Memory in a post about a paper by Joan Meyers-Levy and Rui (Juliet) Zhu that is in press in the Journal of Consumer Research. Here’s a a summary of the hypothesis:
in marketing or something related to it, there’s a “wide-spread belief that ceiling height can affect the quality of indoor consumption experiences.” Seriously? But the paper quickly goes from this rather vague common sentiment to the hypothesis that high ceilings activate the concept “FREEDOM,” and low ceilings “CONFINEMENT” (for those of you not in the know, words in all caps represent concepts). That doesn’t seem too far fetched, I suppose, but it’s their next step that loses me. They next propose that priming the concept FREEDOM should promote “relational processing,” while the priming of CONFINEMENT should promote item-specific priming. Like I said before, “huh?”
While I feel a bit “huh?” about all that, my initial thought on reading the title of Mixing Memory’s post—that is, Does ceiling height affect the way you think?—was, if the participants were autistic persons (one of whom were my own son, Charlie), the question might seem less random. Charlie becomes quiet at first when we enter places with high ceilings (Target and other “big box” stores, older churches). Then he kind of hunkers down his head between his shoulders (and hunches over a shopping cart, if we are in a store); if we stay in this high-ceiling place for 15 minutes or more, he starts humming and then pacing and striding back and forth in an unsettled sort of way. I suppose it is as if, in so much space, he needs to orient himself; he feels, perhaps, that he something of a smaller being floating around in so much space. When we enter a low-ceiling room, Charlie’s reaction is much quicker: He often pauses and does not want to enter, or stands at the threshold of the door and looks, and goes back out. Getting him back inside happens more readily if the space is not too filled—too seemingly cluttered—with furniture and other objects.
There is in truth one place that Charlie is sure to run into: The great outdoors where the “ceiling” is too high to worry about, and no walls box him in.
9 opinions for Ceilings High and Low
mcewen
May 12, 2007 at 8:43 am
Great posting. I will have to contemplate the complexities there a while.
Cheers
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 12, 2007 at 9:25 am
Let me know what your contemplations reveal!
Daisy
May 12, 2007 at 9:47 am
I didn’t even include big stores when I read the title. We live in an old hous (built 1890) with wonderful high ceilings. One reason we bought this (I’m sure) was a subconscious need for space after living in a too-small duplex for nine years. The house isn’t big, but it feels big.
My son with Aspergers is also visually impaired, so perhaps the acoustic of a high ceiling matters more than the appearance. Or perhaps I’m over-comptemplating as usual.
Daisy
May 12, 2007 at 9:48 am
contemplating. I CAN spell. Sometimes.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 12, 2007 at 10:16 am
We lived in a duplex, on the second floor in an older house in St. Paul—-the ceilings were not high but it had something of a “treehouse” feeling with the trees all around and lots of nice light. (It is where we were living when we were learning that Charlie was autistic, hence I remember it so well).
Julia
May 12, 2007 at 12:40 pm
We have higher ceilings than the norm. We like it that way. (At least the adults who were in charge of designing the house like it that way….)
The rooms feel more spacious.
Club 166
May 12, 2007 at 8:35 pm
We also live in an old house (built in 1880). We are so used to the high ceilings that I’d be hard pressed to move into anything with “normal” height ceilings.
The only downside is changing lightbulbs.
Julia
May 12, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Club 166 -
Go to the Home Depot website and in the Search box enter 100013250 - that might make light bulb changing easier! (It has for me, certainly, with the recessed lighting and 10′ ceilings.)
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 12, 2007 at 10:18 pm
So now here we are in a 1960’s split level with ceilings so “high” that one of Charlie;s therapist almost knocks his head on the lighting fixtures in the hallway!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: