In May 1942, shortly after entering World War II, the United States government's Office of Strategic Services began a program of assessments designed to identify candidates suitable for work behind enemy lines. One of the selection tests was the Belongings Test, in which candidates were required to describe individuals solely on the basis of what personal effects they had left in their bedrooms.

A 2002 report from the University of Texas at Austin provided strong support for the assumption underlying the Belongings Test — much can be learned about a person from the spaces in which they dwell.

The UT-Austin findings determined that offices reveal key aspects of a worker's personality. Observers scanned 83 student rooms and 94 office spaces in search of the Big Five personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, emotional stability, extroversion and agreeableness. As with bedrooms, offices were found to reveal key aspects of the inhabitant's personality.

So many of us spend almost as much time in our work area as we do at home, so we may as well feel comfortable doing so.

So it comes as little surprise that approximately 70 percent to 90 percent of American workers personalize their workspaces, according to a report from Eastern Kentucky University last year.

"People decorate their offices because it makes them feel more comfortable and satisfied, and that can make them more productive," Steven Schiavo, a professor of psychology at Wellesley College who specializes in environmental psychology, recently said at The New York Times.

It is also a way to mark territory. Some research even shows that people who are more territorial about their offices have more influence within them, and feel surer of themselves when presenting ideas there, Schiavo said.

An issue of Psychology Today a few years ago offered up what your office area might be saying about you to your supervisors, bosses and coworkers:

• Plants and Foliage — Plants that are well cared for indicate someone who plans to stay.

• Candy Bowl — This can be anything that lures others into the workspace, indicative of an extrovert; introverts don't place anything that draws others in their workspace. A jelly-bean jar, for instance, might as well be a welcome mat.

• Motivational Plaques/Inspirational Posters — This person is engaged in his or her job and wants to stay engaged.

• Post-it Notes — Over-reliance on Post-it notes is a sign of overwhelm.

• Degrees of Personalization — How much personalizing (decorating, for example) workers do to their space indicates the level of comfort in their environment. A high degree indicates that they are secure enough to put a personal stamp on the space to make it their own.

• Family Photos — The interpretation of this one is divided. Some psychologists say family photos are a status symbol, while others say they are a genuine reminder of loved ones and are displayed due to guilt of so much time away from them. Look at how the photos are displayed. Facing guests? Think status symbols. Facing the office owner? Personal reasons for display.

While some employees personalize more than others — such as managers and employees with enclosed offices — studies examining personality traits suggest that employees who personalize the most tend to be creative and have a higher need for affiliation and a lower need for privacy.

Although desktop trinkets are not exactly a window to the soul, certain personality traits are easy to discern — even to strangers, say Sam Gosling, associate professor of psychology at UT-Austin, and Meredith Wells, a psychologist at East Kentucky University who also studies environment and personality. (Source: Psychology Today)

Gosling, author of the forthcoming book Snoop: The Secret Language of Stuff, has spent the last decade conducting research on how personality is expressed and perceived in everyday contexts. He has studied strangers' impressions of faculty members' officers as they related to personality traits, including extroversion, conscientiousness and openness, and found that these qualities could be discerned.

As is always true, when you make broad generalities, you leave remarkable room for contrary examples. Yet openness, conscientiousness, status and commitment to work seem to reveal themselves whether a worker wants them to or not. According to the aforementioned UT-Austin study, these signs are accurately picked up by others at an extremely high rate. In A Room With a Cue, Gosling concludes that your co-workers are good at judging what the clues mean even if they don't know why.

Based on these findings, we should be careful about all the clues we leave about ourselves in your office because our image is at stake. And the image we project might be more powerful than the work we actually do. (See Pigpen Mobility)

On the other hand, the recent report from Eastern Kentucky University, in surveying 172 office employees from 19 businesses, concluded that employee commitment was only "indirectly related to personalization through status."

"As expected," the report determined, "organizational culture had an indirect effect on personalization, via personalization policies or norms and employee status. Thus, this research suggests for the first time that the primary predictors of workspace personalization are organizational rather than personal."

In other words, according to the report, your workspace most likely reflects your company rather than you.

What do you think? Does your workspace say something deep and important about you and your efficiency? Or worse, how your boss and coworkers perceive your efficiency?

Resources

A Room With a Cue: Personality Judgments Based on Offices and Bedrooms
by Samuel D. Gosling, Sei Jin Ko, Thomas Mannarelli and Margaret E. Morris
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 82, No. 3), 2002

Workspace Personalization and Organizational Culture
by Meredith M. Wells, Luke Thelen and Jennifer Ruark
Environment and Behavior (Vol. 39, No. 5), 2007

Rooms of their Own
by Annie Murphy Paul
Psychology Today, May/June 1998

Betrayed by Your Desk
by Jennifer Drapkin
Psychology Today, July/Aug 2005

Walking the Tightrope of Workspace Décor
by Eilene Zimmerman
The New York Times, Sept. 16, 2007

6 Tips and Tricks: Organize your Workspace
IntelliMind.com, June 2007