Desk Size May Make You Dishonest: A Larger Space Means Less Honesty

Could the size of your desk affect how honest you are? Apparently, it can. New research reveals that a person's physical environment affects their likelihood of dishonest behavior.

The findings shouldn't be all that surprising. After all, our surroundings often affect how we behave. What is surprising, though, is the fact that it could mean that those in charge of a business could be engaging in dishonest behavior--just because of their work environment.

"In everyday working and living environments, our body postures are incidentally expanded and contracted by our surroundings--by the seats in our cars, the furniture in and around workspaces, even the hallways in our offices--and these environments directly influence the propensity of dishonest behavior in our everday lives," said Andy Yap, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The general idea is that have a big desk to stretch out while doing work or having a large driver's seat in an automobile can cause people to feel more powerful. This, in turn, can elicit more dishonest behavior such as stealing, cheating and even traffic violations.

In order to test how the feeling of power makes people act, the researchers conducted four studies in the field and the laboratory. One study manipulated the expansiveness of workspaces in the lab and tested whether "incidentally" expanded bodies led to more dishonesty on a test. Another study examined if participants in a more expansive driver's seat would be more likely to "hit and run" when incentivized to go fast in a video-game driving simulation. It turned out that space did indeed have an impact.

The researchers then extended these results to a real-world context. They examined whether a driver's seat size predicted the violation of parking laws in New York City. They found that, in fact, those with larger seats were more likely to be illegally parked on the city streets.

"This is a real concern. Our research shows that office managers should pay attention to the ergonomics of their workspaces," said Yap in a news release. "The results suggest that these physical spaces have tangible and real-world impact on our behaviors."

The findings reveal a little bit more about how a physical environment can not only affect a person's behavior at work, but also shows how it might affect those around him. The research could have implications for office design.

The findings are published in the journal Psychological Science.