What Psychologists Know About Your Clutter That You Don’t 👀

What Psychologists Know About Your Clutter That You Don't 👀



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Ever wondered why clutter seems to take over? Psychologists have revealed some insights about our links to possessions. Let's delve into the world of biases, distortions, and influence to understand what psychologists know (that you don't).

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hey friends welcome back to the channel today I'm going to be sharing what psychologists know about your clutter that you don't [Music] psychologists have introduced one common reason people find it difficult to let go of clutter loss aversion loss aversion is a cognitive bias that refers to our tendency to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring equivalent gains in other words the displeasure that we experience from losing something is usually stronger than the pleasure we feel from Gaining something of equal value this bias can significantly impact our decision-making process when it comes to our belongings making it difficult to let go of items that we don't use or need we fear the perceived loss associated with getting rid of something even if it holds little to no practical value or really serves no purpose in our lives and this can make an item even more difficult to part with even though There's no practical use or true sentimental connection to it but realizing the downside to holding on to these things such as an abundance of clutter stress and an overall sense of overwhelm can help you to reframe your perception of what actually come constitutes a loss the sunk cost fallacy is another cognitive bias that leads us to continue investing in something just because of what we've already invested even when it's no longer rational or beneficial for us to do so that I've already invested so much into this so when we do this we're letting our past Investments or expenses influence our present and future decisions even when all of the data may suggest that cutting our losses would make more sense overcoming this sunk cost fallacy really requires a shift in your mindset to focus more on future outcomes and less on past Investments really recognizing that the money that you've already invested isn't coming back you might be able to sell the item to make more but you're not going to just naturally get back what you invested in it by holding on to it therefore it shouldn't really be a consideration in making your present and future decisions back in the 60s psychologists started noting that there's a difference between what consumers are willing to pay versus what they're willing to accept for that same item and finally in the 80s they put a name on it which is the endowment effect the endowment effect is another cognitive bias that basically says that we tend to attribute a higher value to the things that we own just because we own them so psychologists have found that our perception of an item's worth is often inflated compared to its actual value just because we own something we value it as being worth more in one example of this some University students were given a red University mug and then asked how much they would be willing to sell the mug for and the students who didn't receive a mug were asked how much they would be willing to spend to get one so who do you think priced the mug as worth more now I initially thought well definitely the people who didn't have one because of fomo and keeping up with the Joneses somebody else has something I innately want it right but actually the people who already owned the mug valued it at nearly twice the price that's the power of the endowment effect and why you shouldn't throw out your significant others clutter just because it's clutter to you because it's very likely more valuable to them number four is that your clutter becomes invisible to you over time so have you ever noticed that after a while you stop seeing your clutter this is because your brain has selective attention which makes sense none of us would be very productive if we noticed everything around us all the time the gatekeeper of this information is something known as the reticular activating system also known as Ras now there's a lot to unpack with res but the most basic explanation is that it's a bundle of nerves in your brain stem that filters out information it's also being studied by psychologists to determine a potential role in diseases like schizophrenia and Parkinson's but for our purposes as your brain adapts to the presence of clutter it filters it out making it less noticeable over time and this gradual blindness declutter can cause you to collect even more clutter without necessarily being aware that it's an issue now of course the way around this is to intentionally draw your attention to things like where things are located inside of your space even taking a picture of your space can help to bring attention to things that you don't generally notice when you're standing inside of that space decluttering requires effort decision and taking action and a lot of people struggle with this process because they don't have the confidence in their own ability to organize or to let go of things well in the late 70s psychologist Albert bandura introduced the concept of self-efficacy to the world and this is something that is widely taught and practiced in Psychology today the self-efficacy Theory says that people's belief in their own abilities in any given task or project profoundly impacts their behavior and their success in that thing I'm sure you've heard this saying before whether you believe you can or you believe you can't you're right if your self-efficacy around subjects like decluttering or organizing or just maintaining a chaos free life are low then you're very likely not going to take the actions and have the behaviors that would be necessary to give you that outcome of having a clutter-free chaos free space lucky for you bandura also identified four ways that you can help to increase your self-efficacy the first one is inactive Mastery that's basically just saying your performance outcomes you've done it before you've succeeded in something similar before therefore you feel like you can do do it again or be successful in this this is where taking those baby steps comes in and is really helpful in eventually building the confidence to believe that you can be a clutter-free person the second way is vicarious experiences basically learning from other people or seeing other people who you feel are similar to you and believing well if they can do it I can do it modeling Role Models maybe watching different media channels that you feel like you can really relate to and identify with and seeing how other people do it the third source is verbal persuasion that is essentially they told me I could do it so I believe I can this is where affirmations or verbal encouragement or just getting with other like-minded people who reaffirm that yeah it's definitely possible to be able to let go of your clutter or to create a more streamlined organized simplified life and the fourth source is something he called psychological arousal which is basically just your emotional state you know there are some times that your physical body or your mind just feels less confident it could be hormones other things that are going on in your life that just have your mood a little bit dipped to where you don't feel as confident that day we all go through that but catching yourself at the right time or working on just having a more positive optimistic mindset can also magically increase your self-efficacy in any given thing you feel more optimistic you feel better about the outcomes and so you take more inspired actions and you get better results for it number six is that rationalizations aren't always conscious decisions one study that's just been crazy to watch on this is with split brain patients in some patients with severe epilepsy and seizures a last-ditch treatment can be to split the brain in half so the little bundle of nerves connecting the left side of the brain to the right side of the brain is severed so that each half of the brain functions independently so it's kind of like having two brains and one perceiving and responding to information separately your left side of your body is actually controlled by the right hemisphere of your brain and vice versa so they would run these interesting tests on these split brain patients by showing an image to their left eye to go to the right side of their brain and show a different picture to their right eye to go to the left side of their brain and see how they would communicate and rationalize the information that they received what's cool is the left side of the brain which is the reasoning and rationalizing side would skew the information in its favor so here's an example a patient is shown a chicken foot only to the right eye and then a snowy field only to the left eye and then they're asked to select words from a list to match each of the pictures they saw the words they select are chicken to go with chicken foot and shovel to match the snowy field however when asked why they chose the shovel their response would relate to the chicken because that's the only image that the left side of the brain actually realizes itself so they might say the shovel is for cleaning out the chicken coop in another example the patient was shown the word music to the right eye which goes to the left side of the brain and the word Bell to the left eye which goes to the right side of the brain when shown a picture of a bunch of musical instruments patient would select the picture of the bell and when asked why he selected the picture of the Bell his brain would come up with a rational reason for it those few minutes ago last time I heard any music was coming from the bells out here banging away so the bell's outside here so you'll notice the reasons are totally plausible they're very rational reasons any person who didn't know that he was shown the picture of Belle would be like okay that makes sense but that's the point that's how great our brains are at naturally rationalizing without us even realizing that they're doing it in short the human brain has a remarkable ability to rationalize and justify our actions including keeping clutter we can have totally rational and plausible explanations for why we need to hold on to something things that would make total sense not only to ourselves but also to the people we're telling it to but their rationalizations aren't always true or 100 accurate number seven your clutter may say more about you than your art there have been a number of ongoing research studies since 2013 indicating that the possessions we choose to keep and the way that we organize them can reveal insights into our personality our values and our emotional states this could be as simple as indicating that the types of clutter you hold on to highlight a particular area of struggle for example holding on to other people's things might indicate that you have trouble setting boundaries or holding on to unopened boxes or items with tags still on it could indicate that you have a fear of the future or what if I need it someday mentality but it could go even deeper than that there are a ton of studies right now researching the relationship between clutter and personality traits either way understanding the deeper meaning behind our clutter might help us to reflect on some of our struggles or what we truly want and our priorities for our space one area that you might have sensed but may not have given a whole lot of stock to is the impact that our environments have on our happiness there have been tons of studies including the one done by Blue zones which resulted in the book called Blue zones and this is all about areas with high rates of longevity and happiness areas where people live longer and rate themselves as feeling happier the author has said that the number one thing that we can change in order to influence our own happiness is our environment this of course being in stark contrast to a cluttered and disorganized space which has been proven to contribute to stress anxiety and a sense of feeling overwhelmed altering our environment and removing the Clutter creating a more streamlined and organized space it's not only more visually Pleasant to look at but we can also feel a more positive impact from it and our mental and emotional state number nine clutter begins as a process of the mind so clutter is not solely a physical manifestation but it's also a product of our thoughts our emotions and our actions one relevant framework that you've probably heard about here lately because it's become very popular is the cognitive behavioral model which is the core of CBT cognitive behavioral therapy which has become again very popular you can see it now in most meditation apps and this suggests that our thoughts our mind influences our emotions which in turn influences our behaviors which ultimately shapes our environment or our life experiences and you can see this taking place even on the most basic level let's say you're in the shopping mall you see something that catches your attention so you're thinking about it and that thought then results in an emotion either you get excited and you want the thing or you're worried about what will happen if you don't get get the thing maybe you have a little bit of fomo that emotion causes you to take an action which is to purchase the thing or not and if you purchase it then that then results in your environment of having the extra thing in your space and our environment is basically a variety of different Pathways that look just like that happening over and over again again understanding the connection between your mind and your clutter can help you to address the underlying psychological factors contributing to its accumulation in your living room speaking of CBT back in the 60s Aaron Beck came up with it as an approach to help people identify and change negative thought patterns and beliefs and part of this approach was identifying patterns of irrational thinking something he called cognitive distortions or thought distortions and these thought distortions can be seen on the Clutter scene too like dichotomous or All or Nothing thinking thinking that everything has to be all one way or all another way either I have to get rid of all of my media collection or I have to keep all of my media collection or believing that an item has to be either essential or it's completely useless catastrophizing which involves blowing things out of proportion and Imagining the worst case scenarios in relation to clutter this Distortion might involve excessively worrying about the potential negative consequences of letting things go maybe you found yourself over generalizing which is when you make broad sweeping conclusions based on a limited amount of evidence every time I let something go I definitely need it a week or two later and of course emotional reasoning this Distortion involves facing decisions and actions primarily on emotions rather than objective reality an example of this might be oh this yellow dress makes me feel happy and I love looking at it but the data and reality suggests that you've never actually worn it and it doesn't feel good on your body the list goes on and on but by challenging these thought distortions and replacing them with more rational thinking we can break free from the Clutter trap and create a more organized and peaceful living space basically understanding the psychology behind clutter can provide valuable insights into our relationship with our stuff and our space and help us to overcome the challenges of letting things go hopefully you found this helpful if you liked this video be sure to give it a thumbs up and I will chat with you next week [Music] foreign [Music]

#Psychologists #Clutter #Dont

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