Need more evidence that office personalization is a good thing? Byron and Laurence report that “Most employees personalize their workspaces with photos, memorabilia, and other items – even in the face of constraints such as rules prohibiting personalization…the objects with which employees personalize their workspaces (and even the absence of such objects) symbolize who they are and who they want to be. Through their symbolic representations of self, they find common ground (often through shared nonwork experiences), establish a common understanding of employees’ work roles, and share personalistic information about the self – all of which contribute to relationship development among employees and their coworkers, customers, and clients.”
Kris Byron and Gregory Laurence. “Diplomas, Photos, and Tchotchkes as Symbolic Self-Representations: Understanding Employees’ Individual Use of Symbols.” Academy of Management Journal, in press.
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.