Betrayed by Your Desk

In the office, anyone can be a detective. And every cubicle, a mini crime scene.

Your desk reveals more about your personality than you might think, even if you work in a white-shoe law firm that frowns on personal expression. "It sounds cliché," says Sam Gosling, a personality researcher at the University of Texas, Austin, "but the more research I've done, the more I've come to believe that what's going on outside the mind reflects what's going on inside the mind."

It's all in the details. After studying hundreds of cubicles and their owners' personalities, Gosling has drawn some conclusions: An empty desk often indicates dissatisfaction with or a lack of dedication to a job. An overgrown fern says a worker is there to stay.

Often, workers want to make a statement with office accoutrements. A jelly-bean jar might as well be a welcome mat. Some items, like family photos, can act as double agents—they're used for very different purposes.

Although desktop trinkets are not exactly a window to the soul, certain personality traits are easy to discern, say Gosling and Meredith Wells, a psychologist at East Kentucky University who also studies environment and personality. Openness, conscientiousness, status and commitment to work reveal themselves, whether a worker wants them to or not.

What can't you detect from a colleague's work space? Whether he is good-natured or emotionally stable.