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WHAT does your personal space say about you? Taking a look at someone’s room can accurately reveal certain character traits, according to Samuel Gosling from the University of Texas at Austin. His team asked 15 volunteers to try to guess other people’s personalities just from seeing their offices or bedrooms. Photographs and other clues to the appearance or identity of the occupant were removed. The assessors didn’t do well at rating extroversion, agreeableness or emotional stability, but were remarkably accurate at assessing conscientiousness and openness (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 82, p 379). These are traits that can be hard to gauge just from meeting a person, says Gosling.