Using your mind to make decisions is a very taxing enterprise. When people make decisions, it turns out that it takes energy away from their entire p… - Kathleen D. Vohs

One of the most frustrating goals for people is weight loss or weight loss maintenance," Professor Vohs said. So if a person concentrates on that goal, she may have fewer internal resources to deal with other challenging situations in life, like a demanding boss or an angry spouse. The answer, Professor Vohs said, is perhaps "stepping back temporarily and saying, 'I'm going to try to live a healthy life and not try so hard to lose weight.

The research has received a lot of media attention, and Vohs thinks she knows why: "I think it makes people feel vindicated," Vohs says. "There's a multibillion dollar industry to help people de-clutter their lives. Relationship partners, employers, everyone wants you to be neat … but there may be times being messy is good, too. I think messy people feel vindicated big time.

A clean setting leads people to do good things: Not engage in crime, not litter, and show more generosity," Vohs explains for the Association for Psychological Science . "We found, however, that you can get really valuable outcomes from being in a messy setting.