The Karma of Space: How Where You Live and Work Shapes Your Values

In 2007, psychologists Joan Meyers-Levy and Rui Zhu published a study with an unusual title: "The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing That People Use." Subjects were placed in rooms with 10-foot and 8-foot ceilings and given object-categorisation tasks. In the high-ceiling rooms, people thought more abstractly and freely associated; in the low-ceiling rooms, more concretely and in detail. The ceiling height above your head literally determines your cognitive mode.

Environmental Psychology Basics

Environmental psychology — the study of how physical environments interact with human behaviour — emerged in the 1970s from the work of Roger Barker and colleagues. Their key finding was the concept of the behaviour setting: specific places don't merely house behaviour, they script it. In a library, people speak quietly without any instruction. At a stadium, they shout. In a temple, they slow down. Physical space sets cognitive and emotional modes.

This isn't metaphor. Neuroscience shows that the hippocampus — the brain structure associated with memory and navigation — activates when perceiving space and links memories to locations. Context-dependent memory is well-documented: information is better recalled in the same environment where it was learned. Environment influences cognition literally at the neural level.

Specific Research: Ceilings, Light, Green Space

Over the past thirty years, environmental psychology has accumulated specific data on how physical characteristics of environments affect behaviour and values.

Ceiling height and abstraction: the Meyers-Levy and Zhu study showed not only changes in cognitive style but also in moral judgements. In high-ceiling spaces, subjects gave more liberal, principle-oriented answers to ethical dilemmas. In low-ceiling spaces — more conservative, rule-focused and constraint-oriented.

Natural light and cooperation: studies of office workers published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology show that workers in offices with windows and natural lighting report significantly higher wellbeing, sleep quality, and capacity for cooperation. Artificial lighting — especially cold fluorescent — is associated with higher irritability and competitive rather than cooperative behaviour.

Green space and aggression: the landmark 2001 study by Frances Kuo and William Sullivan in Chicago compared residents of identical public housing buildings — some surrounded by trees and grass, others by bare concrete. Residents of buildings with greenery showed significantly fewer aggressive incidents, higher social trust, and greater willingness to help neighbours. Trees reduced everyday aggression.

Carceral Architecture and Its Consequences

If environments shape behaviour, spaces designed for control and isolation produce particularly instructive effects. Prison architecture is one of the most studied examples.

Bentham's panopticon — a prison with a central observation tower from which a guard could see every cell but inmates couldn't know whether they were being watched — became Foucault's metaphor for modern power precisely because it demonstrates the extreme case: architecture as an instrument of behavioural normalisation.

But subtler data is more interesting. The study of Norway's Bastøy prison — known as the world's most humane — with wooden houses, open spaces, and kitchens, shows recidivism rates of around 16% versus 70% in standard prisons. Space designed for degradation produces degradation. Space designed for human dignity produces different results. This principle works beyond prisons: schools with wide corridors, high ceilings, light and greenery show higher academic performance; offices with private spaces show higher concentration and job satisfaction; hospitals with views of nature show faster patient recovery (Ulrich's classic 1984 study).

Sacred Spaces: Why Humans Create Special Environments for Important Decisions

Anthropologists record that in all known cultures, there are designated spaces for important decisions, rituals, and reflection — temples, ceremonial grounds, stone gardens, chapels. Cognitive neuroscience shows why: specially organised spaces — silence, specific scent (frankincense in church), limited stimulation — switch the brain into a state associated with deeper deliberation, reduced reactivity, and enhanced capacity for moral reasoning. This isn't mysticism; it's neuroscience: environment determines which cognitive resources are accessible.

When you make an important decision in a rush, in a noisy office, in an irritated state — the environment is working against decision quality. This is part of the karma of space: choosing an appropriate environment for important decisions is part of responsible choice-making.

If you want to create a ritual for important decisions — taking on challenges, evaluating your direction — the challenges section on karm.top can serve as a structure for that practice.

The Karma of Environments You Create for Others

Knowledge of how environment affects behaviour and values creates specific responsibility: if you design spaces for others — as a parent, teacher, manager, architect — you are literally shaping the cognitive and ethical conditions of their lives.

An open-plan "hot desk" office without private spaces isn't just a comfort question. It's a decision about what types of interaction (and avoidance of interaction) will be possible. A school without green space is a decision about aggression levels. A home without a quiet corner is a decision about the availability of reflection for those who live there.

Six Environmental Adjustments for Better Thinking

• Create a space for important decisions: even if it's just a quiet corner or a walk — exiting your usual context for significant choices works neurobiologically
• Maximise natural light: this is one of the simplest interventions with the largest documented effect on mood, cognition, and cooperativeness
• Add living nature: even a single plant in your field of view reduces physiological stress markers according to multiple studies
• Attend to acoustics: chronic background noise is one of the most underrated cognitive stressors. Noise-cancelling headphones aren't luxury items; they're concentration tools
• Use space to shift thinking modes: standing produces different thinking than sitting; walking produces different thinking than being at a desk. Use this intentionally
• Design others' environments with the same care as your own: a child's room, a colleague's workspace, shared space — this is all karma of space you're creating

Read also about the karma of urban design and morning rituals and karma — both connect directly to how space shapes our daily practice.

Questions for reflection:

• Where do you make most of your important decisions? What does that space say about the quality of those decisions?
• Is there a place in your life that reliably «activates» a better version of you — calmer, more focused, more open? How often do you go there?
• What environment are you creating for people who depend on you — children, employees, a partner?
• If you could change one physical characteristic of your work or home environment, what would it be and why?