Sally Augustin, Ph.D. is a guest blogger for happier.com and a member of the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory.

Scientists have identified important links between personality (how a person behaves and thinks) and the design of places in which people are most comfortable.  If you’re house hunting, you can use info about the relationship between personality and place design to streamline your search.

Read on to fine-tune the list of design parameters you share with your realtor – or keep what you learn about your place-based needs in mind as you pour through ads on your own.

Are you extraverted or introverted?  Extraverts get a lot of energy from the world around themselves, while introverts focus more on their internal worlds than extraverts.  Both introverts and extraverts can have many friends or few friends or be socially adept or socially awkward – the difference between extraversion and introversion really boils down to how a person gets charged up or chooses to focus.

There are place-related implications of being an extravert or an introvert that you should share with your realtor:

1. If you are an extravert, you prefer a more open floor plan in your home, if you’re an introvert, you favor a layout with more clearly defined rooms, particularly if some of those rooms can be closed off with doors.
2. Extraverts prefer to use couches for seating in living rooms and family rooms, while introverts prefer single person chairs.  So, whether you are an extravert or an introvert influences your preferred furniture, and that furniture influences appropriate room shapes and sizes.
3.  Introverts are much better at processing sensory information than extraverts, so they are more likely to get overwhelmed by it than extraverts.  Extraverts enjoy being in spaces that are more sensorally stimulating – make an extravert happy with brightly painted walls, intense lighting, mirrored walls, textured rugs – you get the idea.  Homes that extraverts have “energized” are not likely to be homes where introverts can be happy – without some remodeling.

Another aspect of personality that has a big influence on how you respond to the world around you is whether you feel more in control of your own destiny, or whether you feel that fate or external forces have more influence on the course of your life than your own actions.

4.  If you feel more in control of your own destiny, you like more rectilinear sorts of spaces and objects, while if you feel that external forces control your life, you prefer more curved objects and spaces. People in the second group prefer rounded archways and curving grand staircases, while people in the first group would like those arches and staircases squared off.
5.    If you feel more in control of your own destiny, you are apt to “take charge” of a space and modify it to meet your own needs, while people who feel more controlled by external forces are more likely to accept their environment as it is. If you’re the “take control of a space” type, things work out better if a place can be used in several ways (because your needs may change), while people in the other group don’t require the same flexibility – their dining room will stay a dining room, no matter what sort of hobbies they adopt and a built in china cabinet will continue to usefully serve the same function as long as they live in the house.

Some people are more territorial than others – you probably know if you’re territorial, but if you’re confused:  In a public space such as a movie theater, do you tend to sit at the end of a row of chairs, even if there are other available chairs toward the middle of the row?  If you do, and there aren’t extenuating circumstances – you’re not over 6 feet tall or you don’t have a broken leg – you are probably pretty territorial.

6. If you are territorial, or the people who will share the house with you are, make sure there are spaces in the house that can be claimed as individual territories. Nothing defines an individual territory as well as a door that closes, but in a pinch a window seat (particularly if it can be closed off with curtains), or a section of a room with a lower ceiling than the rest of the room, for example, can be pressed into service as territories.

Environmental sensitivity also varies from person to person.

7.  If you are the person who hears the mouse scampering in the next room or who knows when the neighbors change the wattage of the bulbs in their backyard lights, you are probably environmentally sensitive.  You would prefer a home that is a little more isolated than people who are not so environmentally sensitive.  When you are doing something that requires concentration sensory shielding is particularly important – so it is very important that your home office be acoustically and visually separate from the main living areas of your home.

Have you ever bungee jumped?  Do extreme sports intrigue you?  Would you ever consider skydiving?  If you answered “yes” to these questions you are what is know in the psych biz as “high in stimulus seeking.”

8.   If you are a high stimulus seeker, you prefer spaces that are complex or unpredictable – you want to get a thrill out of opening your own front door.

Is it important to you to make a unique statement with your home?  If you owned a VW Bug, would you want to find a really unusual flower – or something else – to put in the bud vase that comes standard with each Bug?  If you reply positively to these questions, then you have a high need for uniqueness.

9.  People with a high need for uniqueness need a home that is different from the conventional home, somehow, and it is best if that difference is visible from the curb.

People can also differ in the strength of the link that they feel to the natural world.

10.  If you have an affinity for the natural world, make sure that the houses you visit with your realtor are surrounded by nature, and that you have a view of nature from the places in the home where you are most likely to be harried (for example, your home office).

Knowing a little bit about how personality and place experiences are related can make your next search for a place to live more efficient – and increase the odds that the new house you select will become a home.

For additional information about designing with science, contact Sally Augustin, PhD.

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