High Ceilings, Big Ideas

By ELIZABETH QUILL

Feeling uncreative? Try raising the roof, or at least the ceiling, suggests Joan Meyers-Levy, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities' Carlson School of Management.

People with more vertical headroom are more likely to think creatively and make abstract connections, while people in cramped quarters will think concretely and focus on details, according to a study by Ms. Meyers-Levy and Rui Zhu, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of British