How does the Cathedral Effect work?

The Cathedral Effect refers to how different environments, specifically the height of ceilings, can influence cognitive processing and thinking styles. According to Andrew Huberman, the Cathedral Effect impacts our thinking by making it more broad, abstract, and future-oriented in open and expansive environments (e.g., high ceilings or outdoor spaces). Conversely, in smaller or more confined environments with lower ceilings, our thinking tends to become more detailed, restricted, and suited to analytic tasks.

This effect was researched in a study titled "The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing People Use." The study found that high ceilings are associated with abstract thinking, while low ceilings foster detailed thinking necessary for tasks like accounting or spreadsheet work. The study used cognitive challenges involving word associations to demonstrate how different environmental factors can lead to distinct thinking patterns. For example, in environments with higher ceilings, people tended to have broader associative thinking compared to more restricted and detail-focused thinking in lower-ceiling environments 1.