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May 10, 2010

NPR has an interesting interview on the phenomenon of compulsive hoarding where people will be almost unable to throw out used items and will collect mountains of clutter in their houses to the point where they can no longer see the walls.

The discussion is with psychologists and hoarding researchers Randy Frost and Gail Steketee and has lots of novel insights on a recognised but not well-understood behaviour.

I was struck by the bit where the interviewer highlights that lots of hoarders collect newspapers and Frost replies that “we think it’s related to a sense of wanting to acquire and preserve opportunities”. They also discuss the interesting concept of ‘clutter blindness’.

Read in Full:  http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2010/05/clutter_blindness.html