Showing posts with label toilet paper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toilet paper. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Toilet Paper and Personality

We have been inundated with questions over the course of the morning from people who are curious about what psychological insights may be gleaned from how they position their toilet paper rolls, "over" or "under." We are, as many long-time readers know, experts in the field having written previously for many highly respected journals on the psychology of hygiene ritual.



People who install their toilet paper so that the tissue comes out from behind and under the roll tend to be sexually promiscuous, devious, and untrustworthy. Many "rock and roll" musicians, for example, practice the "under" method as part of their dark, salacious lifestyles. My assistant, Ms. Groovy Jones, is a recovering underholic.

People who set up their toilet paper so that the tissue comes over the top are much more likely to be aggressive, insensitive power-mongerers. Examples of such personalities include Napoleon, an early proponent of rolled paper in France, well before its "official" invention some sixty or seventy years later. Former President Richard Nixon is alleged to have also fallen into this camp, although it is hotly contested by hygiene rituologists.

The most balanced people are those who forgo the entire toilet paper convention and refuse to participate within a system that says "put your toilet paper on a roll bar." Simply placing a roll on its side is much more likely to evidence even-temperedness, balanced personality, and free-thinkingness, although some preliminary evidence also suggests fickleness, lack of commitment, and weakness of personality.

We hope our insights lead to a clearing of this complex and fascinating issue.