You Can Usually Tell How Successful Someone Is By The Way They Hang Their Toilet Paper
voronaman | Shutterstock Although some people are really passionate about what they think is the right direction to hang toilet paper, it still seems pretty inconsequential at the end of the day.
It turns out rolling over or under could be way more revealing than we all realize. As crazy as it may sound, research suggests that the way someone hangs their toilet paper is a predictor of success.
A renowned relationship strategist says she found the link between hanging toilet paper and success in a simple survey.
Dr. Gilda Carle, an Emmy-winning relationship and executive coach, has years of experience training corporate leaders. Her research shows that a person’s success might depend on something that has nothing to do with the office, though.
Carle surveyed 2,000 people about how they hang their toilet paper. She determined that people who roll their toilet paper over, leaving the end farther from the wall, are more successful. They have type A personalities and love being in charge.
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As for those who roll under, leaving the end closer to the wall, they’re more laid-back. That doesn’t mean they aren’t successful, but they don’t have the same go-getter attitude. The few people who don’t really care are, unsurprisingly, very flexible.
Explaining the results, Carle said, “Assertive (roll over) people are more likely to be in leadership roles and to have a take-charge attitude. Those hanging the roll ‘under’ are more likely to be submissive. Submissive people tend to be more agreeable, flexible, and empathetic.”
A separate survey backed up Carle’s findings that people who roll their toilet paper over are more successful.
Apparently, toilet paper is a pretty fascinating research topic. Another survey asked people how they hang their toilet paper and how much money they make each year and found a similar connection.
73% of the people who made less than $20,000 a year said they also rolled their toilet paper under. On the other hand, 60% of the respondents who earned over $50,000 always rolled their toilet paper over.
While these surveys put an interesting spin on one of the most heated debates in the world, neither would hold up to rigorous scientific scrutiny. They show a possible link but nothing definitive. And, of course, they don’t account for all of the people out there who grab a new roll of toilet paper without paying attention to which direction they hang it in. Maybe the most successful people can’t even be bothered to think about it at all.
Unfortunately, predicting someone’s future success isn’t really that simple.
As American cultural historian Lawrence R. Samuel, PhD, explained, people have two wildly different definitions of success. The first, and most accurate, is meeting a goal. The second is getting rich and famous, which is less likely but more exciting.
However you define success, you can’t really use hanging toilet paper to figure out if it’s on the way. It’s true that little things like the direction someone hangs their toilet paper can be signs of much bigger personality traits, but that doesn’t mean it’s quite so cut and dry.
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As for actual toilet paper trends, Cottonelle, who Dr. Carle is a consultant for, noted that most people prefer to hang their toilet paper over, and this seems to be what inventor Seth Wheeler intended in his 1891 patent. Rolling under has its advantages, too, though, like reducing waste.
That’s really all the information you need to disprove the link between toilet paper and success. Most people roll over, but most people probably wouldn’t describe themselves as successful. But there’s no reason to ignore it either.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
