What does your sofa say about you?

Superficial taste, such as a record collection or pet choice, can often say a lot about the person that owns it, but what about the sofa that someone sits in? Can the comfiest seat in the house also provide clues to the personality of the person who relaxes in it?

This might seem like a silly question, but the relationship between personality and furniture has been popularly explored before: it’s only four years since Sir David Frost was introducing the game show ‘Through The Keyhole’, where the programme’s stalwart celebrity cast - such as Lisa Snowdon and Loyd Grossman - tried to guess the identity of fellow stars by taking clues from the tables, chairs, and other objects within their homes - often successfully.

More intellectually, the broader relationship between a person’s environment and their personality is now studied too: several universities, such as the University of Surrey, have started to offer degrees in related subjects such as ‘environmental psychology’: a discipline that explores the interplay between and an individual’s personality, mood, psychology, and their surroundings.

Granted, the sofa is a very specific part of a person’s immediate environment, but it’s also one of the most used, by a very long way, so it’s reasonable to think that this central part of the home might give away something about the owner in exactly the same way that a person’s friends or car might be personally revealing.

So, let’s look at the relationship between a person’s sofa and their personality traits:

Size and style

Just as there might be perceivable link between the size and style of someone’s car, the same might be said of their sofa. And there are many articles on the Internet that explore this relationship and make widely varying statements about how sofas reflect their owners, such as leather sofas being reflective of driven and motivated people.

Verifying any of these statements is difficult and also muddied - unlike a car, sofas are often chosen and styled to reflect the personality of the whole home, but the idea itself makes sense.

Some common sense prevails here though: the overall design of a sofa will reflect the personality and tastes of the owner, just like a pair of shoes would, but we think any assertion beyond that is (currently) bit tenuous - unless environmental psychology researchers at the University of Surrey find otherwise!

Split-personality sofas

Moving on from the previous point, it’s more certain that people, and especially couples, have generally varying tastes and preferences - and sofas are generally designed for more than one person.

To deal with this domestic dilemma - and hopefully reduce some squabbles - a number of so-called ‘split personality sofas’ have started to appear. These offer two different styles or looks in the one lateral package, such as Karlijn Kuper’s prototype sofa that offers two distinct soft and hard sofa sections.

Online personality tests

Finally and briefly, all of the above can be explored through a number of online personality tests that have sprung up on the Internet to examine what type of design you should go for.

Good examples, such as Quibblo’s test, can clarify what kind of ‘design personality’ you have and help you select a sofa that reflects who you are.

Just as a person connects with their friends on Facebook, it is also possible to connect with the ideal sofa on the social networking site. Search for Harveys Furniture on Facebook and you will find a wide range of sofas for every personality. Try matching your friends on Facebook with the sofa of their dreams.

Ultimately, any statement about sofas and personality is subjective, but exploring your relationship with the sofa is easier than it has been for quite some time: many high street stores are offering decent discounts at the moment. There are currently sofas for sale at Harveys and a wide range of other furniture retailers.