Brief: feng-shui
Research brief for feng-shui · how it was made.
Research brief — feng-shui
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Slug | feng-shui |
Primary query / seo_intent | Clear the door, the bed, and the path before a cure |
| Template (A–G) | A |
| Evidence tier (1–3) | 2 (a three-stop walk the reader can run; studies are about clutter, not qi) |
| Audience (one line) | Someone with a cure in the shopping cart and shoes still blocking the door; warm and plain, not a debunk and not a crystal shop |
| AI authors credited | ChatGPT-4o (2024 draft), Grok 4.7 (rewrite) |
| Reviewer or checker (optional) | none needed |
| Date | 2026-09-22 |
1. Concentration claim (one sentence)
In home feng shui, how the place feels concentrates into the entry, the bed or desk, and the path between them, while cure-shopping fills the cart and leaves the blockage where it was.
2. Hard anchors (2–5)
- UCLA CELF, reported in UCLA Newsroom on Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century (32 middle-class Los Angeles families). Cars banished from 75% of garages to store household goods. Same research world as the cortisol paper below, not a second continent of evidence. https://newsroom.ucla.edu/magazine/center-everyday-lives-families-suburban-america
- Saxbe and Repetti, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2010. 30 dual-income couples. Wives who described homes with more clutter and "unfinished" language had flatter daily cortisol slopes and a worsening depressed mood across the day, after controls for marital satisfaction and neuroticism. Correlation, wives in this sample, not a feng shui trial. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19934011/
- Roster, Ferrari, and Jurkat, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2016. US and Canadian adults. Clutter was negatively associated with psychological home and subjective well-being. Survey association, not an experiment, and not a percentage. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2016.03.003
- Command position (see the door from bed or desk, not in the door's straight line) — traditional placement rule. No hard source for a percent. Label as practice.
2b. Field 80/20 examples (required — do not invent)
| Approx % claim | Field / context | Source (name, year, URL) or “adage — hedge” | Where it will sit in the article |
|---|---|---|---|
| 75% of garages could not hold a car | 32 middle-class LA families | UCLA CELF / Arnold and colleagues — hedge: one city, one class, storage not feng shui | The clutter section |
| No feng shui census of 80/20 | Home placement | Intro uses 20% and 80% as the rule applied to door, bed, path — say it is not a measured map | Intro |
| Clutter association, no tidy percent | Survey of adults in the US and Canada | Roster, Ferrari, Jurkat 2016 | Beside the UCLA number, as a different method |
3. Original observation (only-on-8020 seed)
A three-stop walk: door, bed or desk, path. Each stop is clear or blocked. Then count purchased cures in those same rooms. If cures outnumber clear stops, the shopping is the majority.
How it becomes a section in the article:
"Walk the door, the bed, and the path," plus one Illustrative: one-bedroom.
4. Ignored majority (named)
Bagua mirrors, crystals, wealth toads, "money corner" objects, and a new rug bought while the entry is still a pile.
5. Composite policy
| Scenario | Keep as Illustrative? | Cut instead? |
|---|---|---|
| One-bedroom: shoes and a stroller at the door, bed with the door at the back of the head, laundry in the path, three cures on a shelf | Yes | |
| Any "studies show 80% of chi..." | Cut |
6. Vital few (draft list)
- A door you can walk through.
- A bed or desk in command position, as a placement habit.
- A path between them you do not have to turn sideways for.
- Cures only after those three are clear.
7. Device budget reminder
Template A: one audit, one short before/after scene, one 8020 move. No example/move pair on every section. No viz.
7b. Viz & misreads (optional — default is omit)
D3 viz? none
Misreads: "The bagua is a shopping list." "Clutter studies prove qi." "See the door means sleep in the doorway."
8. Outbound links planned (Tier 1: ≥2 required)
- https://newsroom.ucla.edu/magazine/center-everyday-lives-families-suburban-america
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19934011/
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2016.03.003
Internal: /interior-design, /home-organization, /minimalism, /cleaning
9. Sign-off
- ☑ Brief complete — ready to outline
- ☑ Reviewer/checker named if the topic needs one
- ☑ No fake citations planned