Wear a watch? You’re reliable

IF you need to tell at a glance whether someone is conscientious, simply look at their wrist.

If they wear a watch, research suggests they may be more organised than those who do not.

Unsurprisingly, the study also found watch-wearers are more likely to be punctual. The researchers speculated that it could be because they are by nature more conscientious and therefore more likely to monitor the time, or because the watch had this effect as an ‘implicit cognitive impact’.

About 50 per cent of those questioned by Lincoln and York university researchers wore a watch and described themselves as more organised and dependable than the others.

In a second experiment monitoring punctuality, watch-wearers arrived at a set destination just over three minutes earlier on average.

The psychologists’ study was published in the journal PeerJ.