What You Wear Determines Who You Are According To Science

That’s crazy. Thinking about what you wear is definitely worth it

You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it. — Edith Head

Numerous studies have looked at the influence of our clothing on our own behavior, the behavior of others towards us, and how others perceive us.

One thing in advance: the findings are astonishing.

Clothes Can Make Us Smarter

Put on a suit and you’ll be smarter.

This was shown in a study published in 2015.

Researchers at Columbia University & Cal State Northridge conducted a series of experiments with undergraduate students in which they were asked to dress either formally or casually.

They found that the more formally dressed students scored higher in abstract thinking than the less well-dressed students. The researchers reasoned that formal dress gives students a sense of power, which enables them to think more abstractly.

In another study, it was found that participants in one study were more focused and made fewer errors when working in the lab while wearing a white lab cape.

Wear This Colour To Be More Attractive

The color of our clothes can influence how attractive we appear to others, as scientists have shown.

The American Psychological Association wrote:

In the United States, England, Germany and China, women found men more appealing when they were either pictured wearing red or framed in red, compared with other colors. The finding is reported in the August issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, published by the American Psychological Association.

“Red is typically thought of as a sexy color for women only,” said Andrew Elliot, PhD, of the University of Rochester and University of Munich. “Our findings suggest that the link between red and sex also applies to men.”

So, men, you know the drill. Red it is.

However, men also seem to like red on women. In one study, waitresses who wore red tops got higher tips than waitresses who wore different colored tops.

Clothing That Presents Status Makes Us Appear More Competent.

Clothing that presents status and wealth makes us look more competent.

This is what this study from Princeton University, published in the Nature Human Behaviour journal, found.

We found that economic status cues conveyed by clothes influenced the competence judgments from faces. The effect persisted when images were presented very briefly (i.e., 129 ms), when information was provided about the target face’s profession and income, when formal clothes were replaced by more casual clothing, when raters were advised to ignore the clothing, and when raters were warned there was no relationship between clothing and competence before choosing between faces rather than rating them independently. The conveyed status cues had a particularly pronounced effect on perceived competence, with substantially smaller influence on trustworthiness judgments

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