The psychology of enclothed cognition (clothes DO make the man)
Humans have been wearing clothes for a long long time. Ever since we were in caves, there was a need to cover our bodies for protection from natural elements. Clothes still have that purpose, to keep us warm or to protect our bodies from the Sun but they have another one, the aesthetic style. That style varies across genders, age groups, professions, and even geographical regions but it is a way to express the unique personality of a person. We have all been told how clothes do not make the man. Actually, they do. They even influence our cognitive abilities.
CC0 image, Pixabay, author: StockSnap, adapted by me
Enclothed Cognition is a term coined by Hajo Adam and Adam Galinksy from Northwestern University who have been examining the psychological and performance effects that wearing certain clothes have on the person wearing them. Our thought processes are influenced by physical experiences that provoke associated abstract concepts and by wearing different outfits we can change our psychological states and improve our performance on certain tasks. Do you have a special article of clothing in your closet that makes you feel fun, special or just plain good when you wear it?
People are visual beings. We rely on our sight the most when it comes to our senses and judge a person we meet in the first few seconds after we see her. Changing what we wear actually changes the impressions others have of us. What we wear speaks volumes in just a few seconds and even tiny details make a huge difference.
Suit up...
There was a research conducted at the University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK and Department of Applied Science, Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey about minor changes in male attire. Participants were shown images of a man with a pixelated face for just 3 seconds. In some of the pictures, the man wore a made-to-measure suit and in others a very similar off-the-peg suit. Color and fabric of the suits were the same. People rated the man as more confident, successful, flexible and a higher earner in a tailor-made suit. This proves that even with the absence of facial information and with a limited time exposure, people do make judgments of others and they do it simply by observing the clothes they wear.
This study is the first to empirically investigate first impressions using time‐limited images with minor clothing manipulations on a faceless model. In previous studies, models always had faces clearly visible so there was a concern whether the face impressions or face structure had an impact. This was avoided in this study by pixalization of the face. You can read the paper about the study here:
The influence of clothing on first impressions: Rapid and positive responses to minor changes in male attire by Neil Howlett, Karen Pine, Ismail Orakçıoğlu, Ben Fletcher
We all have our preferences when it comes to choosing what to wear. Some people are more casual, some wear sports clothes all the time and some love to suit up. What kind of clothes you wear speaks a lot about you, even specific colors are associated with different personality features. No matter what clothes we may like, we do try to match our attire to the occasion. Going to a job interview in your tracksuit is fine if you are applying for a position of a personal trainer but for any other job, you might want to reconsider and choose something else.
Different types of attire
have different symbolic meanings...
We evaluate people whom we have just met based on their clothes and the occasion they are wearing them. Some things are appropriate and some are not. Tailored jackets and formal office wear are associated with being dressed for success. They make us feel more confident and increase hormones needed for displaying dominance. We even become better negotiators and abstract thinkers in structured clothes. On the other hand, it also makes us less open with a difficulty to relax so casual clothes are a better choice for socialization. Casual and relaxed dress code makes us more friendly and creative. When it comes to wearing uniforms and coats, they make people more conscious of their duties and encourage them to pay more attention to what they are doing. Just by wearing clothes associated with a specific role will activate our knowledge and expectations about how people from that profession should behave. This pushes us in that direction and makes us behave like that too. Even wearing school uniforms has proven to have a beneficial effect on children taking their studies more seriously.
Here are some of the studies that you should take a look at, the findings are quite interesting:
Dress, body and self: research in the social psychology of dress by Kim Johnson, Sharron J Lennon, Nancy Rudd
City Employee Perceptions of the Impact of Dress and Appearance by Katherine A. Karl, Leda McIntyre Hall, Joy V. Peluchette
The Cognitive Consequences of Formal Clothing by Michael L. Slepian, Simon N. Ferber, Joshua M. Gold,and Abraham M. Rutchick
The Impact of Distributing School Uniforms on Children‟s Education in Kenya, You Are What You Wear by David Evans, Michael Kremer, Mũthoni Ngatia
If nothing else, read the first paper that I have suggested. It provides a critical review of key research areas within the social psychology of dress by addressing published research in two broad areas dress as a stimulus and its influence and relationships between dress, the body, and the self. It deals with the provocative dress as stimuli, red dress, impacts on behavior, eating disorders, muscularity, tattooing, tanning, body talk, self-perception, consumer habits, and many other things. It was quite an interesting read for me and I am sure it will be for you too so if you are short with time, bookmark it for later.
An interesting research was conducted at Northwestern University about how much the clothes we wear impact the way we think. My hubby watched a report about it last night and I had to find it first thing this morning. It sounded crazy while he was explaining it and honestly, some claims were hard to believe but I got convinced after I checked the research for myself.
A white lab coat VS. street clothes
They randomly assigned subjects to wear either a white lab coat or street clothes and then tested their selective attention with a test that challenged them to notice incongruities. They were given words in different colors and had to name the color, not the word. Take a look at my example and try to answer fast, only after the first look.
Image made by me
If you had some troubles naming those colors, do not feel bad, you would do a lot better if you were wearing a white doctor's coat. People in the study got to do a similar task when they were wearing white coat they were told was the doctor's coat, street clothes, and a white coat (same as before) but were told it was a painter's smock. What do you think, who had the best results?
Our physical experience
affects our thought processes
To eliminate the factor that people get better at performing a certain task, after they wore the doctors coat and had better results from wearing street clothes, they then got to wear another white coat that was a painter's smock (they were told so) and their results got worse again. This showed how the coat needed to be associated with a doctor to have a positive effect on their cognitive abilities. I was first surprised how wearing something we associate with intelligence can make us more inteligent but then I remembered a research that I have read a way back how when we hold a hot drink in our hand, we tend to perceive others around us as if they have warm personalities. The researchers found how enclothed cognition involves the co-occurrence of two independent factors, the symbolic meaning of the clothes and the physical experience of wearing them.
The symbolic meaning of the coat changes depending on how we call it. The cognitive effect is not the same if people think they are wearing a doctor's coat and when they think it is a painter's smock. Behavior and performance have been impacted by what the clothes represent making people more attentive, careful, and focused.
You can read about the research here:
Enclothed cognition by Hajo Adam, Adam D. Galinsky
...and a similar research here:
Enclothed Cognition and Controlled Attention During Insight Problem-Solving by Charles A. Van Stockum, Jr., and Marci S. DeCaro
We are being judged all the time by our looks. The sooner you accept that, the better. I have told you many times before that people do have the right to their opinion and that you being judged is a completely normal thing. You can not please everyone or be loved by everyone and just like you have your preferences when it comes to visual appearance, so do others. Do not worry too much about it and accept that people are diverse in their opinion. That diversity is what makes this world an amazing place to live in.
Take care of how you see yourself
and choose clothes that make you feel good.
There is nothing wrong with being picky when it comes to choosing what to wear and if the time allows it, spend some extra of it picking that clothes which makes you feel amazing. We all have those pieces in our closets, those that put a smile on or face and bring the feeling of power, success or just pure joy. If that one special shirt will make you feel happier and influence how your day goes by impacting your reactions to people and surroundings, wear it. Clothes do make a man. They influence our creation of a person we want to be. So tell me, what you want to wear? Do you have a special outfit that makes your heart sing?
To read more about this topic, check out these REFERENCES:
What Your Clothes Might Be Saying About You from psychologytoday.com
ENCLOTHED COGNITION: PUT ON YOUR POWER! from positivepsychologynews.com
WHAT YOU WEAR CHANGES THAT WAY YOU THINK from brainfodder.org
Thanks To Enclothed Cognition, When You Dress Like A Doctor, You Think Like One from curiosity.com
P.S. If you ask me, all men should be wearing suits... ALL...THE...TIME... just saying...
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- title pictures are made by me using the CC0 image from pixabay that can be found here
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I’d love to know what my clothes suggest... I can probably guess.
T-shirts with music/comics/sci-fi references and Thai fisherman’s pants. Or flared trousers for going out. Collared shirt untucked for date night.
😆
It depends on who you ask :D Some actually prefer those clothes to others.
I do have a special outfit that makes my heart sing. In fact I have two.
Motorcycle riding suits. One is warm weather one is for foul weather. The warm weather set is personal to me and I have a pretty good pile of 'tried' stuff. The foul weather suit was made in 1988 and has around 600,000 miles on it. I am the second owner...
Other than that I basically wear gym grade stuff. Old is good. Most of my T shirts have something on them, like a sports team or a motorcycle event. My clothes are take it or leave it.
I did the suit thing for a while, but the truth of the matter is I have worn a tie exactly one time in the last 20 years (I have a standing New Years Resolution to not wear a tie. I broke it for my sister in law's funeral). I no longer own so much as a pair of wool slacks.
So I'm guessing that says something about me. Maybe I don't want to improve my cognition!
Thanks Petra. As always a well written and researched article that I so appreciate from you.
And I am sure you look great in both of those outfits and that they have quite a history with you! 💚
Clothes can definitely alter people's perception of you and your own feelings. I find the comfy clothes I wear everyday makes me feel a lot better than jeans or a suit, but it is always needed for job interviews and such or they don't see you as being professional.
As long as the clothes you wear make you happy and confident about your abilities and behavior, you have picked the right ones ;)
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Fascinating study. Great post. Well organized information. It is true. I rarely dress formal and when I do I feel that even my walking changes. Probably because of the dress shoes, the step is different, but the whole body language, the attention one pays to the pockets, the coat, the tie, etc.
The perception of the change in how people perceives you, automatically changes your own perception.
There is a saying/advice: dress well if you feel bad.
It's hard to do these days, but i have seen people consistently doing it, despite the crisis, despite everything falling apart around them. That should be the attitude, but sometimes it becomes a vicious cycle. You feel so bad, you can't dress well and perceiving yourself so poorly magnifies your self of undervalue, and so on and so forth
That circle got to be broken.
I too have noticed that when you feel bad it is hard to dress good :) Thank you for such a valuable comment and adding to the topic.
I agree with you, clothes make a difference.
When you see a downtrodden homeless man the first thing you notice is his clothes more than his shoes. Well for me anyway.
They say when you apply for a job show up like you are ready. Guess it all depends on what kind of job.
Also, wearing special underwear can go a long way to making you feel great.
Accessories are nice too. They can actually draw up convo with someone you do not know.
I have heard about that with underwear but with those, comfort is what I aim for :) I do not own a single pair of sexy panties, I need to get a pair and see what the fuss is about :)
Same here lol.. omg you are so funny
I am for comfort too.
Yep... I normally dress quite casually (to my wife's annoyance...) However, when I go to the airport I normally dress up a bit just so that I can get that good first impression to avoid the fight of getting my violin on board!
Also, I think people find it strange to see me when I'm dressed normally after seeing me on stage with tails or concert clothes! It's a pretty big difference...
I am sure it is a huge difference and I completely understand your wife. Maybe... Since she is so great of taking care of your little fairy princesses while you are away, you could say thank you with dressing up fancy for her one night to surprise her!
Ha ha, I would... But every combination of clothes never seems to be right! The colours and all that arcane stuff... In the end, she has to pick!
Definitely my new favourite author...
This summer I made a sharp turn in my career. One of the things I've changed was my clothes as well. I don't know if it contributed - but the success was made for sure!
Congratulations on your success! I think they did make a difference, to you and to the people who saw you ;) All men look better when they dress up a bit. Barney Stinson was right, suit up! :D
At home I like to wear my hippie clothes lol full stop mismatch jumpers and baggy pants and odd socks. It feels nice to let go of all the rules of society. Home I wear different colours and patterns and don't care much at all. I just feel like me a little bit crazy and screw you haha. When I go out I take more care of course, but I don't really enjoy the whole dressing up process and I have this big dilemma as well because I work part-time. So when I go into work I need to wear decent clothes but will often be coming straight from the beach or leaving to go to yoga so I have a whole heap of clothes in my car different outfits and so on haha.
Enclothed Cognition is a very sexy phrase for me I don't know why. I really like it. My husband bought back some lab coats from work the other day to use in the garage. I wonder if they will make us think smarter because of their association with science.
So much of this cognition stuff must be cultural as well shortly ? or is it universal?
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It is cultural of course. I am sure that it would not work on people who never saw white coats on doctors. Oh you should see me at home, even my socks are mismatched :D
I really appreciate your articles of late they are super informative and even have tidbits of stuff I didn't know and the links are awesome :D
Thank you! I am glad you find them enjoyable and interesting. Your feedback means a lot!
:)