Enclothed cognition (hoodie wearing revisited)

Well, we always knew girls in skimpy clothing is sluts just askin' to get raped . . .

The girl takes bellydance lessons, and twice a year they rent a hall to have a "gala," with student and professional dancers. In the past, i've put on "Arab" garb--a long tunic which reaches to my knees--and worked the door. All i have to do is glare at everyone, and no one rushes the door. Then when i open the door, they are, many of them, obviously surprised that i speak unaccented North American English. Because of my dark, curly hair and my beard, i think most of them take me for an "Arab," or a Muslim of some kind. Which of course means there's a better than 50-50 chance that i'm a violent jihadi.

There's an experiment that demonstrates that just looking at a picture of an elderly person will cause you to walk more slowly.

Attempting to remember as many of the Ten Commandments as possible will make you more honest (at least in the short term).

I must admit to thinking about Trayvon last night as I pulled my hood up while I was mowing in the dark.

never even gave it a thought prior...

what message did you already send your brain by what you chose to wear?

Interesting area of research. Definitely gives me something to think about.

Throw a Setantrum for them!

So when you put on that tunic do you think that maybe you act a bit more intimidating? Do you think the garment changes how you respond to your surroundings?

I'd love to see that show, by the way!

I'm still playing around with the idea so I'm not really sure.

I was thinking especially of how when I go into a situation that might be confrontational that I typically dress down. I'm pretty good at confrontation and I'm usually very well prepared and I like to be underestimated. It seems that people underestimate you more when your dressed casually, people are less guarded in how they respond to you.

But it could be that I'm just more comfortable in my clothes and that comfort makes me a little more mentally agile.

I guess I'm just questioning how my intentions influence my wardrobe choices.

It absolutely applies to my life. And it's something I've been aware of for quite some time.

When I work, I dress in a very professional manner, usually a suit, most often a pants suit (so I can wear more comfortable shoes with lower heels), and I very carefully accessorize with jewelry, so I feel attractive and look well put-together and polished and organized. It's my "serious" look. And I take my work very seriously.

By the time I"m finished dressing, and my hair and make-up are done, I'm already in a different frame of mind--before I even leave the house. I'm much more focused, my manner is more business like, and my concentration and attention are heightened. I'm already going into the psychological state I need to be in to do my work. And putting on my "uniform" triggers my mental preparation to do my job which requires very focused attention and concentration, and I am aware of feeling more confident and centered as well.
It must be similar for a judge when they put on their robe before entering a courtroom, or a surgeon when they start scrubbing up to enter the OR, or an actor when they put on their costume for a role--it affects your persona, and heightens the attributes you need to do your work, and what you put on helps you shift from one social role to another.

I became really aware of this after I took a few months off from work to recover from an injury. I realized I had to shift back into a different mode of being-in-the-world when I began assembling what I was going to wear to the office. And when I finished dressing for that first day back, and looked at myself in the mirror, I felt like a different person than the one who had been lounging around in sweats and jeans. I couldn't believe how different I felt, psychologically, it was a dramatic difference. I actually looked at myself in the mirror, smiled, and said, "Welcome back".

Like most people, I also dress differently if we're going out for the evening, or I'm meeting a friend for lunch, or I'm just running out to the supermarket, and I choose my attire accordingly. But, in those situations, I just want to look good, and attractive, and appropriately dressed, but there is no particular way I have to act or be, there is no role I have to fulfill, I don't have the same psychological or intellectual demands on myself that my work requires. When I dress for work, the clothing choices I make are intended to send out a definite message about me, that does affect how people respond to me, but I am also costuming myself in a way that gets my own head thinking and reacting differently, that alters my persona, and that consequently makes my functioning more effective to do my work--the clothes I choose and wear do trigger a mental and emotional response within myself.

I thought I was the only one who experienced this "enclothed cognition"--I guess it must be fairly common.

Great post, firefly! Lots of good food for thought.

Already you've started me thinking about how my brain changes gears when I pick up my camera. It changes the way I see and that change is immediate. I suppose I go into "professional mode".

Hmmmm......

And you've got me thinking about the positive effects of wearing uniforms--even having kids wear uniforms to school--if it helps get a person into a beneficial mental set to do a certain task or job.

I understand what you are saying about your camera, and I do think we shift into different modes of being that can affect how we perceive, and think, and feel, and respond. For you, picking up your camera does it, for me, it's putting on my suit.

I've noticed that, as soon as I start wearing shorts and sandals for the summer, I feel very connected with my childhood (or inner child), and I have the same sort of carefree sense of lack of pressure, and of heightened sensory awareness, I felt when I was a kid.

It's a very interesting topic, boomer. Thanks for bringing it up.

The trouble with uniforms, I think, is that not everyone feels the same way in the same things. I don't know if kids have the same base of visual association to draw on, if they did we might just dress them all in lab coats for school. But a child who has spent a lot of time in the hospital might have very negative associations with lab coats than most of the kids. They might be frightened of them and unable to concentrate when surrounded by them.

I was thinking about this in terms of Linkat's thread about the 6 year old getting handcuffed and taken to jail. I associate a policeman's uniform with someone who is there to help. Other people don't. Kids might be even more confused.

I got stopped by the police once for an expired tag. I had the new sticker in my glove box so I showed it to the cop, we attached it and I went on my way. No big deal.

Mo was practically catatonic. Seriously. He thought they were going to take me away. We explored this a bit and it turns out that he recalled once during his bio-parents brief reconciliation that his father was taken away by the police in handcuffs (for violating a restraining order put in place by his mother) when they were on a beach outing.

Police in their uniforms were not comforting to Mo.

It's hard for me to untangle this whole idea of others perception of me v. my perception of self based on rather superficial things like clothing. I'm not sure that a kid could do it.

I'll tell yuh this -- when I wear my cowboy boots instead of low-quarters, I walk a lot taller.

Count me as very skeptical of this study.

I work in software. In my industry we have no dress code. It is common to see people come to work in jeans or shorts and a t-shirt. The smartest, most productive people are often the worst dressed.

Albert Einstein was often unkempt (except when prodded by his wife) and was famous for not wearing socks. Steve Jobs was pretty damn successful for his casual attire. There are endless examples.

It doesn't sound like this study was very carefully designed. I wonder if the result is a form of the Hawthorne effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

But this isn't about how others perceive you, it's about how you perceive yourself.

If you required those engineers to show up in a suit would it change the way they behave?

How do you think Steve Jobs perceived himself?

If you required engineers show up in a suit, the best of us would instantly start sending out resumes. I suppose that counts as a change in behavior.

Then that kind of proves the point of the research -- your attire can change your mental state.

No, it doesn't prove anything of the sort. The dress code at work isn't any different than any other working condition. My employer could be stricter about working hours, or they could change the temperature of the office, or they could make my office smaller.

Any one of these things would change my mental state for the negative. There is nothing magical about that. It is respect and a certain level of freedom that makes me a happy and productive worker.

This study (even ignoring the obvious sources of experimental error) is a contrived example that is nothing like the types of situations we find ourselves in in real life.

These are students, not professionals. They are doing a temporary task with no relationship to their managers. And it seems to me that a lab coat might not function as clothing (i.e. the suits or jeans that we wear to work). In this situation it might function more like one of the little trinkets I used to get my pre-school aged kids to act like I wanted to. A lab coat is not attire, it is a badge. This kind of trick isn't going to work very long on an adult.

I doubt this has any relevance to a working environment with long term professional relationships.

And in my experience, working in different environments with different levels of dress code, I have found that very poorly dressed people are often brilliant and very productive.

Okay.....

I think you're the only one trying to apply this research to a workplace.

Firefly and I were speculating on the possible impact of school dress codes and I think we agree that dress codes are a bad idea.