Does what you wear matter?

[Mr Rayon]

Hi,

 

Is it true that wearing working clothes for work enhances worker productivity (e.g. wearing a suit and tie at work)?

 

Similarly, it is believed by many that wearing fitness gear (gym-wear) enhances your motivation when going to the gym for a workout.

 

I am just wondering whether there have been any studies which have suggested that wearing a particular clothing can make you more productive at doing certain things.

[arc]

I am just wondering whether there have been any studies which have suggested that wearing a particular clothing can make you more productive at doing certain things.

 

 

Well, space walking without proper attire has been assumed up till now to be of a non productive means, even without the comparative results sans the space suit.

[Ophiolite]

If I am working from home I will sometimes don full business suit as a means of getting mentally into the appropriate frame of mind to maximise my productivity. I think this works for me because of the association between business attire and head down work and professionalism. I have no idea if it would work for others. Moreover, I would only use it for certain kinds of work. For other types I might not even get out of bed.

[swansont]

Wearing a suit at work usually means a decline in productivity for me, since it means some kind of formal event.

[Sensei]

Similarly, it is believed by many that wearing fitness gear (gym-wear) enhances your motivation when going to the gym for a workout.

 

And wearing Karategi/Kimono makes you almost Bruce Lee..

 

One of mine favorite:

 

[Greg H.]

Hi,

 

Is it true that wearing working clothes for work enhances worker productivity (e.g. wearing a suit and tie at work)?

 

Similarly, it is believed by many that wearing fitness gear (gym-wear) enhances your motivation when going to the gym for a workout.

 

I am just wondering whether there have been any studies which have suggested that wearing a particular clothing can make you more productive at doing certain things.

I would say it's hard to generalize. For some people, it absolutely makes a difference (probably). For others, not so much. For me, when I have to wear a suit and tie, it makes me grouchy and irritable, so my productivity would probably suffer, at least initially.

[Phi for All]

I used to dress up even if I was working from home, just to get in the right mindset. Over the years though, I learned to sound like I was wearing a suit while in sweats. I drew the line at bathrobes, though. There is absolutely no productivity in a bathrobe.

 

I'm finding it more interesting these days to gauge how my clients perceive what I'm wearing. If I wear a shirt and tie, I see the salesman-shields get raised. If I wear my jeans with my company-logoed jacket and carry a clipboard, I'm more like your plumber and much less threatening.

[michel123456]

I am sure there are studies about it.

Thinking about uniforms of all sorts, suit included.

[Delta1212]

People like stereotypes and generalizations because coming up with broad categories that can be given labels is easier than trying to determine the specific attributes of each individual instance of everything we encounter from scratch.

 

Sometimes this gets us into less than favorable territory (see: racial profiling and the like), but in general it's pretty useful. You know what an apple looks and tastes like, right? In my experience, no two apples ever look and taste exactly alike, even the same variety. Sometimes the differences are larger and sometimes they're more subtle depending on where the apples are grown, when they're picked, etc, but there are actual differences between every apple.

 

Imagine that, rather than saying "apples are my favorite food," you had to say "my favorite good is the apple I ate last Tuesday" and no one was able to relate to that because they didn't taste that specific fruit and don't have a concept of what apples taste like "in general."

 

Or imagine learning how to use a computer and then borrowing your friend's laptop, the exact same model as yours, and having to relearn how to use it from scratch because you don't have the ability to generalize skills you've learned in one situation to another situation, even if it is almost identical.

 

So generalities are pretty useful, and because of that we're hardwired to make use of them on a pretty near constant basis. Everything we see and interact with during the day gets categorized. Chairs, signs, computers, phones, food. We can tell at a glance what category everything falls into, which is good because having to closest inspect every object we encounter to figure out what it's used for would be a colossal waste of time.

 

Uniforms function on this principle by allowing us to quickly identify the role a particular person is functioning in at a glance. The association between roles and manner of dress gets deeply ingrained through repeated exposure. What a person wears colors how you view them.

 

And this applies to how we see ourselves, as well. Obviously, an impression we get from the way other people dress is going to more strongly impact our impression of them than the way we dress will affect our impression of ourselves, but that isn't because our self-image is any more the result of careful self-examination and rational appraisal of who we are. It's because in general we already have a lot of beliefs about ourselves that any new impressions will be competing with, but it will still have an impact. If you dress in a way that you associate with productivity, you are more likely to see yourself as being productive and therefore more likely to act in a productive manner.

[Sensei]

Does what you wear matter?

 

You should watch this video:

 

 

Don't try to lost consciousness on street in cheap cloth (at least in France).

 

[Phi for All]

 

Don't try to lost consciousness on street in cheap cloth (at least in France).

 

 

There's a fear-of-disease/violence factor that I'm not sure is being considered in the video. It's not just grubby clothes that make people avoid the first guy. Who knows where he's been to catch something that knocked him on his butt like that? Cheap = Grubby = Dirty = Disease = Infectious.

 

Or maybe he's on a drug that makes him psychotic, and if I go to help him he may lash out.

 

He could also simply be drunk and passed out. The longer he lies there with no one helping him, the more each new person seeing him thinks someone has already addressed his problem, or called the authorities. If the people who see him fall don't do anything, it's unlikely he'll get help.

 

The guy in the suit, for the instant you're thinking about it before going to help him, has a much more attractive imagined itinerary. He's probably just come from lunch and got some bad food, or he's too stressed at work and passed out on the street. It's not nearly as likely he's on drugs, or he picked up something contagious he'll pass along to you if you help. He's also the last guy you suspect of grabbing you by the eyeballs when you bend over to help him. And you'll notice that the guy in the suit gets helped by the people who see him fall. It's that instant where clothes may help or harm, imo, by removing any unsavory perceptions as obstacles to getting help.

 

Not to defend the actions. One could easily get help for anyone without touching them. But I don't think it's just Parisians being offended by a lack of sartorial style here.

[Bill Angel]

Hi,

 

Is it true that wearing working clothes for work enhances worker productivity (e.g. wearing a suit and tie at work)?

 

Similarly, it is believed by many that wearing fitness gear (gym-wear) enhances your motivation when going to the gym for a workout.

 

I am just wondering whether there have been any studies which have suggested that wearing a particular clothing can make you more productive at doing certain things.

It's an interesting issue. I would surmise that the pressures of fashion and social conformity can overshadow issues related to productivity. For example, a woman might wear a short skirt to work, and then seemingly be preoccupied with preventing men from looking up it. If a part of her mind is concerned with who can see what parts of her undergarments when she is sitting at her desk, her mind can't be fully focussed on the job she is being paid to do.

[Ant Sinclair]

Bill Angel; "It's an interesting issue. I would surmise that the pressures of fashion and social conformity can overshadow issues related to productivity. For example, a woman might wear a short skirt to work, and then seemingly be preoccupied with preventing men from looking up it. If a part of her mind is concerned with who can see what parts of her undergarments when she is sitting at her desk, her mind can't be fully focussed on the job she is being paid to do"

 

It's long been tradition on this planet that most human males quite enjoy photons bouncing off the said female form into our eyes specially where mini-skirts are in the equation!

As for the "preoccupation with prevention" I would say the fidgeting, pulling the skirt up etc is a signal she wants you to try an sneek-peek and as they say in England - Who Stares Wins!

[Acme]

Hi,

...

I am just wondering whether there have been any studies which have suggested that wearing a particular clothing can make you more productive at doing certain things.

Howdy. Yes there are investigations into the psychology of clothing. Here's a few: Clothing and dress Psychological aspects.

 

●The social psychology of clothing and personal adornment

by Susan B Kaiser

●Dress and identity

by Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins; Joanne Bubolz Eicher; Kim K P Johnson

●The Dress of women : a critical introduction to the symbolism and sociology of clothing

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Michael R Hill; Mary Jo Deegan

●Clothing and difference : embodied identities in colonial and post-colonial Africa

by Hildi Hendrickson

●Clothing and appearance, their psychological implications for teen-age girls

by Sylvia Susan Silverman

●Dress and society

by Jane E Workman; Beth W Freeburg

●Dress sense : emotional and sensory experiences of the body and clothes

by Donald Clay Johnson; Helen Bradley Foster

●Fashioning the frame : boundaries, dress, and body

by Dani Cavallaro; Alexandra Warwick

●Dress your best : the complete guide to finding the style that's right for your body

by Clinton Kelly; Stacy London

●The visible self : global perspectives on dress, culture, and society

by Joanne Bubolz Eicher; Sandra Lee Evenson; Hazel A Lutz

... Many more >