It's true. The way you dress changes the way that you feel. When you dress well, you feel more confident.
Science is also finding out that clothes change the way you view the world.
In a recent study conducted at the California State University in Northridge, scientists found that formal clothes change the way the brain works. This mental shift, in turn, changes the way we view our environment.
In the study conducted by Abraham Rutchick, his team found that dressing in a formal way causes people to expand the way that they think about life and go beyond the simple "within the box" thinking associated with a closed mind. Wearing an ascot tie and a suit could expand your mind.
Clothes seem to adjust our beliefs about ourselves and our capabilities, as was learned in a study involving a white doctor's jacket. Subjects were given a white jacket to wear and were told that the jacket belonged to a doctor.
At that the moment, the subjects enjoyed an increase in mental acuity, but once they were told that the coat belonged to a painter, that mental ability declined as if the wind had been yanked from their sails.
These studies have been few and far between, but we're learning more about how clothing changes our mind.
Expand your mind
Other authors of the formal attire study reasoned that wearing a suit could broaden your mindset during the work day. You may tend to take a critical message more poorly if you are thinking in a simplified way.
Wearing a suit can open your thinking and help you take that criticism in an objective way. This objective view also helps with your ways of viewing money and the decisions you make regarding dollars and cents.
So how easily can we turn this abstract thinking on and off? All we have to do is put on a suit an ascot tie and were instantly more intelligent?
Rutchick seems to think that it may be that easy. It could be the chicken and the egg, though: Those who wear formal attire may be in positions where they've learned to think in a more objective abstract way. We'll have to wait and see if it's the clothes or the man who think in a higher way.
What about work? The work environment has changed over the last 20 years and formal clothing is the norm in most businesses. Will this casual attire become the clothing that eventually makes us smarter because we associate it with work?
The power of that suite with a smartly tied ascot will only become stronger the more or less we wear it.
Style magazine Vogue decided to get in on the fun when they asked professional women from laid back artists to politicians what kinds of clothes like to feel more powerful and on the ball.
Some of the women stated that certain brands made them feel more confident, while some said it was as simple as wearing high heels.
Super Clothing
Could you possibly imagine that a superhero t-shirt could increase your confidence? A study conducted at the University of Hertfordshire by Karen Pine proved this point.
It only took a few experiments to realize the power of clothing. Students arrived with no instruction on clothing and rated their own style that day.
The brain tests started and a correlation was found between what the students thought of their attire and how they fared in abstract concepts and thinking. How does our ascot tie help us think?
To truly test the concept, the student subjects were asked to arrive with job interview clothing, as most students tend to dress extremely casual. Not surprisingly, the students who wore the nice attire scored higher on abstract testing and the casual clothes group weren't as successful.
It was as simple as asking some students to wear their favorite superhero shirt and finding out how they handled tests.
When wearing superhero shirts, the students tested better and described themselves as stronger and more confident. Many of them even described themselves as physically stronger.
How much weight can you lift in the gym? I assure you, it's going to be much more if you're wearing a superhero t-shirt. How much can you light up a room at a wedding, mixer, or fundraiser? An ascot tie will help because it changes the way you feel.
Ms. Pine conducted several tests on clothing and mental prowess, one of the most notable was testing women wearing a swimsuit or a sweater.
You can imagine the sweater wearers tested much higher. She also claims that women have several "go to" items of clothing that they wear when they need a boost in the confidence department.
I've said many times before that wearing an ascot makes me feel different--in a good way. I would say wearing one makes me more confident and comfortable. Maybe this way of dressing is a magic pill that we can take when we're ready to think and standout.