What Do You Know? Clothers Do Make the Man . . . and the Woman, Too!

Last week was filled with a certain amount of craziness. Throughout the year's first quarter, I had been on non-stop business travel. As a result, I had all sorts of loose ends to tie up. I also needed to travel back and forth for a TV interview with the nice folks at “Let’s Talk Live” down in Washington, D.C. And, before the week ended, I needed to fully complete the development of a brand new program. 

All of which is to say that I didn’t have loads of time to engage in one of my favorite activities: A leisurely read of the New York Times. However, while rushing through last week’s Science section, one article grabbed my attention, and it’s one that I think every professional should at least be aware.

The article, “Mind Games: Sometimes a White Coat Isn’t Just a White Coat,” (NYT, 04/03/12, page D3) by Sandra Blakeslee reports on a growing scientific field called embodied cognition. According to Adam D. Galinsky, a professor at the Kellog School of Management at Northwestern University, we humans think not just with our brains but with our bodies, too. Our thought processes are based on a set of physical experiences that set off associated abstract concepts. Among the physical experiences that affect us is pulling on certain clothes.

Galinsky has reported on a series of experiments he’s undertaken involving students who were randomly assigned to put on a white doctor’s coat or street clothes. Participants who donned the doctor’s uniform made fewer errors on incongruent trials, showed enhanced sustained attention and acquired heightened attention.  “Clothes invade the body and brain,” Blakeslee writes of Galinsky’s research, “putting the wearer into a different psychological state.”

In my business etiquette presentations to law schools and business schools alike, I frequently address the issue of dressing professionally. Galinsky’s research suggests that lots of young professionals starting work might benefit from ignoring the permission they’ve received to go business casual. Instead, interns, summer associates and new hires should wear more business conservative work attire. Wearing a suit just may improve performance.
 

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