How you dress influences impressions

In my last blog post, we talked about physical appearance impacts success. Today we are going to delve deeper into on aspect that you can control in how people perceive you. We can control how we dress and how we dress influences impressions. In my personal experiences, I had a day where I fully understood how you dress really matters. My whole life I have always dressed in mainly basketball shorts and a hoodie or plane tee shirt. I never understood why it mattered what you wore until this day.

On this day, I was walking in downtown Reno at an event. While walking, I had two different people try and stop me to talk. The first person was dirty in all ratted clothing. The other person was well dress and put together. I noticed the difference in the two situations, I was much more accepting to the better dressed person and more willing to engage. These experiences showed me how powerful your cloths are on impressions with people.

In an article on Psychology Today, a research study was done showing participants snapshots of the same model with differing suits, after just a 3-second exposure people judged the man more favorably in the bespoke suit. And the judgments were not about how well dressed he was. They rated him as more confident, successful, flexible and a higher earner in a tailor-made suit than when he wore a high-street equivalent.

An article on Forbes says, “A study this year from Northwestern University examined a concept called “enclothed cognition.” Researchers define it in their report as “the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer’s psychological processes,” meaning what your clothes are saying to you, not about you. And how they make you feel.”

These two concepts are powerful that not only can we better our impressions on people but we can also impact ourselves. We should use the knowledge of how powerful well-made tailored cloths is on impressions to our advantage. This is a simple success tip that makes a difference. With the added benefit of how you feel when better dressed. The confidence and pride in your appearance will influence your career for the better.

Please feel free to share your thoughts. Comment and share.