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Economic status cues from clothes affect perceived competence from faces
- pnutjam 7y agoI believe this, my wife replaced my raggedy coat and I can see the first impressions of people changed.
- enriquto 7y agoThis is a great way to steer you towards are the most interesting of your acquitances: those whose impressions didn't change.
- mc32 7y agoThere are other sectors of the economy which steer people away from dressing up and if you dress “too nicely” people are suspicious of you and wonder what you’re all about.
- shantly 7y agoIn Fussell's Class he writes hopefully about his "Class X" (IIRC) that rejects class markers, but it's clear even just from his text that they actually don't, and from our decades-later perspective they've obviously just become another category of the class conscious public, for the most part.
- AnthonBerg 7y agoNo-one is immune to beauty or respect, nor to feeling safe. It bears rewards to respect people's senses and perception of the world, and to carry beauty with you. Beauty does not have to be grand or inflated, and there's no universal judgement; It doesn't have to be a pretty face in an expensive suit. Any form of expression or presence we carry with us can carry beauty and show respect, whether it is clothing or hygiene or handwriting or choice of words or depth of thought - anything. Anything can hold symmetry and consistency, can be suitably asymmetric and interesting - can hold beauty - and can show respect for other's continuous perception of the world and connection to it. And it make people feel safe. This can be a question of you being literally easy on the eyes, in other words your presentation in the world is energy-efficient to read and parse. But we must be careful to have this opt-in only, to be aware of our own bias, and practice non-judgement based on external appearance. A raggedy coat can make some people subconsciously worry if you're OK. They have a slightly easier time in your presence if they don't have to filter out those worries. Especially if there's a dissonance with them knowing that you're perfectly fine. And truly, for some the most beauty is found in people who present themselves as not caring about raggedy coats and for those their impressions probably won't change.
- blablabla123 7y agoI can only confirm, since I started buying more expensive clothes (and hardware), people seem to have a better impression of me. (Both in professional and private life) It's kind of a waste though...
- dxemy 7y agoIs it a waste to make people have a better impression of you? Depends on your job I guess?
- hoseja 7y agoIt's waste by definition. It's social signalling. It's sort of like blockchain proof of work, you show your commitment by displaying hard to fake wasted resources.
- criddell 7y agoSocial signalling isn't necessarily a waste, especially if you have a very high profile. When Justin Theroux shows up at an animal shelter and posts a photo of some dogs on Instagram, those dogs get adopted and it raises the profile of those animal shelters.
- pete762 7y agoNo, more like hard to fake abundance of resources. Whether they're wasted or not is in the eye of the beholder.
- akhilcacharya 7y agoInteresting you bring up "hardware". What do you mean by that?
- swat535 7y agoPresumably a Mac instead of Thinkpad ?
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
- simonsarris 7y agoIf you ever want this feeling on steroids, get a German shepherd puppy and walk it around.
- shantly 7y agoWe got a puppy a while ago and holy crap, no kidding. If I were single, after that experience, I'd make sure never to walk anywhere without a puppy. Never had so many strangers strike up friendly, longish conversations out of nowhere.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- skilled 7y agoThank God I am walking around with the most casual clothe possible and feeling good about it. I can't imagine being part of any "circle" where clothing is looked upon as a factor of who you truly are as a person. And by that, I mean deeper than personality or character. In the eyes of Others... Who are these Others? What makes us so different?
- hvidgaard 7y agoIt shows that people subconsciously believe that better dressed people are more competent.
- me_me_me 7y agoWell at least they pretend to have their marbles together to have a clean outfit. I think it not thoroughly conscious choice how we dress, but a mix of how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen by others.
- thom 7y agoWhile I agree with you, and I too actively avoid people or institutions where these sorts of status games have taken hold, it's important to understand how privileged it is to be able to opt out. Some people in precarious financial or social situations have to navigate this world to live, and understanding these biases is helpful to them. Obviously in the ideal world we would combat these biases or at least their ability to affect other people's wellbeing, but we're quite far from that world at the moment.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- buboard 7y agonow i can pretend i am hiding something with my shitty dress code
- d--b 7y agoIt's nice that there's a study that confirms this, but it is pretty obvious that people do judge other people from the way they look. Clothes is only part of the mix. Skin color, gender, face shape, eye color, hair styling, general posture, micro movements, smell, sweatiness, etc. also alter the way people will categorize others. And then once they speak, the way the voice sounds brings another massive layer of pre-conceived judgment. Add social background, education, occupation, sexual orientation, etc. In the end, all these elements will form an idea of who a person may be. Then this image erodes as one gets to know the other person.
- agent008t 7y agoIsn't the reverse true in HN circles? Where looking like Stallman implies competency?
- lazylizard 7y agoOr signaling that i can afford to not care about clothing
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- akhilcacharya 7y agoEh, I don't think this is true anymore. Folks that I see walking out of the other FANG offices look cookie cutter. Allbirds, iPhone 11 Pro, nice Patagonia quarter zip...
- rm_-rf_slash 7y agoNot surprised at all to see so many engineer-y types here on HN dismissing the importance of clothing even the face of evidence. I used to be one, until I saw Kill La Kill. Fact is, clothing has power. The ability to shape people’s perceptions of you is valuable, and it can mean the difference between a deal and dismissal. It can also have the adverse effect: wearing mismatching colors or patterns or clothing of poor condition signals immediately to me that the wearer is either unconcerned with their appearance or unable to distinguish between attractive and unattractive aesthetics - a major red flag on my perception of their judgement. If someone wearing clothing like that works in tech I’ll spend 30 seconds determining if they’re too much of a super-genius to be concerned with their appearance (and if they truly are then they should acquire an identical wardrobe, Jobs/Zuckerberg-style). Otherwise, I think to myself that if this person is so lacking in perception to not comprehend how hideous they look, then what other major blind spots do they have?
- shard 7y agoFor those of us who did not see Kill la Kill, if it's not a major spoiler, could you let us know what was it in that show that changed your mind?
- anotherman554 7y agoI'm smiling at the idea there's a lesson to be learned from Kill La Kill. It's an anime where there's special clothing invented that gives you superpowers. It's similar to saying you learned this lesson from the Spider-man villain, Venom, or watching Iron-man movies. I guess the above poster sees it as a metaphor.
- rm_-rf_slash 7y agoThe story revolves around these things called “life fibers” which when sewn into clothing gives wearers superhuman abilities. That story opened my eyes to the power that clothing not only could have in the future with the aid of technology, but also the implicit power it has held for thousands of years.
- kingkawn 7y agoThis is because we are only steps removed from a feudal society
- kingkawn 7y agoThe most rigorous, controlling aesthetic of all is the one where you claim to have none.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Merrill 7y agoMost everyone can look "rich" with cheap imported knockoffs of expensive clothing. But peoples' choice of whether to dress "rich" or "poor" provides information about them.
- swalsh 7y agoMakes me think of the Stephen Castor incident yesterday, and his use of a reusable shopping bag to bring in documents to the impeachment hearing.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- o09rdk 7y agoThe clothing itself isn't really what I necessarily expected, if you look at the pictures themselves (https://osf.io/v2j43/ https://osf.io/v2j43/). The "rich" clothing is just more like "formal" or "conservative" clothing, and the "poor" is more "casual". They seem to have tried to control for the formality aspect but I'm not sure they did so completely (for example, there's still blazers in the set with "formal" attire removed). I also suspect there's an age dimension involved as well, in that some of the clothing is much more likely to be worn by younger individuals than older individuals, or vice versa. Of course this will be correlated with wealth, because dressier clothes are more expensive, and older individuals probably will have more wealth than when they were younger. However, the clothing isn't the spectrum I was expecting necessarily, and I'm not sure "rich" versus "poor" are the right labels. Also, I can understand how most of the clothing came to be categorized the way it was, some of it is confusing to me. There's definitely items that I think would be classified in the other category. It would be nice to tailor this more to specific individuals more. To be honest I'm a bit surprised this is getting this much attention because the social psychology literature is full of findings like this already.
- Agenttin 7y agoIt does seem to boil down to the idea that people in ties appear more competent than people not in ties.