Why dressing for success matters

Ben Rosett

Earlier, we have talked about the importance of non-verbal communication and why it matters in almost every setting, including the workplace. You want to let your colleagues and co-workers know that you take your job seriously and are well suited to perform it (no pun intended).

I know, I know, your skills, knowledge and abilities are not necessarily reflected on the way you dress, but on your results instead, right? Right? Well, kind of.

See, the thing is, according to research (Adam & Galinsky, 2012; Slepian, Ferber, Gold & Rutchick, 2015) the way you dress has a statistically significant impact in your own performance, and the better dressed, the better performance, thus best results.

Dressing for success is not only a social cue for your co-workers; it is actually something you can do to improve your results without going to great lengths (Glatter, 2016). As a matter of fact, dressing for success plays such an important part in most workplaces that there are nonprofit organizations devoted to helping workers dress for success.

For instance, Dress for Success is a global organization that helps low-income women with their professional attire for their job-hunting process. Men working and living in the Greater Area of Toronto can rely on Dress Your Best to help them be empowered and confident, dress-wise, when going to job interviews.

You might want to give it a second thought tomorrow morning when deciding what to wear to work. It could mean the difference in getting your usual performance or doing better. If you already do dress for success, please let us know how you do that in the comments section.

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REFERENCES

Adam, H., & Galinsky, A.D. (2012). Enclothed cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(4), 918-925. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.008

Glatter, H. (2016, August 8). The Science Behind 'Dress for Success'. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/

Rosett, B. (2015, March 3). Photo by Ben Rosett. Unsplash. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/

Slepian, M.L., Ferber, S.N., Gold, J.M. & Rutchick, A.M. (2015). The Cognitive Consequences of Formal Clothing. Social Psychological and Personality Science, (6)6, 661-668. DOI: 10.1177/1948550615579462