Is there bias in clothing?
Clothes carry meanings and significations about our identity, they alert people to our ethnicity, religious beliefs, age, and social class. Although they can be tools for community and connection, what we wear can also affect how we are treated. Explore how and why what you wear matters.
The clothes we wear shape the narratives of our lives, fulfilling vital roles of satisfying physical needs, such as protection from the elements and psychological, such as enabling self-expression.
Although, when we get dressed we do not do so just for ourselves, what we wear influences our interactions and experiences with the people around us.
It is argued that we make our minds up about someone 100ms after meeting them, we form first impressions rather quickly and these impressions are likely to last. One of the clues we use is someone's appearance, namely how they are dressed. How people treat each other is, fortunately, and unfortunately, impacted by what we wear.
So, what are the impacts of how we dress on ourselves, our interactions and how we navigate the world?
Positive social perceptions
How you dress has an impact on how others view you and interact with you. It can be in positive ways, certain styles of dress can cause people to treat you more favourably.
Judgements about someone’s perceived social status can be made by the clothing and accessories that they wear, which can lead to more positive interactions. For example, luxury fashion is often associated with status and admiration. Individuals perceive and compare themselves with successful others and are motivated to achieve similar status and success through the consumption of luxury brands.
Lady in red
Moreover, colour psychology suggests that the colour of what one wears influences how they are perceived and is used when forming judgements about the wearer. For example, black has been linked to increased perceptions of attractiveness by men viewing women, arguably due to the perceived fashionableness of the colour black.
Although, the bulk of the research on colour has studied the effects of red dress on impressions.
For example, studies have found that when wearing red, women are judged by men to be more attractive. Although, this effect may only hold for feminine-presenting females.
Red lips on women are also perceived as more attractive by men, theorised to be due to the association with increased blood levels which may indicate sexual arousal, cardiac and respiratory health and oestrogen levels (female sex hormones).
The effects of red clothing also extend to people's behaviours. For example, research has shown that when expecting to interact with a woman in a red top, versus a blue top, men placed their chairs significantly closer to the woman in red’s chair, indicating greater interest in getting to know the woman.
Although the benefits of wearing red may only be apparent for women when interacting with men.
When investigating women's perceptions of other women due to their clothing colour, researchers found that women perceive red wearers as more sexually receptive and lower in sexual fidelity. As well as they report a greater likelihood of witholding their boyfriends from interacting with the ‘lady in red’.
Makeup influences judgements
Further, makeup can influence personality judgements. Women wearing makeup were judged as more likeable, competent and trustworthy than those with bare faces. Although it appears to be a double-edged sword as wearing too much makeup undermined those impressions.
Negative judgments by others
However, how you dress can also impact you negatively. Others can discriminate against you based on what you are wearing.
For example, research investigating the likelihood of sexual harassment based on women’s dress, found that compared to when wearing non-provocative outfits, those wearing provocative dress (short skirt, low-cut blouse, heels) were rated as significantly more likely to provoke sexual harassment and to be harassed.
Further this discrimination due to clothing does not just affect women, young girls are increasingly sexualised in the media, online and in popular culture. Research has found that wearing sexualised clothing can affect how girls are perceived by others, leading to judgments of them as being less moral, competent, self-respecting and intelligent than girls wearing childlike clothing.
Men can also be perceived less favourably due to their dress. Men’s conspicuous consumption can lead to judgments about their mating competency.
For example, when wearing shirts with larger luxury brand logos (in comparison to smaller ones), men were rated as being higher on mating effort, lower on parental investment, higher on interest in brief sexual affairs, lower on interest in long-term committed romantic relationships, higher in attractiveness to women for brief sexual affairs, and lower in attractiveness to women for long-term committed relationships, (although, depending on what you are looking for in a potential mate, this might be positive).
Impact on self-perception
How you dress also impacts how you view yourself, and thus behave and are treated in the world.
Wearing luxury products has been found to influence consumers’ self-identity and behaviour.
Wearing luxury products leads people to engage in behaviours that are valued by society, such as working harder at difficult tasks, donating time and money to charity and willingness to pay more to help local businesses.
However, the conspicuous display of status and wealth does not produce the same effects, suggesting that when dressing in luxury fashion that is obvious, people are less likely to display socially valued behaviour.
Moreover, wearing counterfeit luxury goods can lead to more dishonest behaviour.
For example, participants who thought they were wearing fake sunglasses cheated significantly more on tasks than those who thought they were wearing authentic sunglasses.
Wearing fake goods also influences how we interact with others. When participants believed they were wearing counterfeit sunglasses, they perceived others’ behaviours as more dishonest, less truthful and more likely to be unethical than when wearing authentic sunglasses.
The researchers argued that this behaviour is due to the association with the inauthenticity of counterfeit goods.
Objectification through clothing
Building upon the research which shows that women in provocative dress are perceived as more likely to be sexually harassed, this type of clothing can also affect how the women perceive themselves and thus the behaviours they display.
Objectification theory suggests that women are evaluated and viewed in relation to their body’s appearance and sexual functions. The objectifying gaze evokes an objectified state of consciousness which influences self-perceptions and has consequences on the person being objectified. Such that, it can lead to increased body and appearance monitoring which requires greater cognitive effort and can result in difficulty performing tasks.
By wearing revealing clothing women can come to also perceive themselves in this way, in a process known as self-objectification. Even just thinking about wearing more revealing clothing, such as a bathing suit, can lead to higher self-objectification, as well as greater body shame, body dissatisfaction and negative mood.
You are what you wear?
Additionally, in a process known as enclothed cognition, what you wear impacts how you think and subsequently act, suggesting your behaviour can be shaped and changed by altering what you wear.
In a study looking at the effects of what you wear on your performance in tasks, researchers showed that a laboratory coat is associated with an individual who is attentive and careful. They then found that when individuals wore lab coats, their performance on attention-related tasks was better than those not wearing them.
The authors rationalised that clothing can affect wearers because of the symbolic meaning of the clothing and the physical experience of wearing it.
Further, dressing in a way that boosts self-perceptions can have positive repercussions for your behaviour.
For example, dopamine dressing, the act of wearing things that we associate with happiness and positive feelings, can enable us to embrace that positive emotion. Such as outlandish clothes have been found to have a ‘tension release dimension’ that fosters a feeling of escapism in the wearer.
Does what you wear matter for how you are treated?
Overall, how we dress has important implications for how we are treated, how others interact with us and the relationship we have with ourselves. Clothing can prompt more favourable perceptions from others but it can also lead to negative perceptions of the wearer, inducing harmful behaviours towards them. What you wear also affects how you think and act leading to changes in your behaviour.
Final thoughts:
Do you think that what you wear affects how you're treated? How so?
How can we challenge and change the more negative perceptions associated with certain forms of dress?
Let me know what you think in the comments!
Key points - Is there bias in clothing?
Physical appearance plays a crucial role when forming first impressions, what we wear influences how we are subsequently treated
In some circumstances, clothing can lead to more favourable judgements, such as admiration and increased attractiveness
It can also cause negative interactions, such as an increased likelihood of sexualisation and harassment when wearing revealing clothing for women
The clothing we wear can also impact how we think and feel about ourselves and thus shape our behaviour and interactions with the world, increasing positive emotions and enabling behavioural change
Further reading
•The Social Psychology of Dress - Dress, Body and Self: Research in the Social Psychology of Dress
•For an interesting discussion of real-life examples of how clothing impacts ourselves and our interactions with others, see this Reddit forum
•New research suggests stereotypes might not be as powerful as previously assumed
