The old chestnut about the clothes making the person might be cliché but that doesn’t mean there isn’t truth to it. Think about how you respond to other people’s clothes. If you see someone wearing dirty work boots, jeans and a T-shirt, you make assumptions about them and their job. It turns out the clothes you wear also trigger certain mental processes about how you view your work.
Habit Formation
While the term “habit” has some negativity attached to it, habits can prove beneficial. For example, developing a habit of exercising regularly can improve your health. Developing habits can also affect how you view things or at least how you respond to them. Let’s say you wear a shirt and tie to work every day. After a while, putting them on becomes a habit. It also serves as a mental trigger that it’s time to get into work mode. If you don’t wear the shirt and tie, it can be a distraction because your clothes don’t match the task.
Thin-Slicing
The human mind can’t process all the information it takes in all the time. Instead, your brain does a process that psychologists’ call thin-slicing. This means your brain uses lots of tiny bits of information to form an impression. So, let’s say you see someone wearing a tailored suit. Your brain won’t detail everything about the suit. It might instead give you a general sense that the person has money or is a professional. If you dress a certain way for work, the same process happens every time you see your reflection.
Behavior
Believe it or not, how you dress can change your thoughts and behaviors. When you dress like a professional, you’re more likely to think and act like a professional. Clothing acts as a subtle reminder you need to act in certain ways. In jobs where you wear a uniform, the message isn’t even subtle. It’s a constant reminder that it’s time to work.
How You Dress Matters
The clothes you wear send signals to others and yourself. They can signal to others that you take your work seriously. They also act as a reminder to yourself to behave in a certain way. Long story short, how you dress does affect how you view work.
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