Enclothed cognition

a r t i c l e i n f o We introduce the term " enclothed cognition " to describe the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer's psychological processes. We offer a potentially unifying framework to integrate past findings and capture the diverse impact that clothes can have on the wearer by proposing that enclothed cognition involves the co-occurrence of two independent factors—the symbolic meaning of the clothes and the physical experience of wearing them. As a first test of our enclothed cognition perspective, the current research explored the effects of wearing a lab coat. A pretest found that a lab coat is generally associated with atten-tiveness and carefulness. We therefore predicted that wearing a lab coat would increase performance on attention-related tasks. In Experiment 1, physically wearing a lab coat increased selective attention compared to not wearing a lab coat. In Experiments 2 and 3, wearing a lab coat described as a doctor's coat increased sustained attention compared to wearing a lab coat described as a painter's coat, and compared to simply seeing or even identifying with a lab coat described as a doctor's coat. Thus, the current research suggests a basic principle of enclothed cognition—it depends on both the symbolic meaning and the physical experience of wearing the clothes. " What a strange power there is in clothing. " ~Isaac Bashevis Singer Nobel Prize winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer asserts that the clothes we wear hold considerable power and sway. In line with this assertion, bestselling books such as Dress for Success by John T. Molloy and TV shows like TLC's What Not to Wear emphasize the power that clothes can have over others by creating favorable impressions. Indeed, a host of research has documented the effects that people's clothes have on the perceptions and reactions of others. High school students' clothing styles influence perceptions of academic prowess among peers and teachers (Behling & Williams, 1991). Teaching assistants who wear formal clothes are perceived as more intelligent, but as less interesting than teaching assistants who wear less formal clothes (Morris, Gorham, Cohen, & Huffman, 1996). When women dress in a masculine fashion during a recruitment interview, they are more likely to be hired (Forsythe, 1990), and when they dress sexily in prestigious jobs, they are perceived as less competent (Glick, Larsen, Johnson, & Branstiter, 2005). Clients are more likely to return to formally dressed therapists …