Table of contents:
- Judging someone's personality through the way they dress
- The impact of judging others by their clothes
- Tips to reduce judging others through clothes
First impression aka first impressions are often formed based on a person's physical appearance or the way they express something. For example, you might see people who have a baby-like face have innocent traits like children. So, what about judging other people's personalities by the way they dress?
Judging someone's personality through the way they dress
Have you ever subconsciously considered someone in branded clothing to be more competent than those who only wear casual clothes? If so, there's no need to worry because judging others by the way they dress is quite normal.
You see, this incident often occurs, especially in the world of work. Even when you have been told that clothing has nothing to do with one's abilities, but without realizing it, this assessment is still being made.
According to research from Nature Human Behavior, the behavior of judging other people through their clothes has become a natural instinct for almost some people. In the journal, it is stated that there are nine studies involving lay people and students.
The two groups were given a picture of a random face and paired with expensive and cheap looking tops. Then, the participants were asked to rate the given facial abilities.
The nine studies show that people's faces who are paired with branded clothes are considered more competent. These reactions emerged even though the participants had been warned not to judge facial personalities by the way they dressed.
In the first study, the experts tried to provide a fairly diverse and lengthy explanation of the images they showed participants. This aims to see whether this explanation will influence the participants' views of others.
In the next four studies, researchers also asked participants not to pay too much attention to the clothes of the people in the pictures. Participants are encouraged to focus more on the person's face than on other things.
However, the data show that these instructions did not have a substantial impact on the final outcome. The reason is, the first eight studies participants still included the way of dress as a determining factor in evaluating other people as much as 83%.
Meanwhile, in the 9th study, researchers tried another method, namely making participants choose a more competent face without being paired with clothes first.
The results were not that different either because about 70% of the participants still thought those who wore expensive clothes looked more well off.
The impact of judging others by their clothes
At the end of the study, the researchers concluded that most participants had difficulty controlling the natural instincts of judging personality by the way they dressed.
They also argue that clothing which is part of economic status also influences the participants' judgment. The dress effect occurred under a variety of conditions provided by the researchers, including when they warned participants not to look too much at the clothes.
Therefore, this research implies that people with lower economic status tend to be less respected and not considered competent.
One of the challenges they may face is first impressions which tend to appear over a short period of time. As a result, it is unavoidable to judge one's personality by way of dress.
This judgment has quite a serious impact on real life. To quote the study's author, Eldar Shafir, poverty poses various challenges.
According to the professor of behavioral science and public policy, unsupportive physical appearance, social status, and psychology are considered to have lower abilities.
As a result, assessing the personality of this way of dressing can make people with lower social status less likely to be valued. Finally, adding value to oneself is hampered because of the psychological burden that results from what they wear.
Tips to reduce judging others through clothes
Whether we realize it or not, almost everyone has judged the personality and competence of others by the way they dress. However, this habit certainly has a pretty bad effect, especially when the people you judge don't match up with reality.
As a result, you may feel embarrassed because you feel that the image of social status through branded clothing is quite important. However, without realizing it, maybe this behavior will repeat itself.
Therefore, you can reduce the value of someone by their clothes in the following ways:
- Don't beat yourself up
- Think before judging others and speaking out loud
- Seeing the positive things that other people do
- Remind yourself that other people are human, just like you
- Being more open-minded about what other people use and choose
- Looking at one's own behavior, whether it is appropriate to judge others or not
- Trying to trust people despite doubts (benefit of the doubt)
It is important to remember that the chances of being wronged by other people's judgments, especially through appearance, are quite large. Therefore, try to remember that not all competent people always wear branded or expensive clothes.
