穿衣如何提高影響力 Smart office attire

The old aphorism that “clothes make the man” might have some science behind it.

有句老話說得好：人靠衣裝，馬靠鞍。這句話不是沒有科學根據。

Recently published research shows what we wear not only affects how we and other people perceive us, it can also make us look at the world differently. Even if your company doesn’t have a dress code requiring employees to put on suits and ties and skirts covering the knees, you might want to put on slightly more formal attire if you want to get ahead in your career.

最新公佈的研究表明，着裝不僅僅會影響我們和他人對自己的看法，還能讓我們換個角度去看世界。即使公司沒有諸如穿西裝、打領帶、裙子過膝蓋一類的着裝令，但希望在職場上更有作爲的人，還是會穿得更正式一些。

In 2013, Adam D. Galinsky, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management in the US, popularized the idea of “enclothed cognition”.

2013年，美國西北大學凱洛格商學院的亞當加林斯基教授，推廣了“穿衣認知”這一理念。

According to The New York Times, Galinsky found that when people put on a white lab coat they believe belongs to a doctor, they became more focused and careful and they were a little smarter when performing cognitive tasks.

據《紐約時報》報道，加林斯基教授發現，當人們穿上他們認爲是隻有醫生才穿的白大褂時，他們會表現得更專注、更細心，在執行認知性任務時也會更機智。

The phrase “enclothed cognition” is derived from “embodied cognition”, the idea that your thoughts are shaped by your physical activities.

“穿衣認知”從“體驗認知”而來，即你的身體活動構造了你的思想。

For example, washing your hands is associated with moral or ethical judgments. Another example is if you carry a heavy clipboard, you will feel more important.

比如，洗手這個動作和道德或倫理判斷有聯繫。又或者，當你拿着一個很重的寫字板時，你會自覺感到更加重要。

Galinsky found that clothes invade both the body and the mind, putting the wearer into a different psychological state.

加林斯基教授發現，服裝會“侵入”你的身體和思想，讓穿着者產生完全不同的心理狀態。

A more recent study looking specifically at how formal clothes change people’s thought processes confirms this. “Putting on formal clothes makes us feel powerful, and that changes the basic way we see the world,” says Abraham Rutchick, an author of the study and a professor of psychology at California State University in the US.

另一項調查專門研究了正裝如何改變了人們的思維過程，同時也證實了上述結論。該項調研的負責人、美國加州州立大學的心理學教授亞伯拉罕戠奇克表示，“穿正裝讓我們感覺更強大，而這種感覺改變了我們看待世界的基本方式。”

Big ideas

好點子

According to The Atlantic, Rutchick and his colleagues found that wearing clothing that’s more formal than usual makes people think more broadly, rather than narrowly and about small details. In other words, wearing a suit encourages people to use abstract processing more readily than concrete processing.

據美國《大西洋月刊》報道，盧奇克和他的同事們發現，穿着更正式可以讓人們的思路更開闊，不再拘泥於小細節。換句話說，穿西服更容易讓人們發揮抽象思維，而非具象思維。

How can abstract processing help us at work? Imagine you get critical feedback from your colleagues or your boss.

抽象處理在工作上有何幫助？試想你的同事或者上司給了一個批評性的反饋意見。

“If you think about it with a concrete processing style, it’s more likely to negatively impact your self-esteem,” says Michael Slepian, another one of the paper’s authors and a professor of management at Columbia Business School in the US. Slepian added that thinking about money with an abstract processing style might lead one to avoid impulsive purchases in favor of smarter, long-term savings behaviors.

“如果你具象化地去思考這件事，可能會感覺非常傷自尊，”研究論文的另一位作者、美國哥倫比亞大學商學院的管理學教授邁克爾斯樂賓表示。他還補充道，用抽象化的處理方式看待金錢問題，可以讓人避免衝動購物，轉而青睞長期儲蓄。

But as casual attire becomes the norm in a lot of workplaces, it would seem that people will no longer associate formal attire with power and competence.

但是，隨着休閒着裝在很多工作場所已被大家習以爲常，人們看似不再將正裝和權力以及能力相關聯。

Slepian thinks the opposite. “You could even predict the effect could get stronger if formal clothing is only reserved for the most formal of situations,” he was quoted by The Atlantic as saying: “It takes a long time for symbols and our agreed interpretations of those symbols to change, and I wouldn’t expect the suit as a symbol of power to be leaving us anytime soon.”

然而，斯樂賓並不這麼認爲，他表示，“如果正裝只在最正式的場合出現，你甚至可以想象得到，它對人的影響會更強烈。” 《大西洋月刊》援引他的話稱，“我們生活中的符號以及我們對這些符號的解讀需要很長時間才能改變，我認爲正裝作爲權力符號的意義不會很快消失。”