The old aphorism¹ that “clothes make the man” might have some science behind it.

有句老话说得好：人靠衣装，马靠鞍。这句话不是没有科学根据。

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 attire² if you want to get ahead in your career.

最新公布的研究表明，着装不仅仅会影响我们和他人对自己的看法，还能让我们换个角度去看世界。即使公司没有诸如穿西装、打领带、裙子过膝盖一类的着装令，但希望在职场上更有作为的人，还是会穿得更正式一些。

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，美国西北大学凯洛格商学院的亚当加林斯基教授，推广了“穿衣认知”这一理念。

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 cognitive³ tasks.

据《纽约时报》报道，加林斯基教授发现，当人们穿上他们认为是只有医生才穿的白大褂时，他们会表现得更专注、更细心，在执行认知性任务时也会更机智。

The phrase “enclothed cognition” is derived⁴ from “embodied⁵ cognition”, the idea that your thoughts are shaped by your physical activities.

“穿衣认知”从“体验认知”而来，即你的身体活动构造了你的思想。

For example, washing your hands is associated with moral or ethical⁶ judgments⁷. Another example is if you carry a heavy clipboard, you will feel more important.

比如，洗手这个动作和道德或伦理判断有联系。又或者，当你拿着一个很重的写字板时，你会自觉感到更加重要。

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

加林斯基教授发现，服装会“侵入”你的身体和思想，让穿着者产生完全不同的心理状态。

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 psychology⁸ at California State University in the US.

另一项调查专门研究了正装如何改变了人们的思维过程，同时也证实了上述结论。该项调研的负责人、美国加州州立大学的心理学教授亚伯拉罕戠奇克表示，“穿正装让我们感觉更强大，而这种感觉改变了我们看待世界的基本方式。”

Big ideas

好点子

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.

据美国《大西洋月刊》报道，卢奇克和他的同事们发现，穿着更正式可以让人们的思路更开阔，不再拘泥于小细节。换句话说，穿西服更容易让人们发挥抽象思维，而非具象思维。

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

抽象处理在工作上有何帮助？试想你的同事或者上司给了一个批评性的反馈意见。

“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 impulsive⁹ purchases in favor of smarter, long-term savings¹⁰ behaviors.

“如果你具象化地去思考这件事，可能会感觉非常伤自尊，”研究论文的另一位作者、美国哥伦比亚大学商学院的管理学教授迈克尔斯乐宾表示。他还补充道，用抽象化的处理方式看待金钱问题，可以让人避免冲动购物，转而青睐长期储蓄。

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 competence¹¹.

但是，随着休闲着装在很多工作场所已被大家习以为常，人们看似不再将正装和权力以及能力相关联。

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 interpretations¹² 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，斯乐宾并不这么认为，他表示，“如果正装只在最正式的场合出现，你甚至可以想象得到，它对人的影响会更强烈。” 《大西洋月刊》援引他的话称，“我们生活中的符号以及我们对这些符号的解读需要很长时间才能改变，我认为正装作为权力符号的意义不会很快消失。”