Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Well, Hello,
Speaker 1: their brain Stuff. I'm Christian Sager, and I've got a
Speaker 1: question for you. Do I look powerful? Well? I know
Speaker 1: you can't see me right now, but I feel powerful.
Speaker 1: Some people even think that what you wear can produce
Speaker 1: this kind of confidence. And who doesn't want to feel
Speaker 1: good about themselves? So what is this power dressing and
Speaker 1: does it actually work? Well? To answer that question, we
Speaker 1: have to take a trip to the smooth nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: when a guy named John Malloy came out with a
Speaker 1: series of books about dressing for success. He prescribed a
Speaker 1: uniform of sorts for both men and women that would
Speaker 1: help them achieve greatness in business professions. For men, Malloy
Speaker 1: recommended conservative business attire that was high quality and fit well.
Speaker 1: Essentially a business suit in a dark hue with a
Speaker 1: modest white shirt and a top think Don Draper. For women,
Speaker 1: he adapted this uniform to include a skirted suit and
Speaker 1: a soft blouse with floppy or bode neck pieces think
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher. In order to achieve the kind of authority
Speaker 1: of the Iron Lady, Malloy recommended women do two things.
Speaker 1: Don't look like a secretary and don't look too sexy.
Speaker 1: You couldn't wear waistcoats or contour jackets because they drew
Speaker 1: attention to the bust. Scarves were popular because they drew
Speaker 1: attention to the face and away from the breasts, and
Speaker 1: floral prints and feminine colors like salmon pink were out.
Speaker 1: But you didn't want to look too masculine either, hence
Speaker 1: the skirts instead of trousers. This was the birth of
Speaker 1: power dressing, and by the nineteen eighties it became the
Speaker 1: way enterprising women learned to manage or limit the potential
Speaker 1: sexuality of their bodies and leave all that gross girl
Speaker 1: stuff like cooties at home. But as they entered the
Speaker 1: corporate workforce in ever greater numbers, some women wanted to
Speaker 1: modify this uniform while maintaining their professional appearance. One alternative
Speaker 1: model for breaking out of these fashion limitations was Princess
Speaker 1: Diana with her more glamorous outfits. Others were on TV
Speaker 1: and shows like Dynasty, Designing Women and Moonlighting enter broad
Speaker 1: shoulder pads, wide lapels, and a wider range of textures,
Speaker 1: colors and accessories. Cut to the present day, now, most
Speaker 1: of these fashion fads have come and gone, but you
Speaker 1: can still see their influence on politicians. For example, take
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Many of the tenets of
Speaker 1: power dressing are still in play today. We just don't
Speaker 1: call it that anymore. But a fifteen study re examined
Speaker 1: the principles behind power dressing. It found that putting on
Speaker 1: formal clothing does indeed make us feel powerful and even
Speaker 1: makes us think differently. The authors of this study tested
Speaker 1: student participants in a series of experiments by rating their
Speaker 1: outfits and taking cognitive tests. When the students switched out
Speaker 1: of sweatpants and into the kind of clothing they thought
Speaker 1: they should wear to a job interview, the tests showed
Speaker 1: their cognitive processing became more abstract, broader, and holistic. The
Speaker 1: authors also say that how often you actually wear formal
Speaker 1: clothes doesn't matter, regardless of when you wear it, these
Speaker 1: uniforms have become a symbol of power. There have been
Speaker 1: other studies into how clothing affects our cognition too. For instance,
Speaker 1: when people wear white doctor's coats, they become more attentive,
Speaker 1: but this effect doesn't happen when they think it belongs
Speaker 1: to a painter. Check out the brain stuff channel on
Speaker 1: YouTube and for more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com.