Do women dress for men - or women?

So, apparently, women spend almost £84,000 on clothes in their lifetime. 
And they are dressing more seductively in the economic downturn to increase their chances of nabbing that rare thing, a man with a decent job.

Or that’s the spin that the Daily Mail put on a recent study to come out of Texas Christian University.

As if it was really that simple, that women just dress to impress men.

In an earlier blog I did point out that high heels force women to adopt a posture reminiscent of randy babboons and, sure, that’s all about appearing seductive. 
But women who expose too much flesh can actually be harming their career prospects.
I still find the enclothed cognition argument compelling, i.e. that women dress to impress themselves, since certain clothes make them feel better, give them confidence and lift their mood (even if there’s not a man in sight).

Clearly it’s complicated. There seem to be three factors at work:

1.    Evolutionary psychologists have shown us that clothing sends out all kinds of sexual signals (red for fertility, high heels for fecundity). This is the ‘women dress to attract men’ argument.

2.    Then there’s the function of clothes for emotional regulation, which is born out by my research showing that women select clothes accord to their moods. This could be seen as the ‘women dress for themselves’ argument.

3.    There’s a third factor too. It’s the ‘women dress for other women’ point of view.  Take a look at this:

Letter from a popular Sunday newspaper supplement.

£600 for a scarf? What credit crunch? 
That aside, could it be that women dress to get one over on the competition as this letter suggests? 

Blogger Nikolas Lloyd thinks yes (and has kindly allowed me to quote his theory here):

Imagine a society in which there are not very many women around who are available. Such a society was the one in which we evolved. In the world of the forager, a potential mate came along seldom, and one usually only had a small selection of women from which to choose a life partner. In this society, a woman who had known the local men for ages and was on good terms with them, was very nice, but perhaps not the best looking or a little bit past her prime, might lose out to some slip of a thing who walked out of the forest. A foreign woman might out-compete all the local women, even if she hardly spoke the language, if she was young and pretty, and this would not please the local women. What could these women do to keep the stranger out? Well, just as language seems to have evolved partly to keep out outsiders (a human who has learned a language as an adult will almost never fully master it and pass as a local), so too could fashion. The local women could make it next to impossible for the foreigner to pass as a local, and become accepted in society, by coming up with many arbitrary and subtle rules of fashion.

So Lloyd thinks women dress in a way that helps them fit in with their social group and keep out intruders. Identification with one's social group is clearly one purpose of fashion. And one way we signal our affiliation with a social group is through clothing: this is true whether your group is a Mayan tribe, or mums at the school gate. 
He's got a point. 
It's quite likely that those other women are far more likely to notice what you're wearing than any passing male.

How to dress for success

Watch a video here about first impressions and how to dress for success.....



it's great to see our University of Hertfordshire research featured in this video, which reinforces the message conveyed in an earlier post that dress disasters can ruin your job prospects ... without you even knowing it.

CHANGING CULTURE IN OUR BANKS

A GUEST BLOG FROM DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT ABOUT WHY IT'S TIME FOR OUR BANKS TO CHANGE - AND QUICKLY:

It’s been a rough week for the UK banking sector. Again.

Fines for Barclays fixing the LIBOR rate, with at least two other major banks rumoured to have been up to the same tricks. Mis-selling interest rate swaps to small and medium sized businesses. A new proposal for a European banking union, setting the rules from outside London.

The Radio 4 chatter this morning was about culture change. Separating investment banking from retail banking – taking the casino out of the supermarket – is considered a step in the right direction, but banks need to refocus their culture. They need to put ethics back at the heart of their operations.

This was then picked up by Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King, who said: “We can see we need a real change in the culture of the industry.”  Prime Minister, David Cameron, speaking from the EU summit in Brussels, also added his weight to the argument: “British people are crying out for a return to good old-fashioned banking… That’s why the governor is so in favour of changing culture at the banks and so am I.”

So if you are in charge of change management at a big bank, how do you do that? Change management consultants are fond of telling us that it takes seven years to change a culture. The banks simply don't have that long.

What is culture change?

Essentially, it’s people taking different actions. 

That may be based on a new set of values. Or, as is more often the case, it might be about trying to get people to behave in-line with existing values that have been forgotten or ignored in the commercial frenzy. 

Either way, the key is – actions. For culture change to be real and sustainable, it has to be about what people physically do, not just what they think.

Reminding people about old values, or teaching then new ones, and then letting them go back to their desks, their trading screens or their customer service counters is not enough. We’re habit machines. The old ingrained behaviours will soon rise to the top. Most people will go back to doing the same things they’ve always done and nothing will change.

Culture change is not about telling people about new values. It’s about getting them to live new values. 

To evolve a new culture by doing things differently. Put ‘doing’ at the heart of a culture change strategy, and change can happen in seven weeks. Not seven years.

Baboons in stilettos

A friend recently confessed that she wears high heels all the time because her husband ‘prefers them’. (So if you thought he looked sexier in a horse-hair cod piece, he’d wear one for you would he?) ….

Her hubbie obviously hasn't descended down the same line as Matt Rudd who, in today’s Sunday Times, is bewildered that women wear things that cripple them with blisters and prevent them from running. When it comes to heels there are clearly two types of males, those affected by lordosis and those who aren’t.

Lordosis, I hear you cry, what the Jimmy Choo is that?

It’s an abnormal forward curvature of the spine. The position that a high heel forces the female form into, with the back arched and the buttocks invitingly tipped up. According to the American Physical Therapy Association, “Walking in high heels forces the back to arch and the chest to thrust forward. Basically, high heels cause the neck and back to hyperextend.”

If you’re thinking this is a load of babboon’s buttocks you’re right, it’s the courting pose of mammals. 

Helen, Fisher, author of the Biology of Attraction, says:

"Some women also have a characteristic walk when courting; they arch their backs, thrust out their bosoms, sway their hips, and strut. No wonder many women wear high-heeled shoes. This bizarre Western custom, invented by Catherine de Medici in the 1500s, unnaturally arches the back, tilts the buttocks, and thrusts the chest out into a female come-hither pose. The clomping noise of their spiky heels draws attention too."

Despite a recent finding that high heels denote emotional instability during cognitive appraisal, it seems that evolutionary psychology is alive and well and tripping down the catwalk. Or the high street.

Disastrous dress undoes job prospects

I was chatting about fashion psychology yesterday with a friend who works at a very prestigious university, when suddenly her face lit up.

“We’ve just made an appointment,” she said  “and now it’s struck me that we appointed the best dressed candidate.”

Each applicant had to give a presentation to a panel and an audience of peers. 

The first candidate, she said, had obviously borrowed his suit. It was at least three sizes too big, the sleeves hung down over his hands and the jacket almost reached his knees. 

“It swamped him,” my friend told me, “and now I realise he seemed diminished by it in so many ways, he came across as completely powerless.”

The next candidate, a woman, was smartly dressed except her blouse didn’t quite meet the top of her trousers. 

“We were seated right at mid-rift level, the woman was standing up and her bare belly was in our eye-line. I’m afraid it detracted from what she was saying…could we really work with someone who had exposed so much flesh at our first encounter?”

Apparently the third candidate matched the first two on experience and credentials, plus he was also dressed appropriately; good fitting suit, clean shoes, open-necked shirt. 

He got the job.

I've come for the job

It’s so easy to overlook sartorial turn-offs like these. No one ever mentions them in the rejection letter ("We're very sorry but.... that suit... what were you thinking???")

Anyway the impression is mostly subliminal, exerting its effect unconsciously. 

Yet recent research I’ve been involved in is showing just how much these things matter in the job market. 

Shabby suits on men spell failure, not success (see earlier blog)

Exposing too much flesh marks a woman out for a low status job and scuppers her chances of reaching the top, as we've reported here previously.

In 2009 Wookey et al found that a provocatively dressed female Chief Executive Officer was rated as less competent than a professionally dressed CEO, a professionally dressed office assistant and a provocatively dressed office assistant.

They conclude that: “…sexiness is associated with social ability in low-status jobs, but when a woman is in a position of power, sexiness may be viewed as dysfunctional and inappropriate."

Wookey, M. L., Graves, N. A., & Butler, J. C. (2009). Effects of a sexy appearance on perceived competence of women. The Journal of Social Psychology, 149, 116-118.

  

Made it to the top - but the view's not what we expected...

I know I've banged on quite a bit about women on boards, but here's a health warning. 

It seems that when women do get to the top many are faced with a glass cliff and left dangling over a dangerous company precipice.

Women are more likely to be appointed to leadership positions
when an organisation is in crisis.

By 2015 Lord Davies wants 25% female representation on boards (yes, one in four – an odd way of construing equality I know). And this year’s figures suggest everything’s on target to achieve it. In the FTSE100 women now account for 15.6% of all directorships, up from 12.5% last year. And although there are still 11 all-male boards, at least that’s down from last year’s staggering 21.

But last week, when talking to Ernst and Young about diversity, a lovely lady there alerted me to the notion of the glass cliff. 

Yes, we’ve heard of the glass ceiling – that invisible put impenetrable barrier that hinders female advancement in the workplace -  and even the glass escalator that gives men a smooth ride to the top, but the glass cliff? 

It comes from research by Ryan and Haslam at the University of Exeter who, in a systematic study of the performance of FTSE 100 companies before and after appointing a board member, found that companies who appointed a woman were more likely to have experienced consistently poor performance in the months preceding the appointment.

This is both good and bad news. It demonstrates that companies are willing to do something different in times of crisis. In fact there's more recent evidence that  a crisis disrupts traditional stereotypes of what makes a good leader, favouring female attributes over male. But it's a bit like taking over the controls after the car has been wrecked and Ryan and Haslam  include a note of caution in their paper, saying:

Positions on glass cliffs can be seen as being exceedingly dangerous for the women who hold them. Companies that have experienced consistently bad performance are bound to attract attention to themselves and to those on their boards of directors … In this way, compared to men, women who assume leadership offices may be differentially exposed to criticism and in greater danger of being apportioned blame for negative outcomes that were set in train well before they assumed their new roles.

Ryan & Haslam (2005),The Glass Cliff: Evidence that Women Are Over-Represented in Precarious Leadership Positions, British Journal of Management.

20 money milestones for kids

As school exams get underway there’s a lot of stuff being digested in teenage bedrooms all over the country. I don’t just mean chocolate hob-nobs, but maybe some geography, german and algebra too.

Are modern kids prepared for the money world?

However,  one subject that’s notably absent from the modern curriculum is financial literacy. 

In a couple of years hoards of these youngsters will be managing their own finances, perhaps while saddled with student loans. And research shows that a big chunk of them won’t understand the money basics, like the difference between AER and APR or how compound interest works, by the time they reach adulthood.

That’s why I welcomed the launch this week of a website aimed at helping kids understand money. Moneyasyougrow.org is a site that features 20 essential money milestones that kids go through from the age of three to eighteen.

OK, it’s a US site but loads of the common sense stuff applies here too.

As do the key activities that help kids to learn at each age stage. I’ve selected just one for each age group here:

3 – 5 year olds need to understand that you may have to wait before you can have something that you want (see my earlier blog on one thing to teach your kids)

6-10 years olds need to know that it’s good to shop around and compare prices before you buy

11- 13 year olds are advised to save a dime for every dollar they get (for kids in the UK that would be 10p in the pound, although I suggest a third is better)

15 – 18 year olds are advised to use cash rather than credit cards for purchases and the over 18s are told they should only use a credit card if they can pay off the whole balance in full every month.

Many of the money problems we see in adults have their roots in childhood. 
So many of us had little or no financial education as kids and grew up into financial illiterate adults. Others had parents who handed down such strict money rules that money strikes fear in them years later and they avoid responsibility. 
One way to stop this pattern repeating itself if you have kids is to start a simple money education as soon as they are old enough to reach up and hand their pennies over the sweetie counter. The moneyasyougrow site is a good place to start; there are also lots of tips in Sheconomics.

What ‘price’ do you put on being fashionable?

Fashion theorists often debate whether fashion liberates or enslaves women. Arguably, all fashions are enslaving. 

But some are more enslaving than others. 

Tight skirts restrict free movement.

Heels are one of the weird ways in which women
 are trapped by fashion,
according to Professor Mary Beard.

High heels make walking difficult and running nigh impossible.

And then there are nail extensions.

Nail extensions strike me as the most enslaving of all current fashions. Just when we’ve become liberated to the point where we can do virtually anything men can do, we go and turn ourselves into Edwina Scissorhands.

Modern handicapping?

In fact, the practice of affixing acrylic appendages to the ends of women’s fingers strikes me as the modern equivalent of foot-binding.

It undermine’s women autonomy. It stops them from performing a whole host of quotidien acts fundamental to life.I have normal, unextended nails. That means I am free to:

• Knead dough
• Tickle a baby
• Throw a pot on a wheel
• Sow seeds
• Caress my husband

without causing anybody grievous bodily harm.
I defy anyone to do any of those things in one-and-a-half-inch rock-hard chiselled and lacquered nail extensions (OK I just defy anyone to do the last one).
As Thoreau said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it”
At the risk of getting my eyes scratched out, I would say any fashion that involves physical bonds is over-priced. Not just monetarily but in the treasured moments of life sacrificed for it.

I'm all for adornment, just not into self-crippling or self-handicapping adornment.  

Check this out:

The Body Adorned exhibition at the Horniman Museum explores how people clothe and adorn their bodies, with a special focus on London. Over time, saris, tattoo parlours, nail bars, distended ears and scarification have become a visible, everyday part of the London cityscape. But how did cultural adornments become integrated into urban London life? This exhibition invites you to look at how you dress your body and why. It’s well worth a visit.

The Body Adorned runs until

 6^th January 2013. 

www.horniman.ac.uk

Wardrobe Under Construction…and On a Budget

We are thrilled to have this guest blog from Jennifer Baumgarter, Psy.D. 

Jennifer is author of You Are What You Wear: What your clothes reveal about you. Here she shows you how to manage your wardrobe wisely.

These are tough financial times that we live in, but having a small budget does not mean that we need to skimp on style. Contrary to popular belief, you can build a fabulous wardrobe without compromising your credit! Here's how:

• Assess and Clean the Slate: The best wardrobes are built on items that are already in your closet. Before you shop, examine what you already have. Keep what works for your lifestyle, age, body, and coloring, and what actually makes you feel good. Remove anything that does not work with other pieces in your closet, has not been worn, does not work with your external self, and does not enhance the internal. The clothes that you choose to sell or consign will give you the seed money for new pieces.

• Find Your Look and Stick to It: Don’t walk out the door to shop until you know what your look will be. Use the pieces that remain in your wardrobe as a guide. Determine what your wardrobe classics are, not the ones that you are told are classic. If you are still having trouble, take the time to create a style file with magazine pictures or online images. You will notice a pattern of items and looks that you prefer, and it is those that you should shop for. Anything that doesn’t fit within your look, whether it be colourful or monochromatic, classic or trendy, safari or nautical, should not be purchased. This ensures that all items work together, and you will actually get wear out of what you buy.

• Less is More: Paradoxically, the fewer pieces you have in your wardrobe the more options you have. Spearheaded by Donna Karan in the 1980s, a capsule collection was composed of the least amount of pieces that would create the most outfit options. When you are on a budget you should focus on capsule pieces, such as a sheath dress, jean, blazer, or trousers, that will work in all seasons, for different events, throughout weight fluctuations, etc. These pieces must be multipurpose and multifunctional…and machine washable! If you must change things up for the season or trend, switch your shoes, jewellery, handbags, and other accessories that are often less expensive items.

• Shop Smart: Before you swipe that card or take out that cash, answer one question as objectively as you can: Is this item a need or a want? If it is a want, and you are concerned about your budget, put the item back. If the item is a need, buy if you are able to afford it. When buying during sales or in discount or second hand stores, where you may be more tempted to buy inexpensive items, ask the same question. This also holds true when shopping with friends or sales associates who might influence you to buy items when you don’t truly need them. Treating oneself is important, but if your financial situation does not allow for extravagances, buying out of want is merely a waste of money that is better suited for a need.

Read more on Jennifer's blog on The Psychology of Dress here. 

Follow Jennifer on Twitter: @drjennyb

Feeling down, dressing down?

Why do some women dress down? We probably all know a woman who, despite her model figure and gorgeous face, doesn't want to be noticed. So she wears camouflage clothes. Not of the army surplus variety, I mean clothes that blend into the background. Often her other half has an ego so huge she’s creeping around in his shadow.
It’s the human equivalent of the spectacularly flashy peacock with his bland bride.
It makes me wonder whether someone has told Kate Middleton to ‘tone it down a bit, love’ for fear she outshines her prince. We all know what happens when a royal girl does that.

Trouble is, if a woman is suppressing her appearance how much of her personality is she also giving up?

Not wanting to be noticed can have many root causes

Appearance anxiety

Appearance anxiety lies behind a lot of dowdy dressing. Many women suffer from body dissatisfaction, and even have feelings of disgust about their physical appearance. These women end up hiding from their own bodies. But they may also be hiding from themselves. Deep down there may be parts of their inner self they are denying. The answer might be to dress as the person they'd like to be, to try and trick the psyche into a more positive state. Try bright saturated hues, funky prints and playful accessories.

Comfort clothing

Everyone knows about comfort food. It’s the bad stuff you eat when you think you deserve it and can’t give a toss about the consequences. I think there’s comfort shopping too. And comfort clothing. The wardrobe equivalent of hob-nobs and chocolate cake. Clothes that are bad for you but beckon to you when feeling down. Jeans and baggy tops are the hob-nobs and chocolate cake of the female wardrobe, my recent research found. They’re comfort clothes that women reach for when they’re in the doldrums.  But when she sees in the mirror how rubbish she looks those negative feelings get reinforced. That's where a downward spiral can begin. But just as it's best not to have too many hob-nobs in the house if you've a biscuit habit, the trick here is to purge your wardrobe of those bad-for-you items too. Start by binning anything that's beige and boring.

Inner and outer happiness

Enclothed cognition

An outfit can both reflect and generate an emotional state. Recent research* shows that our clothes influence how we think and feel. So dressing down should be taken seriously. It could be a sign of depression, poor body image, even a relationship that’s off-balance. Researchers from Manchester  University** have shown that trying on unfamiliar clothes can influence both positive and negative mood states. Basically clothes can cheer you up or drag you down. So if you dress down don’t be surprised if you end up feeling a bit crap too. Perhaps the answer is this....

Happy clothes
I’ve been working with Vogue in Turkey to come up with ideas for mood-enhancing outfits. The prospect that an outfit could ward off depression is very appealing, a nice alternative to drugs.
More to come on that soon. Meanwhile I’m off to put on something neon-bright and snug-fitting. As soon as I’ve finished this chocolate cake.

Interested in the psychology of fashion? Then you'll love the guest blog coming later this week from Dr Jennifer Baumgartner, author of You Are What You Wear. Sign up to follow this blog now.

* Adam, H. & Galinsky, A.D., Enclothed Cognition, Journal of  Experimental Social Psychology (2012). doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.008 **Moody et al (1996) An exploratory study: Relationships between trying on clothing, mood, emotion, personality and clothing preference Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 14, 1, (pp. 161 - 179)