Success: Formal Clothing and Delay Discounting a Thesis Submitted

Home , Clothing

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

Dress for (Long-Term) Success:

Formal Clothing and Delay Discounting

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

For the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology,

General-Experimental

Monica Olivia Reyes

May 2017

The thesis of Monica Olivia Reyes is approved:

______Dr. Andrew T. Ainsworth Date

______Dr. Sara R. Berzenski Date

______Dr. Abraham M. Rutchick, Chair Date

California State University, Northridge

iii

DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to:

Dr. Abraham M. Rutchick, The GOAT. Thank you for believing in me always, and for sharing with me your priceless knowledge.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SIGNATURE PAGE……………………………………………….………………...…..iii

DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………iv

ABSTRACT……………………………………...……………………………...……….vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………1

CHAPTER 2: STUDY 1…………………………………………………………………..7

2.1 METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………………7

2.2 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION………………………………………………9

CHAPTER 3: STUDY 2…………………………………………………………………11

3.1 METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………………..11

3.2 MANIPULATION CHECK……………………………………………...... 13

3.2 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION……………………………………………..13

CHAPTER 4: GENERAL DISCUSSION……………………………………………….15

REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………..17

APPENDIX A: TEMPORAL DISCOUNTING MEASURE……………………………21

APPENDIX B: REMOTE ASSOCIATES TEST………………………………………..22

APPENDIX C: ACTION IDENTIFICATION TASK…………………………………..23

ABSTRACT

Dress for (Long-Term) Success:

Formal Clothing and Delay Discounting

Monica Reyes

Master of Arts in Psychology, General-Experimental

Recent research has shown that cognitive abilities are associated with bodily states, and that wearing formal clothing, relative to casual clothing, causes people to think more abstractly. In Study 1, we examined whether wearing formal clothing, which is associated with power, would enhance cognitive processes that result from abstract processing.

Conversely, perceiving powerful others can make people feel less powerful. Study 2 tests this converse process by exposing participants to people wearing formal clothing and examines cognitive processing styles and decision making.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

When a person picks out clothing for the day, they must consider a few things.

Where do they plan to go? Who do they plan to see? What do they plan to accomplish? In most cases, we choose our clothing out of necessity because it can be advantageous to us in a variety of settings. Social science has shown us that nonverbal factors, such as communicator’s attractiveness, play a role in our ability to persuade others over and above our trustworthiness or quality of knowledge (Burgoon, Dunbar, & Segrin, 2002).

This implies that interpersonal effectiveness can be strongly impacted by physical characteristics (one of which is the clothing worn by the communicator).

Wearing clothing that is formal can be an effective strategy for obtaining our objectives, in that it allows us to portray status and professionalism, which is necessary in certain situations. For example, when wearing a suit, we may be taken more seriously in a job interview, or treated with more respect while dining at a restaurant. This could be because the clothing itself differentiates us from others and thus gives us a sense of identity and pride (Griskevicius, Shiota, & Nowlis, 2010). According to Belk (1978), several studies have shown that those who wear more formal attire, rather than a casual ensemble, are likely to receive more compliance with their requests (e.g., taking a quick survey). It is also more likely that a person wearing formal clothing will have their behaviors mimicked by those around them (e.g., crossing a street against a traffic light;

Belk, 1978). Indeed, formal clothing has been shown to signal status (Lasswell &

Parshall, 1961) which makes it likely for a person to be respected and get what they want.

Beyond the way people perceive those wearing formal clothing, the clothing itself has an effect on the way people perceive themselves. Research conducted by Peluchette

and Karl (2007) showed that those who wore formal attire report feeling more authoritative, competent, and trustworthy than those wearing casual attire. In understanding this, then, the experience of wearing certain types of clothing can influence one’s behavior according to what the clothing represents. Accordingly, formal clothing, with its established representation of power and status, can not only change a person’s appearance, but may also affect their cognitions.

In fact, past studies have focused on whether people’s behaviors are impacted by the psychological meaning behind physical experiences, bodily states, and actions. There are many recent demonstrations of these types of effects: the physical experience of holding hard or soft objects non-consciously influences impressions and decisions formed about ambiguous people and situations (Ackerman, Nocera, & Bargh, 2010), moving in clockwise motions induced psychological states of temporal progression

(Topolinski & Sparenberg, 2012), and the act of flexing one’s arm, relative to extending it, led to increased perceptions of trust (Slepian et al., 2012). Thus, bodily states, objects, and actions that have psychological meaning can influence cognition and behavior.

With respect to clothing specifically, a recent demonstration (Adam & Galinsky,

2012) suggests that the symbolic meaning behind wearing specific clothing is just as important as the physical experience of wearing it. In their study, Adam and Galinsky

(2012) first tested whether participants wearing a lab coat had increased selective attention (Experiment 1) over those who did not wear a lab coat. Selective attention was chosen as the dependent variable because lab coats are typically worn by doctors and scientists, whom of which are typically known to be very careful and attentive. They then compared whether there was a difference in attentiveness between participants wearing

the lab coat described as either a doctor’s coat or a painter’s coat (Experiments 2 & 3).

While wearing a lab coat did in fact increase selective attention over not wearing one at all, the symbolic meaning associated with wearing it as a doctor’s coat further enhanced attentiveness. According to these results, then, wearing specific types of clothing can become associated with various cognitions and behaviors in accordance with the meaning that the clothing conveys (Slepian et al., 2015).

Those who wear formal clothing are typically in a position of power or authority.

Therefore, the physical experience of wearing formal clothing should increase one’s feelings of power. Power has been shown to influence behaviors such as risk-taking and extroversion (Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003). Most pertinent to the current work is that people with power process information abstractly, while those who feel less powerful process information concretely (Smith & Trope, 2006). A recent study conducted by

Slepian and colleagues (2015) examined whether wearing formal clothing versus casual clothing enhanced abstract cognitive processing. Abstract processes were measured through a series of experiments using category inclusiveness, action identification, and global processing methods. Participants wearing formal clothing were more likely to identify actions at a higher level than those wearing casual clothing. For example, when given an action like locking the door, those wearing formal clothing identified the intention behind the action (“protecting the house”) rather than just identifying the action itself (“turning a key”). Identifying the intention behind the action suggests a higher level of abstract processing. Wearing formal clothing was also associated with enhanced category inclusiveness. Participants wearing formal clothing were more likely to consider weak exemplars as good fits to categories, while those wearing casual clothing processed

the categories in a more concrete manner. By and large, results showed that wearing formal clothing was associated with enhanced abstract processing throughout all measures (Slepian et al., 2015).

According to Kraus and Mendes (2014), symbols of social class, such as clothing, communicate hierarchal positions in human interactions. Additionally, those who perceive people wearing clothing that represents a high level of status and class, such as formal clothing, feel reduced sense of power. Within their study, Kraus and Mendes examined the influence of manipulated clothing types including behavior and physiology of participants during a negotiation task. Specifically, in dyadic interactions, one participant wore clothing which represented low class, consisting of sweatpants, a t-shirt, and sandals, while the other participant wore clothing which represented upper class, consisting of a black suit, white button-down collared shirt, and leather shoes. Results showed that perceivers of upper class targets displayed a lower sense of power during the negotiation task then perceiver of lower class targets. This was evaluated using a 7-point

Likert scale which measured sense of power before and after the negotiation task.

Additionally, it was revealed that participants wearing the upper-class symbols of clothing obtained significantly higher profits in the negotiation task than did perceivers.

This suggests a correlation between a higher class wardrobe and dominance. Dominance can be defined as behaviors that involve tendencies to value one’s own interests over those of others (Sidanius, Pratto, & Bobo, 1996).

The current studies had two goals. First, given the established link between formal clothing and abstract processing, I sought to examine the downstream consequences of wearing formal clothing – that is, processes that result from abstract processing.

Therefore, Study 1 manipulated participants’ clothing and measured delay discounting and creativity. According to Kirby and Marakovic (1996), individuals typically choose an immediate reward over a delayed reward because of a psychological function called temporal discounting (also known as delay discounting). Simply put, people justify taking a smaller immediate reward over a larger delayed reward so that we don’t have to wait. The tactic has potential to explain impulsiveness in human decision making (Kirby

& Marakovic, 1996). However, delay discounting is less likely to occur when people are using an abstract processing style (Fujita et al., 2006). While processing abstractly, people are more likely to consider future rewards and be less impulsive. Relative to concrete processing, abstract processing facilitates the pursuit of meaningful, long-term goals over short-term gains (Fujita et al., 2006). Further, research has shown that power is associated with enhanced executive functioning, such as abstract processing and the ability to focus on optimal outcomes, such as making economically successful decisions

(Joshi & Fast, 2013). Next, creativity was measured using a method that required participants to make remote connections between arbitrary concepts in order to find correct solutions. In order to find remotely associated connections, deeper level associative search is imperative (Slepian & Ambady, 2012). Specifically, people must think of more distally related information, which requires abstract processing (Bowden &

Jung-Beeman, 2003).

It is important to note that perceiving power can affect people differently than when they themselves feel powerful. When one person exhibits powerful behavior, the person perceiving it displays submissiveness, because submission facilitates a smoother interaction when dealing with someone in a position of power (Tiedens & Fragale, 2003).

Given that the clothing a person wears can communicate one’s position in society relative to others, I predict that those interacting with a person wearing formal clothing will evaluate the self at a more subordinate level than their counterpart. Additionally, those who don formal clothing will display social behaviors similar to those elicited by other rank-level constructs, such as social power (Kraus & Mendes, 2014). If this is true, it follows that interacting with someone who is dressed more formally should decrease abstract processing with consequences for other cognitive processes (delay discounting and creativity). Study 2, then, examined this process; participants interacted with an experimenter who was either formally or casually dressed and completed measures of delay discounting and abstract processing. A secondary goal of Study 2 was to directly examine whether power and abstract processing mediated the effect of formal clothing.

CHAPTER 2: STUDY 1

Study 1 focused on whether wearing formal clothing induces cognitive processes that are consequences of abstract processing, namely reduced delay discounting and increased creativity. Some participants changed from their street clothes into formal clothing, whereas others changed into casual clothing. Then all participants completed a series of cognitive and decision-making tasks. I theorized that people wearing formal clothing would display decreased delay discounting and increased creativity, because they are consequences of abstract processing.

Methodology

Undergraduate participants were recruited using the California State University,

Northridge SONA System. Upon signing up for the study, participants were told that they would be completing some judgement and decision-making tasks and that the procedure required them to dress in a particular manner. Each participant (N = 208) brought two sets of clothing to the laboratory: one formal, operationalized as “clothing you would wear to a job interview”; and one casual, operationalized as “clothing you would wear to class”. Photographs of each set of clothing were taken in order to keep a historical record and proof of typical clothing distinctions. Participants were under the impression that the photographs would be analyzed by a computer feature analysis program and would not be used outside of the study. Generally, formal clothing included business slacks and a modest blouse or collared button down, sometimes paired with a blazer. Casual clothing was generally jeans or shorts with a t-shirt. They were randomly assigned to change into one or the other set of clothing, then completed a delay discounting measure and a

Remote Associates Test measure.

A temporal discounting measure (Appendix A), taken from Kirby and Marakovic

(1996), was used. It consisted of 21 choice trials, each with one smaller, immediate reward and one larger, delayed reward measured participants’ impulsivity and likelihood to discount rewards at a higher rate consistent with delayed projected acquisition. The article in which this measure is introduced has been cited over 500 times in studies typically used to examine individual differences in delay discounting behavior (e.g.,

Kirby, Petry, & Bickel, 1999, Alessi & Petry, 2003), allowing considerable confidence in reliability of the measure.

A Remote Associates Test (RAT; Appendix B) was used as a means of measuring creative thinking. In a RAT, participants are required to find one solution word that can be associated with three “hint” words. For example, the three words cottage/swiss/cake are associated with the solution word “cheese”. When processing concretely, people are likely to make an incorrect guess as to what the solution word is by automatically trying to find a partner word for only one of the hint words (likely, the first one seen). Although the RAT problems are not overly complex, the previous research done by Bowden, E. &

Jung-Beeman, M. (2003), has shown that the ability to solve problems such as these involve some of the same cognitive components involved in the processes of solving more complex creative problems. Additional studies involving usage of the RAT include that of neural insights on creative activity (Jung-Beeman et al., 2004), suggesting that it measures what it purports to measure.

Research assistants brought participants into the lab individually and confirmed that they had two sets of clothing, both casual and formal. Once this was verified, all participants were told that they would be engaging in a study that examines that part of

clothing choice and style is size and fit. Furthermore, they were told that in order for us to assess these qualities, we would need to take photographs of the clothing itself as well as their photograph while wearing the specific types of clothing. Next, participants were told to change into a specific set of clothing in a private dressing room within the lab and come out when they were finished. The set of clothing that each participant changed into was randomly assigned right before each experiment began, hence why it was mandatory for each participant to bring both sets. Therefore, the only thing that varied between conditions was which set of clothing participants changed into.

Once the participant was dressed in either the formal or casual clothing, they were placed in front of a computer containing their RAT and delay discounting tasks. After completing the tasks, the research assistant then debriefed the participant on the experiment’s true intention, informing them of our hypothesis. Participants were then able to change back into their regular attire and were thanked and given credit for participation.

Results and Discussion

In Study 1, we found that decision-making was nudged toward long-term thinking when people were wearing formal clothing, as opposed to casual. Based on the results of an independent samples t-test, participants wearing formal clothing made more long-term choices (M = 8.8) than participants wearing casual clothing (M = 7; t(206) = 2.65, p <

.01, Cohen’s d = .37). This suggests that wearing formal clothing, relative to casual clothing, induced less delay discounting. However, independent samples t-test revealed no significant difference between formal and casual clothing in the Remote Associates

Test performance (Mformal = 4.49, Mcasual = 3.84; t(206) = 1.49, p = .14, d = .21). While its

effect on creativity seems to be modest, if it exists at all, wearing formal clothing indeed induced cognitive processes that are consequences of abstract processing to the extent that it causes less temporal discounting.

CHAPTER 3: STUDY 2

Thus far, the evidence for the mediators of the formal clothing effect is limited; determining whether felt power, abstract processing, or both mediate the effect of clothing is an important step. Secondarily, an important next step would be to test whether the effect of formal clothing is relative; this is plausible, as it has been shown that formal clothing makes people act more dominant in a high status way, and the putative mechanism for the formal clothing effect, power, is relative.

The current study focused on the implications of the perception of formal clothing for cognitive processing. Wearing formal clothing makes people feel more powerful; I proposed that perceiving people who are wearing formal clothing should have the reverse effect: feeling less powerful. Participants were exposed to a person in formal or casual clothing and then completed a series of cognitive and decision-making tasks, as well as reported how powerful they felt. Specifically, I examined abstract processing (using an action identification measure) and delay discounting. As creativity was not significantly influenced by wearing formal clothing in Study 1, I did not examine it in Study 2. I predicted that when participants were exposed to formal clothing, they would exhibit the opposite effects of cognitive functioning as when they are wearing it – namely, less abstract processing and greater delay discounting. Additionally, I expected that these effects would be mediated by felt power.

Methodology

Participants (total N = 240) were recruited using the California State University,

Northridge SONA System. The experiment contained two conditions wherein participants were either exposed to a researcher wearing formal clothing or casual

clothing. Operational definitions of clothing style matched those used in Study 1 (casual being, “what you would wear to class; formal being, “what you would wear to a job interview”). However, since the clothing was worn by the researcher in this scenario, formal and casual clothing was consistent amongst all participants (formal being slacks, a button down, and a suit jacket; casual being jeans and a t-shirt). Females were matched with a female research assistant; males were matched with a male research assistant. We used this approach to avoid intimidation or discomfort. We used this control to prevent confound gender effects such as intimidation or discomfort. Thus, each condition consisted of 120 undergraduate participants, 60 of which were male and 60 females. The experimenter remained in either formal or casual clothing for several consecutive experimental sessions. The experimental sessions were “blocked” in this way so that the experimenters’ clothing did not become disheveled by repeatedly changing clothes.

An Action Identification Task was used to measure abstract thinking (Appendix

C). According to Vallacher and Wegner (1987), the way we think about the intention of our actions can describe at what level we are processing them. For this task, participants were given an action example (e.g., “Voting”), then chose an action identification that best suited the example (e.g., “Marking a ballot” or “Influencing the election”). The choice they made demonstrated whether their thinking was more abstract or concrete.

Participants also completed the same measure of delay discounting used in Study 1.

Participants were brought into the lab by a research assistant dressed in accordance with the condition into which the participant was assigned. They then sat at a desk across from the experimenter where they were administered the two tasks to be

completed on paper. The order of the tasks, delay discounting and abstract processing, was counterbalanced in order to control for possible carryover effects.

Manipulation Check

A check on perceived power was conducted to measure whether participants did in fact feel less powerful when being exposed to a person in formal clothing compared to a person in casual clothing. Participants indicated, using a scale from 0-100 how powerful they felt (0-not powerful at all to 100-very powerful). A second manipulation check was conducted to assess how formal the participant felt the experimenter’s clothing was, as well as how formal they participant felt their clothing was. Participants chose on a scale from 0-100 how formal the experimenter’s clothing, as well as their own clothing, was (0-very casual to 100-very formal). We ran these manipulation checks at the end of the experiment, in the aforementioned order, rather than the beginning, to avoid revealing the purpose of the experiment.

Results and Discussion

In contrast to my hypothesis, an independent samples t-test revealed that people who interacted with a formally dressed experimenter identified more actions abstractly

(M = 6.40) than participants who interacted with casually dressed experimenters (M =

5.73; t(238) = 2.45, p = .01, Cohen’s d= .32). These unexpected findings cast doubt on my hypothesis, which was that exposure to formally dressed people would induce processing consistent with being dressed informally. Conversely, perceiving the experimenter in formal clothing may have primed participants with formality, and thus induced abstract processing consistent with those dressed formally.

Based on the results of an independent sample t-test, there was no direct effect of experimenter clothing on delay discounting (Mformal = 8.13, Mcasual = 7.92; t(238) = .352, p

= .73, d = .04). However, there was an indirect effect: to the extent that participants rated the experimenter as being more formally dressed than themselves, they engaged in less delay discounting (b= .024, β = .18; SE= .009). The estimate of this indirect effect was generated using a Monte Carlo simulation (Selig and Preacher, 2008); the 95% confidence interval around this effect did not include zero (95% CI = .1393 - 1.044).

Additional analysis using a Monte Carlo simulation revealed that there was no indirect effect of formal clothing through power on delay discounting (b= .001, SE= .016, 95%

CI= -.092 - .097). Further, Monte Carlo simulation revealed that there was no indirect effect of formal clothing through power on action identification (b= .002, SE= .007, 95%

CI= -.038 - .048). Finally, independent samples t-tests revealed no significant effects of gender on delay discounting (Mmale = 7.91, Mfemale = 8.14; t(238) = .379, p = .71, d = .05) or action identification (Mmale = 6.33, Mfemale = 5.80; t(238) = .873, p = .05, d = .25).

CHAPTER 4: GENERAL DISCUSSION

In two studies, I found evidence that formal clothing is associated with decision- making and abstract processing, both when it is worn (Study 1) and when it is merely perceived (Study 2). However, the studies varied in the particular types of processing they influenced. In Study 1, I found that wearing formal clothing induced decreased temporal discounting of hypothetical monetary rewards. This represents a first demonstration that wearing formal clothing leads people to making better long term decisions. This finding could possibly be applied to other behavioral domains as well, including diet, exercise, and other health decisions, as well consumer behaviors such as ways to acquire and dispose of products or goods. In Study 2, contrary to my hypothesis,

I found that perceiving formal clothing also induced abstract processing. However, delay discounting was only decreased to the extent that the participant took notice of the experimenter’s formal attire. Nonetheless, this does further strengthen the connection between abstract processing and formal clothing in general, in that wearing it or merely perceiving it has potential to impact our processing style.

It is possible that perceiving formal clothing could have primed participants to embody more formal behavior. Research has shown that once an individual is primed with a concept, they are likely to employ that concept, given an opportunity (Spielberger,

2004). In Bargh, Chen, and Burrows’ study (1996), people primed with words associated with the concept of elderly people walked more slowly down a hallway than those primed with neutral words. In this case, formal clothing could have characterized the concept of status and power and, to such a degree, influenced participants to make decisions similar

to those who wore formal clothing in study 1, as well as in past research (Slepian et al.,

2015).

Additionally, one limitation of Study 2 is the idea that the experimenters could have been influenced by the hypothesis, and thus acted more formally when wearing the formal clothing; this formality may have, in turn, made participants feel more formal via contagion. This would further explain why participants engaged in processing styles consistent with those who wear formal clothing only when exposed to formally dressed experimenters over casually dressed experimenters. That is, only those who interacted with a person displaying power and dominance, due to the formal clothing, adopted long- term decision-making behaviors.

More research is needed before ruling out the idea that perceiving formal clothing can result in decision-making styles that are the converse of those adopted by individuals who wear formal clothing. One possible suggestion would be to conduct a dyad study, similar to that of Kraus and Mendes (2014), wherein both the formally dressed individual as well as the casually dressed individual are both participants in the study. This would prevent the potential confound of experimenter influence and would also provide more ecologically valid results. Further, the concept of power may still have its place in this work. Powerful people think more abstractly, and wearing formal clothing leads to a heightened sense of power and more abstract processing. It is important to further examine when power is important and when it is not. The results of this work hold potential to extend the current research on formal clothing and its consequences by revealing the influence of this everyday act on fundamental and impactful dimensions of cognition.

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APPENDIX A: TEMPORAL DISCOUNTING MEASURE

Table 1

Temporal Discounting Measure $34 tonight or $35 in 43 days $53 tonight or $55 in 55 days $83 tonight or $85 in 35 days $27 tonight or $30 in 35 days $48 tonight or $55 in 45 days $65 tonight or $75 in 50 days $21 tonight or $30 in 75 days $47 tonight or $60 in 50 days $30 tonight or $35 in 20 days $40 tonight or $65 in 70 days $67 tonight or $85 in 35 days $50 tonight or $80 in 70 days $25 tonight or $35 in 25 days $40 tonight or $55 in 25 days $45 tonight or $70 in 35 days $16 tonight or $30 in 35 days $32 tonight or $55 in 20 days $40 tonight or $70 in 20 days $15 tonight or $35 in 10 days $24 tonight or $55 in 10 days $30 tonight or $85 in 14 days

Note. The order of choice trials was randomized on each questionnaire. Each choice trial displayed the immediate reward first, followed by the delayed reward. Only one choice trial was displayed were page.

APPENDIX B: REMOTE ASSOCIATES TEST

Table 1 Remote Associates Test

Remote Associate Items Solutions

aid/rubber/wagon band safety/cushion/point pin flower/friend/scout girl pie/luck/belly pot hound/pressure/shot blood light/birthday/stick candle basket/eight/snow ball mouse/sand/bear trap type/ghost/screen writer horse/human/drag race coin/quick/spoon silver manners/round/tennis table floor/shade/heat lamp puppy/true/letter love ruby/glass/bunny slipper

Note. Participants were given a 45 second time limit to answer each question. Only one Remote Associate Item was displayed per page.

APPENDIX C: ACTION IDENTIFICATION TASK

Table 1 Action Identification Task

Action Identifier A Identifier B Filling out a Revealing what Answering personality test you’re like questions Greeting someone Showing Saying hello friendliness Making a list Getting Writing things organized down Picking an apple Getting Pulling an something to apple off a eat branch Cleaning the house Showing one’s Cleaning the cleanliness floor Painting a room Making the Applying room look brush strokes fresh Locking a door Securing the Putting a key house in the lock Voting Influencing the Marking a election ballot Taking a test Showing one’s Answering knowledge questions Resisting Showing moral Saying “no” temptation courage

Note. Each question displays the abstract identifier first, followed by the concrete identifier.