Nonverbal Q3 clothing and posture

• Can an individual's clothing and posture affect the way they behave

  1. Clothing and posture can communicate a lot more than we think

  2. We can make judgements on personality traits purely from the way a person presents themselves or their physical appearance

  3. Physical movements/posture can indicate personality traits & or feelings

  4. Tilting your head induces pride

  5. Hunched posture induces more depressed feelings

  6. Clenching fists increases feeling of power

  7. The way we walk can affect what we remember
• Clothing and posture can communicate a lot more than we think, we can make judgements as humans on personality traits purely from the way a person presents themselves or their physical appearance.
• Physical movements/posture can indicate personality traits & or feelings, tilting your head induces pride- Stepper & Strack, 1993, Hunched posture induces more depressed feelings- Riskind & Gatay, 1982, Clenching fists increases feeling of power (men)-Schubert & Koole, 2009 & Michalak, Rohode & Troje (2015)- the way we walk can affect what we remember.
• Moving on to the clothing as have discussed posture and body language, the impact on a way that an individual behaves and this the perception of being more professional in certain attire.
• We can create judgments about people solely based on their clothing, which can sometimes be linked to attributes like intelligence which is sometimes linked to status, it can influence how we think and feel therefore this is interpersonal and people's perceptions.
• Studies suggest professionalism in women's attire, the woman in a suit was perceived as being more forceful and had more hearing compared to the woman in the casual outfit.
• Enclothed cognition (adopting properties of the clothes we wear) can influence performance and how aggressive we are.
• To conclude, posture and the physical appearance of another person can influence the assumptions and judgments made on that person alongside the way they present themselves.
• Posture can indicate confidence as shown in the studies on power poses that holding your head high and your shoulder back can increase confidence and hunching your back and locking down can have the opposite effect.
• There are many studies on the way that an individual dresses, for example the studies on women in the workplace as much as I do not agree show that a woman presenting herself more modestly in the workplace such as having a longer skirt and all of her buttons done up lead to assumptions being higher about her ability.
• These studies show the effects of posture and mood and the way an individuals are perceived and how clothing can impact an individuals and their level of authority.
• The validity and the reliability of this research does pose some questioning as the assumptions that are made and the inferences taken from people's posture & clothing will be different to each individual as all of our different preferences will lead to different results.
• An example-the woman in the workplace situation = level of authority or intelligence based on clothing when the skirt was shorter & the button was undone, perceive in environment therefore it is the individuals making those assumptions that gives the results, the validity and reliability is low as the results are individuals opinions.
• Clothing


  • Can influence how we perceive others and how they perceive us
  • Can influence our behaviour and how we think and feel
  • Therefore has interpersonal and intrapersonal effects
• Clothing and perceptions of women

  • Women in masculine style seen as more forceful and received more hiring recommendations
  • Women in longer skirts and button-up blouse received higher ratings than shorter skirt with extra button undone
  • Women performed worse on maths test in swimwear, not men
• Interpersonal effects of clothing


  How intelligent, competent, and confident we appear
• Intrapersonal effects of clothing

  Enclothed cognition - adopting properties of the clothes we wear, can affect our cognitive performance and aggressiveness
• Replication studies found no significant effects of enclothed cognition
• Clothing can affect what we think, but is less likely to affect how we think
• Crossing arms makes people more persistent on unsolvable anagrams
• Power poses


  • Increase testosterone
  • Decrease cortisol
• Power poses


  • Peacocks displaying tail feathers
  • Cats arching backs and walking sideways
• High power poses


  Take more risks in gambling tasks, feel more powerful and in charge
• Replication studies found no real behavioural or hormonal effects of power posing, but social effects were found
• Wearing police officer uniform


  More distracted by those with low social economic status
• Power posing causes physiological, psychological, and behavioural changes consistent with the effects of power
• Clothing alone can influence rapid judgments of trustworthiness, confidence, success, salary, and flexibility
• Higher perceiver job status negatively affected overall perceptions of a man in a suit