To Seem Better at Your Job, Ignore the Office Dress Code

New York Magazine:

Regardless of your office’s dress code, there’s something to be said for showing up at work in a power suit. The clothes, to a certain extent, make the employee: Past research has shown that dressing more formally can help you focus, make you more confident, and even give you an edge in abstract, big-picture thinking.

This last one, though, was a relative effect: People who dressed more formally at work became better at thinking abstractly, but only when they were more dressed up than everyone around them. And in that regard, the opposite tack — skewing way more casual than your co-workers — has its benefits, too: The Association for Psychological Science blog recently highlighted the “red sneakers effect,” in which people who flout the workplace dress code are actually seen as more competent at their jobs.

Read the whole story: New York Magazine