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Enclothed cognition

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Abstract

We introduce the term “enclothed cognition” to describe the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearer's psychological processes. We offer a potentially unifying framework to integrate past findings and capture the diverse impact that clothes can have on the wearer by proposing that enclothed cognition involves the co-occurrence of two independent factors—the symbolic meaning of the clothes and the physical experience of wearing them. As a first test of our enclothed cognition perspective, the current research explored the effects of wearing a lab coat. A pretest found that a lab coat is generally associated with attentiveness and carefulness. We therefore predicted that wearing a lab coat would increase performance on attention-related tasks. In Experiment 1, physically wearing a lab coat increased selective attention compared to not wearing a lab coat. In Experiments 2 and 3, wearing a lab coat described as a doctor's coat increased sustained attention compared to wearing a lab coat described as a painter's coat, and compared to simply seeing or even identifying with a lab coat described as a doctor's coat. Thus, the current research suggests a basic principle of enclothed cognition—it depends on both the symbolic meaning and the physical experience of wearing the clothes.

Highlights

► We show how clothes systematically influence wearers' psychological processes. ► Three experiments demonstrate that wearing a lab coat increases attention. ► Attention did not increase when the coat was not worn or associated with a painter. ► Attention only increased when the coat was a) worn and b) associated with a doctor. ► The influence of clothes thus depends on wearing them and their symbolic meaning.

Section snippets

Enclothed cognition

Traditional theories of cognition argue that cognitive representations are based on amodal, abstract content. In contrast, theories of embodied cognition (e.g., Barsalou, 1999, Barsalou, 2008, Glenberg, 1997, Niedenthal et al., 2005) argue that cognitive representations are based on modal, perceptual content that is based in the brain's sensory systems for perception (e.g., vision, audition), action (e.g., movement, proprioception), and introspection (e.g., mental states, affect). As physical

Experimental overview

In the current research, we tested our enclothed cognition perspective with respect to lab coats. Lab coats are the prototypical attire of scientists and doctors. Wearing a lab coat thus signifies a scientific focus and an emphasis on being careful and attentive—attributes that involve the importance of paying attention to the task at hand and not making errors. To confirm that people indeed associate a lab coat with attention-related concepts, we recruited 38 people (16 female, 22 male;

Design and participants

Fifty-eight undergraduates (41 females, 19 males; average age: 20.29 years) at a large university in the Midwestern United States participated in the experiment. They were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: wearing a lab coat vs. not wearing a lab coat.

Procedure and experimental manipulation

In the wearing-a-lab-coat condition, participants were asked to wear a disposable white lab coat. To provide a cover story, the experimenter told participants that other participants in prior sessions of this experiment had been wearing

Experiment 2: the importance of symbolic meaning

The results of Experiment 1 demonstrate that wearing a lab coat leads to increased selective attention on a Stroop task. Although these results are highly consistent with our enclothed cognition perspective, our model proposes that enclothed cognition involves two components: physically wearing the clothes and the symbolic meaning of the clothes. In Experiment 1, the two components were confounded, and the second component—the role of the symbolic meaning of the lab coat—was assumed rather than

Experiment 3: beyond mere exposure

The results of Experiment 2 demonstrate that wearing a lab coat leads to increased sustained attention on a comparative visual search task and that this effect depends on both whether the clothes are worn and the symbolic meaning of the clothes: Participants displayed greater sustained attention only when wearing a lab coat described as a doctor's coat, but not when wearing a lab coat described as a painter's coat or when seeing a lab coat described as a doctor's coat.

One intriguing finding

Discussion

The current research provides initial support for our enclothed cognition perspective that clothes can have profound and systematic psychological and behavioral consequences for their wearers. In Experiment 1, participants who wore a lab coat displayed increased selective attention compared to participants who wore their regular clothes. In Experiments 2 and 3, we found robust evidence that this influence of clothing depends on both whether the clothes are worn and the symbolic meaning of the

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