Dress In Casuals, Climb Ladder Of Success

                Wearing casual clothes and flouting the office dress code could make you seem more competent. Called the ‘red sneakers effect’, intentionally standing out from the crowd could send a positive message of status, confidence and power. While unintentional violations of normative codes and etiquette can indeed result in negative inferences and attributions, when the deviant behavior appears to be deliberate, it can lead to higher rather than lower status and competence inferences.

                Certain CEOs of major corporations have been known to appear without ties or even wearing sweatshirts at interviews and formal gatherings such as the World Economic Forum. These results, which hold even when controlling for gender and age, indicate formance within a given community is correlated with a stronger tendency to deviate from a conforming dress code (e.g. wearing jeans, sneakers, T-shirts rather than professional and formal attire).

                Corroborating their theory, the team undertook field research at an academic study where they rated the formality of clothes worn by 76 randomly selected attendees. After taking into account the attendee’s age, gender and years since receiving their PhD – the researchers found wearing jeans and t-shirts rather than smarter options to the conference positively correlated with research productivity. The study stressed the importance of making the casual clothes choice appear intentional so it becomes a power statement rather than an image of laziness.