Those Sweats You Keep Wearing Could Be Affecting Your Success at Work

Studys show the way you dress can have a big impact on how you work.

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Complex Original

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You might want to rethink rocking those sweatpants to the office. While it's cool to be comfy, studies show there is a way to dress for success and it doesn't include wearing athleisure. The Wall Street Journal recently wrangled up a bunch of studies that prove dressing better can actually make you work better. According to its findings, dressing up in a suit or blazer can have positive results in the workplace like raising your confidence level and affecting how others perceive you.

The results were backed by a study done in 2014, which put 128 men in three groups with the one wearing suits, the second wearing sweats and a T-shirt, and the third wearing what they came in with. The groups participated in role-playing exercises to determine if their clothes affected the outcome of their business transactions. What they found was that the group in the suits was much less willing to budge during negotiations, only moving $830,000 from the offer compared to the sweats group which moved $2.81 million.

Michael W. Kraus, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, tells WSJ that the results mean that in competitive situations wearing more formal attire can signal to others that you are successful and confident while those more casually dressed tend to back down more easily.

Another study done in 2015, found that dressing up for work can actually expand your way of thinking. The study asked 361 participants to complete tasks. The results found that the people who were dressed up showed the kinds of abstract thinking that someone in a position of power would have.

While it's not appropriate for every guy to show up to work in a suit, Julie Rath a men’s style consultant even suggests focusing on quality and fit or just adding a tie to your daily wardrobe to help step up your game. 

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