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Clothing is more than just decoration of the body or protection from the elements. Clothes
have powers - over your mind. Scientists have demonstrated this in experiments in which
they divided people in to two groups. Group A wore their normal street clothes while Group
B wore their normal clothes and lab coats. When those people went on to perform tests
of mental agility, the group wearing lab coats made half as many mistakes as the group not
wearing lab coats. Stranger still, in a similar experiment in
which both groups wore lab coats but one was told they were wearing painter's smocks and
the other told they were wearing doctor's coats, the doctor's clothed group performed
much better in brain games than did the painter's clothed group.
Scientists call this weird phenomenon "Enclothed Cognition" and they say it depends on the
symbolic meaning of the clothing and the psychological experience of wearing the clothes constantly
reminding you of what those clothes represent. The symbolic power of a white coat changes
depending on what you call it, and then wearing it prepares you to be more attentive or more
careful or more artistic. That feeling can then translate into actual changes in your
behavior and performance depending on the situation.
So, remember the clothes you wear don't just change the way other people see you, they
change the way you see yourself. And, wearing certain kinds of clothes can affect the way
you behave and even change the way you think. That means wearing a pair of glasses not only
makes you look smart, it also makes you feel and act like you are now less dumb.