I believe that we underestimate the enormous power of a business suit.
Put one on and you will know what I am talking about. You quickly feel different. You act different. And people treat you different.
It is no accident that politicians, CEO’s, defendants in court, and those being interviewed sport them.
How simple that you can control what people think of you by simply putting on a suit.
We know this intuitively, of course, but here is the proof. Just be careful who you start jaywalking with.
Understand: How you look matters.
Less blatant in its connotation than a uniform, but nonetheless effective, is another kind of attire that has traditionally bespoken authority status in our culture: the well-tailored business suit. It, too, can evoke a telling form of deference from total strangers. Research conducted in Texas, for instance, arranged for a thirty-one-year-old man to violate the law by crossing the street against the traffic light on a variety of occasions. In half of the cases, he was dressed in a freshly pressed business suit and tie; on the other occasions, he wore a work shirt and trousers. The researchers watched from a distance and counted the number of pedestrians waiting at the corner who followed the man across the street. Like the children of Hamelin who crowded after the Pied Piper, three and a half times as many people swept into traffic behind the suited jaywalker. In this case, though, the magic came not from his pipe but his pinstripes.
