You are what you wear. Dress it up or dress it down. Believe it or not, your choice in clothing can affect your mood. It may seem silly to think that choosing an oversized t-shirt or sweatshirt over a nice top can reflect upon your mood, but recent studies have proven that “people who spend an abundance of time dressed in baggy, frumpy clothing tend to feel more depressed, whereas those who wear nicer clothing–such as higher quality tops and jeans–tend to feel happier.” If you think about it, things do start to piece together and the relation between clothing and mood becomes more evident. When you’re in a bad mood are you really going to want to dress up nicely? The answer is probably no. However, an effective way to snap out of your crummy mood could be to dress up nicely.
This theory can especially be portrayed throughout the work world. Writer Joe Pinsker explains
this phenomenon as ‘dressing up the brain’, implying that dressing nicer can change individuals thought processes. To add to that, psychology professor Abraham Rutchick of California State University, Northridge conducted a study that verified that “putting on formal clothes makes us feel powerful, and that changes the basic way we see the world”.
Not only can clothing style impact your mood psychologically but the colors of your clothing can also affect your mood. 
- Red clothing: positive feelings, suggests power, passion, and romance
- Yellow clothing: happy, cheery, and promotes creativity
- Blue clothing: relaxing and calming
- Black clothing: promotes a more serious and professional look and attitude
- Purple clothing: fosters a more sophisticated look.
- Green clothing: calming and stress relieving
As stereotypical as it sounds, your choice in clothing has the ability to define what type of person you are. I came across a study that is in support of the above statement. This study uncovered the differential performances among individuals. All subjects were asked to wear a white lab coat, however, some subjects were told the coat belonged to a doctor, and others were told it belonged to a painter. Performance among the individuals with the doctors coat was observed to be more attentive and motived. From this, it became evident that subjects level of performance varied depending on specific occupations.
When picking out an outfit for the day you definitely do not realize how much of a psychological affect your outfit choice can have. So if you want to feel great then you should dress great!
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Reminds me of the, “You are what you eat” persona. Can retail therapy be involved in this ideal. Shopping for the clothes you like can make you happy This could possibly add onto a correlation of clothing or the idea of nice clothing (our own perception to nice) makes us happy.
This is a very interesting post and 100% relate to it. When I wear sweat and a shirt, I do not feel good about myself. When I actually put some effort into my outfit, it gives me motivation to also do my hair and makeup. With motivation comes confidence, and vise versa. Great post!
This is definitely true, as anytime I wear something super cute and dress up my look, I feel so much more confident (which in turn, boosts my mood). I feel it correlates with the fact wearing something other than frumpy clothes can also get you more compliments, which in turn boosts your self esteem as well as your mood. As egotistical as it sounds, us humans thrive on this as it seems apparent in our use of social medias etc. Therefore if our outfit looks fierce we will feel fierce, and it will show!
I agree with this post 100%! I truly feel like I am most powerful when I am in business casual. I actually wrote a post about this and I found that most people felt more in control when wearing business causal and more friendly when wearing regular clothing. When I was in high school and middle school I had to wear a uniform. Tights, skirt, blouse, sweater… the whole thing. We were forced to wear them especially during PSAT testing days because studies showed that it improves scores. I looked it up, and it turns out they were right! In this experiment studies showed that test scores improved after switching to uniforms http://www.kimatv.com/news/local/Does–209274091.html
I believe that this “look good, feel good” idea can also be applied to sports. My dad actually used to say to me “look good, play good” when I would get ready for my games. Its true though. The best players also tend to be the swaggiest. Maybe thats merely a correlation but there could be something that ties their appearance into their performance. Technically, I guess it essentially is work for the athletes that they’re trying to look good at. Nice post!
I have always heard that dressing well makes you more confident but, I was very surprised to hear that you found studies to back this up. I would like to know if these studies are credible and if there has been more than just one. If there is just one study backing this up than it could be due simply by chance as always.
This is really interesting since I recently saw another blog on here about a similar topic. They had an awesome study about how wearing a lab coat makes you more focused. Here is the study if you want to take a look. I was wondering, if this idea could be reversed. Could the correlation be that when you feel good you look better? That’d be something interesting to look at, if people’s mood affected their outfit, rather than their wardrobe affecting their mood.