People who wore white lab coats made half as many mistakes on attention-related tasks as those wearing their regular clothes, according to a study published this year by Hajo Adam, a visiting assistant professor at Northwestern University, along with colleague Adam Galinsky.
It isn’t clear if the effect wears off over time, or if knowing the trick removes its effectiveness. But the idea that wearing “smart clothes” makes you smarter is one example of a growing field within psychology known as embodied cognition.
Embodied cognition is the notion that our physical experience permeates our thoughts and feelings, often unconsciously. It challenges what many of us think about ourselves: that we can make balanced, objective analyses independent of our physical state.
Great ! I’ll start suiting up for university now.
That being said, this is a really cool idea. There are also studies about placebos being more effective when administered by someone wearing a lab coat (http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4151) … indeed, studies show that they don’t even need to be wearing one, it just has to be in the room. I love the placebos human mind, it’s so cool how we convince our bodies to do things 🙂
As they say, you need to dress the part! I think I need to start wearing a lab coat to work!