Good Clothing - Better Performance

A recent study conducted by researchers at Notre Dame, the University of Kentucky, and Penn State found that using brand-name gear can provide a noticeable placebo effect that could boost performance. In other words: If you’ve ever felt like you give better presentation when wearing an expensive designer suit, it might not be your imagination.

In the study, researchers found that simply being told you were using a Nike golf putter over a no-name club improved participants’ performance by about 20 percent. And this effect isn’t limited to the physical: The researchers also found that subjects who wore earplugs while taking a math quiz did better when they were told they were using high-performance 3M earplugs. The performance bump for this part of the study was also about 20 percent.

“Some people have a power suit that they put on for important presentations, or they have some special cufflink that they put on to bring them luck,” said Frank Germann, Ph.D., an assistant professor of marketing at Notre Dame University’s Mendoza College of Business who worked on the study. “I think our research would suggest that engaging in that kind of behavior might actually work.”

Germann and his collaborators — Aaron Garvey of the University of Kentucky and Lisa Bolton of Penn State University — say that brands have the ability to boost users’ confidence and lower performance anxiety. “When you think that you have this performance brand, you have higher-state self- esteem,” Germann says. “As a result, you feel better and your self-confidence is elevated at a certain task. In turn, you're less anxious, and because of that, you're performing better.”

(taken from businessoffashion.com)