When it comes to dressing to impress at work, you might want to think twice. A new study shows people who flaunt designer duds around the office aren’t seen by their co-workers as being team players.
Shalena Srna, PhD, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, noted “signaling status” by flaunting your Prada or Hermes might make people “appear high class,” but “it can also backfire by making them seem more self-interested.”
“In social situations that depend on cooperation, people will often choose to present themselves more modestly,” says Srna in a release from the American Psychological Association.
The study recruited 395 online participants for six different experiments. The subjects were to scan through social media profiles and choose which people they considered to be “cooperative, selfless, and generous enough to join their community.”
The experiments showed that folks wearing Old Navy or other more practical clothing were more commonly in that “trusted” category. Conversely, when participants were tasked with choosing a more “competitive” team member, those with flashier clothes in their profiles were chosen.
In short, when looking for threads, tread carefully.
“Posting about your luxury purchases and expensive vacations on Instagram or TikTok may help you to persuade others, intimidate competitors and succeed on the dating market — at least for men — but it could also signal to potential friends or future employers that you are unlikely to think about the needs of others,” Dr. Srna says. “This becomes a tricky balancing act for people who may want to impress others while also demonstrating that they can be a ‘team player.'”
Survey questions, methodology and results have not been verified or endorsed by ABC News or The Walt Disney Company.