Another human folly has made me think about how I look

I used to think that how I look or what I wear should not matter. The only thing that should matter is what I stand for: my work, my words and my nature. And yet, time and again as a kid, I was told that I should care too look decent. I was made to make my hair properly and tuck my shirt in neatly. When I rebelled, I was given reasons like the cliche, your first impression is your last impression. With no powers over my parents, I obeyed.

I finally have the right reasons to want to dress well and look presentable. Not that I looked like a mess ever before but now I have a reason to really care about how I look. If any parents are reading this post and have kids who won’t do something without a good reason then you should be happy because in this post you will find that good reason for your kids to want to dress properly.

The reason comes from another human folly discussed in the book Sway: The irresistible pull of irrational forces by Ori & Rom Brafman, called Value Attribution. To explain it, the best methods is through an example from the book:

On a January morning Joshua Bell, one of the the finest violinists alive, wearing a baseball cap nonchalantly took out his $3.5 million Stradivarius violin and started playing on a subway station in Washington DC.

Bell’s performance started with Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin, one of the most challenging pieces ever composed for the instrument. Over the next 43 minutes there was no thunderous applause, no cameras flashing and actually no one seemed to care.

Of the 1097 people who walked by, hardly anyone stopped. One man listened for a few minutes, a couple of kids stared, and one woman, who happened to recognise the violinist gaped in disbelief.

This was no surprise to the people conducting a study of which Joshua Bell was part of. Think about it for a moment. Bell looked like an average street performer even though he didn’t sound like one. Without realising it, the commuters attributed the value they perceived to the quality of the performance. As they passed Bell, instead of hearing an outstanding concert, they heard street music.

Value attribution, after all, acts as a quick mental shortcut to determine what’s worthy of our attention.

This human folly creeps up on us all the time. Here’s another neat example, a bank sent out a flyer about an offer to it’s male customers. 50% flyers were accompanied with a really pretty female model and 50% were accompanied by a not so pretty version of the same model. What were the results? The men who got the pretty version of the model were twice as likely to sign up for the offer as the others.

Of course, no one is claiming that if you only look good and don’t act good that you will make a better impression. Instead, all factors remaining constant, looking good might make a better impression on the other person.

The adage about first impressions holds true after all. And yes, we all learn about it through experience but had someone told me this story, I may have been convinced earlier.