The Power of the Hoodie-Wearing C.E.O.

New submitter silverjacket writes "New research (JSTOR sub required / paywalled) shows that we see nonconformity as a sign of both status and competence — under the right conditions. From the article: 'Next, the researchers asked students at American universities to imagine a professor who is clean-shaven and wears a tie, or one who is bearded and wears T-shirts. Students were slightly more inclined to judge the dapper professor as a better teacher and researcher. But some students were given another piece of information: that the professor works at a top-tier school, where the dress code is presumably more formal. For them, the slouchy scholar earned more points. Deviance can signal status, but only when there are clear norms from which to deviate.'"

Comments

Students at American universities

[Anonymous Coward]

I know why researchers at universities use students as test subjects -- like rats, they're all around and they're cheap. And for some studies, using students is perfectly fine.

But can we stop the practice, at least in news stories, of assuming that the attitudes of American university students apply to anyone other than American university students? Most students are stupid as rocks. They think a "slouchy scholar" is cooler? So what?

Re:Students at American universities

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's a recognized problem (though, for the reasons you note, people prefer to ignore it whenever possible because college students will do any dumb survey you throw at them for peanuts), enough so that it has its own spiteful acronym.

They call such research subjects 'WEIRD': Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. (Now, given the student debt numbers and all that neat stuff they didn't tell you about in civics class concerning how governments work, some scare quotes may be in order; but the general "asserting universal truths about human psychology based on American college students is only a few steps ahead of just introspecting and assuming that everyone thinks as you do" point is important...)

Re:Context matters...

[AthanasiusKircher]

Exactly what part of teaching requires you to follow a dress code?

Caring about your appearance used to be a marker of "attention to detail" in general (and still is in some circles). A person who wears the "appropriate" clothes is still seen to care enough to do the minimum for the job.

If a person is teaching at a top university, they presumably are already perceived to be competent, so not caring about clothes might be perceived as someone who is too busy doing high-profile research to care.

I've noticed a similar effect in email etiquette: sometimes you can command more respect from students at a high-profile university sometimes if you deliberately write abrupt emails with apparent typos. I had a colleague who did this deliberately. Taking care to write a careful, measured response with no typos means you have time to waste on email. If you have typos and a one line response, you might be too busy doing "things that matter."

But if you do this at a community college, you're likely to just be a poor teacher who doesn't give a crap.

"under the right conditions"

[koan]

When you make a profit it is accepted.