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Communicating Through Physical Appearance

On the hit TLC show Say Yes to the Dress, Randy Fenoli and other sales associates at Kleinfeld Bridal in New York City help prospective brides find the ideal wedding dresses for what is (for many people) “the most important day of their lives.” The show involves not just finding a dress, but finding the dress that fits a bride’s ideal image for how she should look. However, the show is not just about superficial allure. Instead, the choice of dress and accessories conveys a powerful communicative message to others about the bride’s self-identity. As Randy notes, “One of the most important things I tell brides is that you should always choose a gown that really represents who you are, because what you’re doing at a wedding is telling a story about who you are as a person, and as a couple” (Herweddingplanner.com, 2011).

Although weddings are an extreme example in terms of the emphasis placed on how we look, our physical appearance—visible attributes such as hair, clothing, body type, and other physical features—profoundly influences all of our interpersonal encounters. In simple terms, how you look conveys as much about you as what you say. And beauty counts. Across cultures, people credit individuals they find physically attractive with higher levels of intelligence, persuasiveness, poise, sociability, warmth, power, and employment success than they credit to unattractive individuals (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986).

This effect holds in online environments as well. For example, the physical attractiveness of friends who post their photos on your Facebook page has noteworthy effects on people’s perceptions of your attractiveness (Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008). That is, if you have attractive friends’ photos on your page, people will perceive you as more physically and socially attractive; if you have unattractive friends, you’ll seem less attractive to others.

What physical appearance characteristics does it take to be judged attractive? Standards of beauty are highly variable, both across cultures and across time periods. But one factor that’s related to attractiveness across cultures is facial symmetry—the degree to which each side of your face precisely matches the other. For example, this can include whether someone’s eyes are the same shape or whether someone’s ears are at the exact same height. People with symmetrical faces are judged as more attractive than people with asymmetrical faces (Grammer & Thornhill, 1994), although perfect facial symmetry may be seen as artificial and unattractive (Kowner, 1996).

Your clothing also has a profound impact on others’ perceptions of you. More than 40 years of research suggests that clothing strongly influences people’s judgments about profession, level of education, socioeconomic status, and even personality and personal values (Burgoon et al., 1996). The effect that clothing has on perception makes it essential that you consider the appropriateness of your dress, the context for which you are dressing, and the image of self you wish to nonverbally communicate. When I worked for a Seattle trucking company, I was expected to wear clothes that could withstand rough treatment. On my first day, I “dressed to impress” and was teased by coworkers and management for dressing as if I was an executive at a large corporation. But expectations like this can change in other situations. During job interviews, for example, dress as nicely as you can. Being even moderately formally dressed is one of the strongest predictors of whether an interviewer will perceive you as socially skilled and highly motivated (Gifford, Ng, & Wilkinson, 1985).