I came across this highly-upvoted comment on reddit (15,300 karma) by /u/Semi-Hemi-Demigod
The CEO of the company I work for said that it's not uncommon for programmers to be asked to dress down for important meetings. Apparently investors don't think programmers who dress well are good programmers.
I was wondering if this logic applies to academia, particularly in fields like math, computer science, and philosophy where stereotypically many top people dress sloppily. In other words, are there academic contexts where dressing badly will make me seem more competent at my job?
Perhaps this would be an interesting social science experiment to perform, if it hasn't been done already!
Answer
This is just a complicated race of mind games.
There are many fields where 'dressing up' is the norm, as it gives a first impression of respectability and competence. This is also because in many fields 'dealing with people', being sociable and looking professional and respectable is an integral part of the job.
In the hard sciences, on the other hand, your results speak for you, there is limited interaction with people necessary, and it is widely recognized that "dressing up = being good" is a false association; no amount of tailored suits will hide the fact that you don't know your stuff. The two things are completely orthogonal. Also, many scientists are not 'people persons', to put it mildly.
So when you overdress, this raises a warning in the mind of many scientists: 'Is this guy one of the many people in the world and in other fields who dress up as an attempt of hiding their incompetence? I should be careful in judging him'. But there is nothing inherently bad about it if you really are competent at your job, and you can let your work speak for you. Some scientists routinely suit up for conferences.
Similarly, dressing down is not seen a problem, as long as basic hygiene norms are respected; at most it can raise an eyebrow.
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