有錢任性：穿名牌更能幫你贏得工作？

Imagine this: You’re interviewing two people for a job. They’re equally competent, capable, and qualified—but you can see that one is wearing an outfit from H&M and the other’s clothes are clearly from Louis Vuitton. Whichcandidate will you hire?

想象一下：你正在面試兩位申請者，他們都很有競爭力，資歷不相上下——但你明顯可以看出一位穿着H&M的外套，另一位身穿路易斯·威登的名牌服裝。你會聘用哪一位呢？

A new study in the Journal of Business Research suggests you’re more likely to choose the latter. Surveying students at a large urban university in Seoul, South Korea, researchers from Yonsei University and Coastal Carolina University examined how we react to others depending on the brands they’re wearing. To do so, they tested several scenarios of someone wearing a luxury brand logo, a logo from a non-luxury brand, or no logo. They found that in nearly every situation, people gave preferential treatment to the person wearing the luxury logo.

來自《商業研究雜誌》的一項新研究表明你很有可能會選擇後者。來自韓國延世大學和美國卡羅萊納海岸大學的研究者通過對位於韓國首爾市區的大學生的調查，來測試人們對於身穿不同品牌的人有怎樣的反應。採用這種方法，他們在不同場景下分別測試人們了對於身穿名牌的人，身穿普通品牌的人和身穿無品牌衣服的人的反應。他們發現幾乎在每一種情況下，人們對身着名牌服飾的人會更加友好的對待。

The researchers call this effect an example of costly signaling theory, which says that people show off to “signal” to others that they can afford to do so. In the case of luxury brands, the theory predicts that people wear expensive clothing to flaunt that they can afford it, thereby increasing their status in the eyes of others.

研究者管這種效應叫做消費價值信號理論，意思是這些人在展示一種“信號”告訴其他人他們可以買得起名牌。這一理論指出，身着名牌的人通過自己身穿的衣服來誇耀自己買得起名牌，從而提高他們在別人眼中的地位。

But this doesn’t necessarily mean you should rush out and splurge on Gucci shoes before your next job interview. The researchers caution that several additional factors are at work.

但這並不是說你需要馬上衝出去，在你下一個工作面試前血拼一雙古奇的鞋子並穿上。研究者在工作中也注意到一些其他附加因素。

For one, the observer must recognize the brand logo without assistance. If the wearer has to point out what she’s wearing, the effect is destroyed. And, of course, the observer must know the brand to recognize it in the first place.

例如，觀察者需要在沒有任何幫助的情況下認出品牌標誌。如果需要穿衣者自己說出她穿的是什麼牌子的衣服，則完全達不到效果。同樣，當然，觀察者需要第一時間認出是什麼牌子。

For another, how someone wears the brand matters. The researchers say that a gaudy outfit will probably backfire with wealthy observers. Wealthy people tend to value subtlety in showing one’s social standing, viewing “loud” displays of clothing as being in bad taste. Cheaper designer items cater to the opposite impulse, often featuring large logos that allow their purchasers to conspicuously show off the brand.

另外，穿什麼牌子到底有多重要。研究者稱一件華而不實的名牌服裝可能對於富人觀察員並沒有什麼好的效果。富人更加傾向於巧妙的表現自己的社會地位，身穿名牌出來顯擺被看成是品味很差。低廉設計的品牌則正好相反，他們經常在衣服上印上很大的標誌，讓他們的購買者肆無忌憚的展示他們的品牌。

The hiring process is known to be fraught with biases—now it seems we can add fashion to the list too.

聘用的過程被認爲是充滿偏見的——如今我們還可以加上時尚這一條了。