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(qǐng)者，他們都很有競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力，資歷不相上下——但你明顯可以看出一位穿著H&M的外套，另一位身穿路易斯·威登的名牌服裝。你會(huì)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(lái)自《商業(yè)研究雜志》的一項(xiàng)新研究表明你很有可能會(huì)選擇后者。來(lái)自韓國(guó)延世大學(xué)和美國(guó)卡羅萊納海岸大學(xué)的研究者通過(guò)對(duì)位于韓國(guó)首爾市區(qū)的大學(xué)生的調(diào)查，來(lái)測(cè)試人們對(duì)于身穿不同品牌的人有怎樣的反應(yīng)。采用這種方法，他們?cè)诓煌瑘?chǎng)景下分別測(cè)試人們了對(duì)于身穿名牌的人，身穿普通品牌的人和身穿無(wú)品牌衣服的人的反應(yīng)。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)幾乎在每一種情況下，人們對(duì)身著名牌服飾的人會(huì)更加友好的對(duì)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(yīng)叫做消費(fèi)價(jià)值信號(hào)理論，意思是這些人在展示一種“信號(hào)”告訴其他人他們可以買得起名牌。這一理論指出，身著名牌的人通過(guò)自己身穿的衣服來(lái)夸耀自己買得起名牌，從而提高他們?cè)趧e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.
但這并不是說(shuō)你需要馬上沖出去，在你下一個(gè)工作面試前血拼一雙古奇的鞋子并穿上。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(méi)有任何幫助的情況下認(rèn)出品牌標(biāo)志。如果需要穿衣者自己說(shuō)出她穿的是什么牌子的衣服，則完全達(dá)不到效果。同樣，當(dāng)然，觀察者需要第一時(shí)間認(rèn)出是什么牌子。

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 “l(fā)oud” 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，穿什么牌子到底有多重要。研究者稱一件華而不實(shí)的名牌服裝可能對(duì)于富人觀察員并沒(méi)有什么好的效果。富人更加傾向于巧妙的表現(xiàn)自己的社會(huì)地位，身穿名牌出來(lái)顯擺被看成是品味很差。低廉設(shè)計(jì)的品牌則正好相反，他們經(jīng)常在衣服上印上很大的標(biāo)志，讓他們的購(gòu)買者肆無(wú)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(guò)程被認(rèn)為是充滿偏見(jiàn)的——如今我們還可以加上時(shí)尚這一條了。