New research in PLOS One provides evidence that self-beautification can yield positive psychological outcomes for women in certain circumstances. In particular, the study found that women tended to feel more assertive after putting on an attractive outfit.

“Whether women are empowered or disempowered by looking sexy is a major feminist question. Some people say it’s inherently disempowering, and that women doing this are simply channelling the patriarchy in a new way. Others disagree, and say there can be authentic empowerment at play,” explained study authors Khandis Blake and Lindsie Arthur of the University of Melbourne.

“We were interested in teasing apart these effects, and trying to understand whether there might be something empowering about dressing in a sexy way. We also wanted to try and extend previous studies.”

“In most work, this question has been examined indirectly, by women coming into the lab and trying on revealing clothing that is not their own. We saw some major problems with this – for example, we might look great in some of our own clothes that are revealing, but if someone gave me a revealing outfit that wasn’t my own, it might look terrible on me. So, we wanted to test this effect when women could bring in their own clothing, making things more ecologically valid.”

In the study, 145 women were randomly assigned to bring a full change of clothing (including shoes, jewelry, make-up, and accessories) that was either consistent with what they would wear during a night out with “hot date” or, alternatively, consistent with a “relaxing” afternoon at home with friends. Upon their arrival to the lab, the participants changed into this outfit and then completed various measures of assertiveness.

One of the assessments included a mock job interview, in which the participants were given 5 minutes to prepare a 30 second monologue explaining why they were a competent employee and a good choice for a job where they would lead others. A woman and a man, who were both unaware of the purpose of the study, then listened to audio recordings of the monologues and rated each participant’s assertiveness.

The researchers found that women who dressed up for a hot date were more likely to indicate that traits associated with assertiveness described them and linked themselves more strongly with assertiveness in an implicit association test. Participants who wore an attractive outfit also reported feeling more flirtatious and sexually open, and reported experiencing more positive emotions. But the outfits did not appear to influence ratings of assertive behavior in the mock job interview.

In a follow-up experiment, another 40 women completed measures of assertiveness in whatever clothing they were wearing at the time. In a second session, separated by at least three days, they were asked to wear an attractive outfit before completing the measures again.

Wearing an attractive outfit was found to increase self-reported assertiveness but only when it also elevated feelings of being seductive and flirtatious. Women who scored high on a measure of self-objectification also reported being more willing to call a beauty salon whom they believed over-charged them after putting on the attractive outfit.

But the attractive outfit did not appear to increase the willingness to revisit a shoe store to return a faulty item or to contest a bill from a mechanic. “Our results suggest that beautification can increase assertiveness in women, but that the effect may be domain-specific,” the researchers said.

“When you see a woman wearing revealing clothing, she isn’t necessarily succumbing to the patriarchy. We found that when women spend time getting dressed up for a date, they actually felt more confident and assertive. These kinds of effects are important and have implications for their behavior, and shed new light on why the cosmetics and beauty industry is booming,” Blake and Arthur told PsyPost.

“This work explains why women are still so concerned about their appearance — there are tangible benefits to looking attractive, and this can have positive benefits to some aspects of women’s psychology in some circumstances.”

All research includes some limitations, and the current study is no exception.

“We specifically looked at beautification through the lens of a romantic interaction (the hot date). While this is interesting, it doesn’t necessarily mean that assertiveness will increase every time a woman puts on makeup or a sexy outfit. It would be great to understand if the same is true in different scenarios, such as a job interview or an important meeting,” Blake and Arthur explained.

“We also found stronger effects for how women felt, versus how they actually acted. So, effects of beautification on assertive behavior are weaker than effects of beautification on assertive emotions, feelings, and thoughts.”

Previous research has found that there are negative consequences of beautification, and self-objectification in particular. But the new research suggests that the past findings are not telling the entire story.

“There is a lot of controversy around women’s clothing choices. Our data does not suggest that every single time you see a woman wearing something objectifying, that actually she’s really empowered. Pressure to wear certain things can still manifest in poor psychological outcomes,” Blake and Arthur told PsyPost.

“Instead, our work suggests something more complex is going on. Assuming a woman is truly disempowered based on her clothing, though, is just as inaccurate as assuming she’s empowered. More work needs to follow up this idea so we aren’t biasing our interpretations toward ‘beautification = harm’, when in fact, evidence of the opposite exists.”

The study, “In the context of romantic attraction, beautification can increase assertiveness in women“, was authored by Khandis R. Blake, Robert Brooks, Lindsie C. Arthur, and Thomas F. Denson.