That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience of Fashion

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Legwarmers. Socks and Sandles. Skinny jeans. Goretex puffer jackets. Fashion is an ever-evolving aspect of culture, representing people's opinions on clothing, footwear, and accessories. But how do our brains process this complex form of expression? In this week's episode of That Neuroscience Guy, we discuss the neuroscience behind our fashion sense. 

Hi, my name is Olaf Kregolsen and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria and in my spare time I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. You know, at the start of every academic year, I'm always curious to see what the latest fashion trends are going to be. You know, the students come to campus and they basically, in some sense, represent the cutting edge. And, you know, every year it's different. It wasn't that long ago that there was these kind of, I don't even know what they were,

but they were like these rain boot kind of things and they were trendy and everyone had to have them and everyone had to wear them with gray socks. And then, you know, this year there's something else that's trendy and everyone had to have them and everyone had to wear them with gray socks. And then, you know, this year there's something else that's trendy and new. You know, the classic example for me is I wear socks with my Birkenstocks. And a lot of people consider that to be a fashion faux pas. But then funnily enough, a couple of years ago, a couple of famous people started doing it. And the next thing you know, I see people wearing socks with their Birkenstocks. What I'd been doing for a long time all of a sudden was trendy. So on today's podcast, I'm going to give you some insight into the

neuroscience of fashion trends and why we follow them. Well, it might seem pretty obvious, but at some level, we have this sort of innate desire to conform. All right, if there's something that's out there that's being done, we kind of feel like we have to sort of follow along. So at a low level, we have this very strong desire to be part of the group. And this is a survival instinct. This is your midbrain. This is your emotional system and all of that midbrain stuff where, you know, the way we've evolved, being part of the group is important.

And I have always said, you know, our brains were built for something different than the modern world. So, you know, in prehistoric times, this would have been crucial to be a part of the group, would have been crucial to be a part of the group, to have this desire to be a part of the group, because it literally meant survival. In the modern world, what that translates to, it's we still want to be a part of the group, but we see that more in terms of fitting in. So something like just wearing those boots and, you know, it's something to do.

And we do it because it's our midbrain driving us to conform. Our midbrain wants to be a part of the group. Now there are individuals that, you know, hold back on this and I'll talk about that in a second. But for most of us, that's a thing. It's a very powerful thing. Now you add to that, that we have a society where we look up to certain people, right? So you see a fashion model wearing something, or you see a company pushing a new product. And we believe that it's trendy just because we're being told that message. You know, if a sporting goods company like Nike releases a new product, we inherently and automatically believe that this is a cool product because we believe that Nike is a cool company. And this is true for almost any big company.

And it seems true for people. If we see a famous person wearing something, we think, oh, wow, well, that must be something to strive for. So the other reason we conform is because our goals are being set for us. We live in a society where we've come to believe that famous people and companies are setting a trend, and we believe that they have information or they're cool or whatever it is. So again, this drives us. And it's just sort of this innate desire just to fit in and be a part of it. Now, what's interesting about this as well is it causes anxiety if we're not a part of it.

So if there is a fashion trend that's out there and we're not following it, well, that creates stress. And we've talked about stress and anxiety before, but it does create stress. So our cortisol levels go up within the brain. And what that does is it creates a mindset where we come to believe that if we do follow the fashion trend, so we go out and get the boots or whatever it is, that it's going to reduce our stress levels. And it does reduce our stress levels because all of a sudden we're conforming.

So what's interesting, if you think about what I've said, is you've got society that's presenting, you know, this is this new product you need to have. And we believe it because we believe that these companies and the famous people that wear these things, that they're right. Like they have something. They have some knowledge we don't have and they set the trend. And because of that, we want to conform, that midbrain instinct. And if we don't conform, we get stressed. You want those things. My son was, you know, really wanted a pair of shoes.

And there was a bit of stress in his life because he didn't have them because all his friends had these shoes. And he wanted to get those shoes to fit in. And it makes sense, all right? We all do it. Anyone that says they don't do it, you know, that's not true. There's a small subset of people that are resistant to this, but the vast majority of us conform in a lot of ways. Now, sometimes it's a

fashion item. Sometimes it's more of a broad thing, but we all have this desire to conform. And if we don't, it creates stress. And like I said, cortisol is released. And the flip side to this is when we do conform, we do get that item that item well that's where our friend dopamine comes in again and we've talked about dopamine a lot if you remember it's a neurotransmitter that's released from midbrain structures like the ventral tegmental area and the substantia negra pars compacta and it's associated with feelings of happiness now we talked about it in terms of reward learning and got pretty technical. But one way to think about it simply is happiness.

If dopamine is released, we feel happier. But the other part to remember is it's a reinforcer, right? So dopamine reinforces behavior. So yes, it makes you feel happy, but it reinforces behavior, which is why when something makes you happy, you tend to do it again because that behavior is reinforced. So when you do get that fashion item, you have this happiness, but it reinforces the whole belief system that this is something that you want to have. Now, there's another side to this too, and you can always guess this because it seems like

every episode we bring up the amygdala and the emotional system. But part of this reason we conform to fashion trends is that for most of us, there's a fear of not being part of the group. And that triggers an emotional response, right? And that's actually what drives the whole stress thing I was talking about with cortisol. But we have this emotional response that's basically saying, hey, I'm not happy right now because I'm not part of the group. And then sure enough, if you do get the item, then dopamine comes and you can see the story. Now, not everyone conforms, right? Not everyone does. There are people that have their own beliefs that override this innate desire of being part of the group. And that's, it's good. You know, it's a good thing. We should all have this sort of choice

as opposed to going along blindly with the trend. Now, how do these people do this? Well, there's a lot of reasons for that. There's no one reason. It could be a matter of self-confidence. It could be an innate belief system within the brain that believes that what society is telling us isn't the message that we necessarily want to hear. And we know this worldview idea that I've promoted in the past, where the left part of the brain, specifically the left prefrontal cortex, maintains the worldview, of the brain, specifically the left prefrontal cortex, maintains the worldview. And the right side of the prefrontal cortex updates the worldview. And the worldview for some people is that the messages we get from famous people and from corporations aren't necessarily messages that we want to listen to. And this can explain a lot of things, but I'll leave you with that.

And these people have this independent sense of self. What's interesting is you could argue that they're actually conforming to not conforming. So if they do conform, these people would get stressed and you would get cortical release. And when they choose not to conform, you would get that release of dopamine and that feeling of happiness. conform you would get that release of dopamine and that feeling of happiness so you could argue that not conforming is a form of conforming to not conforming if that makes sense i know that's a little bit twisted one of the things that's really interesting about this the fashion trend idea and our desire to conform and belong is how it changes our values um if you take the boot example i started with and i really should have looked up what the

boots were called, but they were like these rubber gum boots and they were really trendy. It was like every person on campus, at least every female on campus, wanted to own a pair or had a pair. And they all wore them the same way with these gray socks rolled over the top. I can still see this. But those boots weren't popular before. No one had them, right? There was a point in time those boots existed. You could get them, but people didn't want them. So if you think about this in terms of values, their values for those boots was low, right? And they would choose something else. But then thanks to media, all right, and to corporate push, guess what? The value for those boots increased. And then as people begin to see other people

wearing them, that value increased even more to a point when it became something you need to have. Values, you know, drive our behavior and our goals and our desires. So the value for those boots went up. Now, people were wearing shoes before then, and there was probably a trend that was out before then. And guess what? The things that were valuable become less valuable. So because we believe this other thing has value, we actually reduce the value of the previous trendy item. And this is, of course, why the fashion industry changes things every year. never understood why the company didn't release the same pair of shoes every year because they were amazing shoes. But they changed them every year because, of course, they want our money, right? If you just always said, hey, there's no new fashion trend, well, guess what? People don't spend money. So the entire fashion industry is obviously designed to generate revenue,

and there's nothing wrong with that. That's called business. All right. But what's interesting is our values then change year to year, right? That thing that we thought was very valuable last year becomes less valuable because there's now something more valuable, which is the latest thing. So when you look at these things, you should really think about why you're, you know, why you're buying into the fashion trend. Now, like I said, most of us do conform. I'm as guilty as anyone else. I'd love to say that I'm sitting on some kind of moral high horse, and I'm not. But the things I wanted to emphasize with this episode is why do we want to conform? And it's this innate desire to be part of the group.

It stems from our midbrain survival instincts. There's stress-created release of cortisol if we don't have the latest fashion item. And when we get it, we get that release of dopamine, which makes us happy. And sitting in the background, of course, there's the amygdala sort of driving this whole show, creating fear when we're not part of the group. And of course, driving the release of dopamine at some level when we do get the item and we're part of the group and we feel happy. And of course, like I said, awareness is the key thing. You know, why are you getting something? Is it because you really need it? Or is it because we're living in a world where some person or corporation has told you that you should have it or you'll be cooler

or better if you do? Anyway, that's a bit on the neuroscience of fashion trends and what's going on in your brain when these things happen. Remember, check out the website, thatneuroscienceguy.com. There's links to Patreon where you can support us directly. Thank you to everyone that has. Remember, even a dollar a week or $5 a month makes a big difference. All the money goes to graduate students in my lab at the University of Victoria. There's links to our Etsy store. I'm almost embarrassed to mention that

because we haven't added anything new for a long time. But thanks to the people that have bought the shirts, I actually saw someone wearing one in Vancouver not long ago. And I was, I don't know who the person was. And I was going to go say something, but I was like, I'm too shy. But I was thinking, that's our podcast. Of course, follow me on X, which used to be Twitter, at that NeuroSci guy. Please DM us some ideas. We've got a long list of ideas. Some of them are great, and we can do a full episode. Some are bites because they're short and sweet.

But send us your ideas. We really want to know what you want to know about the neuroscience of everyday life. And of course, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Please subscribe. It really helps. My name is Olive Craig Olson, and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you soon for another neuroscience bite.