I owe my friends an apology . Whenever we’re out, they will tear somebody’s whole life down based just on how their shoes look and I always thought they were wrong for making assumptions. Turns out they were right. A new study by psychologists at the University of Kansas found that people were able to correctly judge a stranger’s age, gender, income, political affiliation, emotional and other important personality traits just by looking at the person’s shoes. That says a lot doesn’t it?
Just by examining the style, cost, color, and condition of someone’s shoe, participants were able to guess about 90 percent of the of the owner’s personal characteristics. The 63 student volunteers looked at pics showing 208 different pairs of shoes that belonged to volunteers in the experiment and then filled out a personality questionnaire asking them to guess the gender, age, social status, and different personality traits of the owner, like whether the person was an extrovert or introvert, liberal or conservative and the degree of their emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness.
As would be expected, expensive shoes belonged to high earners, flashy and colorful footwear belonged to extroverts, and shoes that were not new but appeared to be spotless belonged to conscientious types. Less obvious conclusions showed practical and functional shoes generally belong to agreeable people, ankle boots fit with more aggressive personalities, and uncomfortable looking shoes were worn by calm personalities. This means people really do wear shoes to match their personalities, whether they realize it or not.
Going a little bit further, people with “attachment anxiety” or who were most worried about their relationships generally had brand new and well-kept shoes, likely because they worry so much about their appearance and what others may think of them. Liberals didn’t mind rocking less flashy and inexpensive kicks, but when it came to people with boring shoes, volunteers missed that the owners were “aloof and repressive” and didn’t care what others thought of them so they didn’t stand out fashion wise. The authors wrote that:
“Shoes convey a thin but useful slice of information about their wearers. Shoes serve a practical purpose, and also serve as nonverbal cues with symbolic messages. People tend to pay attention to the shoes they and others wear.”
And that is why I plan to step my shoe game up pronto.
how can you judge someone’s income when people STAY living beyond their means and spending money they don’t even have? on welfare and working at forever21 but they save up to ignore their child’s needs and buy louboutins.
HA! Yaaasssss
I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand you can and you can’t. I personally know of a few very wealthy people who I often get on about wearing frumpy clothes yet you step in their house and your jaw will drop. My thing is you never know who someone is. Just because someone is out looking one way does not mean that they don’t clean up well for the ocassion nor does it mean they are struggling financially.
Same with a person who is fab 24/7. That does not always mean that they are struggling financially either. Bottom line is you just never know. To each is own. I believe that we can all look fabulous aslong as we live our budget.
i’m working on not judging people.
you know, i went to college with the daughter of a middle eastern billionaire. this girl wore almost the same boots, jeans, tshirt and leather jacket almost every dang day. and her girlfriend (yes you read that right), worked at a banana republic.
the ceo of this private company i worked at wore khakis and nondescript shoes every day. he’s worth around $200 million.
and it goes on and on.
for the most part, you don’t know ish, until you know someone.
many people with a lot of money do not even want you to know they have any. they sometimes deliberately dress in regular, nondescript clothing. remember, wealthy people don’t always have anything to prove. they have the money and don’t need to show or flaunt it.
people watch tv and think wealthy people are flashy. many are not.
Unless I have the power to put people in heaven or hell, I do my best not to judge. Lol!
I do judge people by their shoes but I don’t really focus on the brand.I focus more on the style, neatness and cleanliness, color (amongst others) because it tells me a bit about who they are. Am I going to hold a person’s shoes against them? no…It all comes down to actually getting to know someone.
“You can’t judge a shoe by it’s wearer.”
That being said because shoes are one of the main items that people with very little money use to display their faux wealth. If it’s on your feet it’s not an asset, but a liability. Folks with the most money don’t scream designer labels. I remember an episode of Martha Stewart when she painted the soles of her Louboutin’s because she thought they attracted the wrong attention. “Those with the flash have less cash.”
My Dad and my grandaddy always told me you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes and because of this when ever I meet someone new I ALWAYS look at what they have on their feet!
I’m so disgusted that they spent that research money of that mess! Dee – I totally agree with you!
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Interesting information and research. I can agree that you can pull out certain personality traits…but income? Not really. There are several people who are “financially incompetent” yet own the best and sometimes the most expensive shoes. I also agree with one of the above comments when she mentioned the more flash, the less cass theory. It’s a thing call new money. For all basic purposes though, this is a bunch of educated bologna.
~C.
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I just wanna say- those Balenciaga sandals were EVERYTHING!!!! And let’s try not judging people by anything other than their actions.
I try not to, because I know how it feels to be judged. I grew up poor and I was often made to feel “less than” because I couldn’t afford the best things.
But I will admit that I love to check out other people’s footwear…I love to see ladies rocking classy, gorgeous shoes! Sometimes it gives me inspiration to try different styles.
I’m not really judgmental about what others choose to wear. But I will say that I do judge (just a little bit) when I see people wearing flip-flops everywhere, especially the rubber kind. It doesn’t make sense to put on a nice outfit and tacky shoes. Flip-flops are OK at the beach or the pool or very casual settings but I think people look more pulled together when they wear real shoes. That’s just my opinion, though. I’m kind of old-school about stuff like that.
And I’ve seen folks who don’t take care of their feet but they want to show off their crusty hooves to the world…ugh. Nothing worse than toe jam peeking out of sandals or flip-flops.
I’m an introvert but if you looked at my shoes you would believe otherwise. I love shoes that stand out and get attention.
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