I see now how my sentence was ambiguous. I meant: "people who believe that certain specific external things motivate their dress and other things don't may be wrong or may be right about each of those things, instead of "people who believe that certain specific external things motivate their dress and other things don't may be wrong or may be right that some things influence them and some things do not.
because it was raining and not because
"Because" isn't really enough, for each explanatory factor you have to tell me how close to being necessary and how close to being sufficient it was.
The second part of your sentence says that someone claiming that no such external factors are hugely influential is right
I said I don't think that!
what satisfies me is based on external factors
I think more goes into decision making than attempting to achieve satisfaction.
Trivially, I might have unarticulated reasons that I am conscious of, but do not choose to share. However, I think you were thinking more along the lines of unconscious reasons. And here is where I become suspicious, because while it could be quite useful to know what these actually are, I think that only a good deal of reading on psychology and neuroscience can even begin to scratch the surface of these reasons.
Our ability to know of the existence of facts is a separate fact than our ability to know those facts. You can be suspicious of anyone saying that they know your subconscious reasons without being suspicious of someone who tells you your articulated reasons are of moderate importance.
I will give much more weight to reasons where I can examine the evidence and the logical chain of reasoning behind them, whether they are conscious or unconscious.
If my road map has a huge hole separating the visible parts of a freeway to what scales to 50 miles, this does not mean that I can instantly teleport across the area represented by the hole by driving on that freeway. We believe there are unintuited influences, we should not pretend that all the influences we understand are all that influence us.
Or a person might consistently prefer things presented to them by their closet on their right it might help to explain specifically what you don't trust about conscious narratives.
One example I gave was this:
Adults, too, can be persuaded to confabulate...They laid out a display of four identical items of clothing and asked people to pick which they thought was the best quality. It is known that people tend to subconsciously prefer the rightmost object in a sequence if given no other choice criteria, and sure enough about four out of five participants did favour the garment on the right. Yet when asked why they made the choice they did, nobody gave position as a reason.
For example, if people all choose clothing for largely the same reasons, does that mean they all wear largely the same things?
No, e.g. I would expect people to tell themselves flattering stories about whatever they did when they did it for a different reason, and then repeat that specific thing. E.g. if a person is stuck out in the rain and there are no umbrellas in local stores, that person might buy a parka and forever after "prefer waterproof jackets to umbrellas because then I don't have to carry something in my hand," (see here). I might expect people to wear a certain color whenever and because they felt angry, but would expect people to differ greatly as to how often they felt angry. Everyone may prefer the rightmost of several selections, but have closets arranged differently. Those sorts of things.
Upvoted for your thoughtful reply, which clarified a number of your points quite well. I will try to address some of your points and ask questions for those things I am still unclear on. Firstly, in your previous posts, it seems like you are discussing two separate issues—the first is the extent to which our decisions are based on external factors, the second is the extent to which our decisions are based on unconscious processing as opposed to conscious processing of those factors. Since your last post focused more on the second issue, this post wil...
Related to: Humans are not automatically strategic, Rationalists should win
Fashion isn't prioritized in many hyper-analytical circles. Many in these communities write it off as frill and unnecessary. They say they "just dress comfortably" and leave it at that.
To me, that seems like a huge blind spot. It misses a fundamental point -
A piece of clothing is fundamentally a tool.
Definitions are important so everyone is on the same page. I feel like Wikipedia's first sentence on "tool" accurately describes it -
Clothing clearly fits that definition of a tool.
Appropriately chosen clothing can keep you from freezing in the winter, from getting sunburnt in the summer, and can keep you dry in a rainstorm.
It can also help you achieve things involving other people. I think it's fair to draw a distinction between "clothing" and "fashion" based on whether your objectives involve interpersonal skills. If you're wearing clothing in relation to the environment and without other people, that's using clothing as a tool.
But clothing clearly can affect other people's opinions of you, willingness to accept your arguments, willing to hire or contract you, even their desire to associate with you. All of that is changed by clothing - or more specifically, your "fashion."
While most rationalists would happily and quickly plan out the best hiking boots to wear to not get blisters on a hike, or research the best shoes for bicycling or swimsuit for swimming, anecdotally many seem hesitant or even hostile to the idea of using fashion as a tool to achieve their objectives.
That's possibly a mistake.
The thing fashion can do best and most fundamentally is affect a person's initial first impression of you. Fashion is less important if you're in a context where you're guaranteed to get to know someone over a longer period of time, and is more important if you're going to get filtered quickly.
I propose that the most rational usage of fashion is this -
1. Ask yourself what your goals are in the situation you're about to go into.
2. Ask yourself what first impression would help you reach your goals.
3. Pick out and wear clothing that helps communicate that first impression.
The process is important. In isolation, there's no "good fashion" - it depends on your objectives.
In some circles, people more or less won't care how you're dressed. But even then, there's likely some clothing that will perform better than others. If you can afford the time or money to find clothing to fit your objectives, then there's no reason not to utilize this advantage.
I say "time or money" because you can deploy either - if money isn't an issue, there's stores where the majority of things look good, and the people there are professionals who will spend time giving you good feedback. Any high end department store like Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdales, or a high end tailor fits this category.
Alternatively, you can deploy time. To do that, survey the people that most effectively communicate the first impression you want to convey. Take actual notes and look for common trends. Then, go find pieces that look similar. You won't be perfect right away, but like any other skill, with practice you'll rapidly improve. Incidentally, the marginal cost to produce clothing is incredibly cheap, so most fashion lines over-produce clothing and have to liquidate it at super-discount sale prices periodically. There tends to be a major "Summer Sale" and "Winter Sale" once per year that have high end clothing that 70% to 90% off, making the cost comprable to the mid-tier.
There's also "Sample Sales" where over-produced items are liquidated or when a designer wants to see the buying public's reaction to their new pieces. Again, ultra-high-end clothing can be purchased at discount rates at these environments. You can get basically any semi-standard piece of high end clothing for not very much money if you put in the time. My strategy in the past has been to wait until finding a great opportunity like that, and then buying 1-2 years worth of clothing in one swoop. It doesn't take much supplementing after that.
It takes very little cognitive energy to begin this process. Next time you see someone who strikes a very good impression, stop and analyze a little bit. Note what they're wearing. If you want to strike that same first impression, go get something comprable. Your fashion will be working for you at that point, and your interpersonal dealings will become easier.