This research examines how people react to nonconforming behaviors, such
as entering a luxury boutique wearing gym clothes rather than an
elegant outfit or wearing red sneakers in a professional setting.
Nonconforming behaviors, as costly and visible signals, can act as a
particular form of conspicuous consumption and lead to positive
inferences of status and competence in the eyes of others. A series of
studies demonstrates that people confer higher status and competence to
nonconforming rather than conforming individuals. These positive
inferences derived from signals of nonconformity are mediated by
perceived autonomy and moderated by individual differences in need for
uniqueness in the observers. An investigation of boundary conditions
demonstrates that the positive inferences disappear when the observer is
unfamiliar with the environment, when the nonconforming behavior is
depicted as unintentional, and in the absence of expected norms and
shared standards of formal conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]