How police officers’ military uniforms affect their mental state

“As the saying goes, ‘the clothes make the man.’ In Ferguson, the men who work as police dress like soldiers. Dressing police in camouflage is certainly ridiculous (John Oliver recently quipped, ‘If they want to blend in with their surroundings, they should be dressed like a dollar store’), but recent psychological research now indicates that the effect of militarized dress may be much more insidious. There are at least two ways in which the clothes people wear can affect how they act. The first is the symbolism that the wearer associates with the clothing. The second is the extent to which the clothing masks the person’s identity.”

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/12/cops_deadly_identity_problem_how_police_officers_military_uniforms_affect_their_mental_state/