Can official clothes alter your opinion of a person

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My son was doing a psychology class at school and one of the studies was about how people can be made to do things just by appearances. The subjects were given a series of tasks by seperate people,some in ordinary clothes, some in white lab coats .The tasks were more carefully followed by the people who were told what to do by the lab coat wearers. On television we see advertising where the presenter is talking about something whilst wearing a lab coat and glasses. Does that mean we are more gullible to them because they look official?