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“The Clothing Makes the Self” Via Knowledge Activation1
Abstract
This study tested the hypothesis that different clothing styles can influence self-descriptions by priming certain trait categories. We used a cover story to tell our participants to appear for the experiment dressed in either formal or casual wear. When participants arrived for the experiment, they were asked to describe themselves as quickly as possible by endorsing or rejecting trait adjectives. These adjectives were selected in a pilot study as either a trait typically ascribed to a formally dressed person (cultivated, accurate) or a trait typically ascribed to a casually dressed person (easygoing, tolerant). Results show that participants who were dressed formally used more formal adjectives than casual ones to describe themselves. The opposite was true in participants wearing casual clothes. In addition, formally dressed participants responded faster to formal than to casual adjectives, while this difference was reversed in casually dressed participants. Implications for applied settings (e.g., achievement vs. social situations) are discussed.
... Participants wearing formal clothes to the experiment endorsed more formal adjectives such as "strategic" and fewer casual adjectives such as "easygoing" to describe themselves compared to participants wearing casual clothes (Hannover andKühnen 2002: 2517). Hajo Adam and Adam D. Galinsky (2012) found that wearing clothes imbued with symbolic meaning can affect cognitive processes such as sustained attention, which is the ability to remain focused on an activity or stimulus for an extended period of time. ...
... Based on the memory-self relationship literature presented earlier in this chapter, I propose that wearing, seeing, or remembering specific garments may be accompanied by the activation of working selves which are related to the symbolic meanings associated with these garments and/or with particular autobiographical memories. For example, in Hannover and Kühnen's (2002) study, wearing formal clothes may have triggered the activation of working selves that for participants were related to formal settings or memories, such as educational or professional ones. When asked to endorse adjectives describing them, participants may have been describing these working selves. ...
This chapter discusses the relationship that personal objects and dress have with individuals’ autobiographical memories, sense of self, and psychological well-being. The first part of the chapter introduces the psychological literature on autobiographical memory. It then presents theories and empirical evidence suggesting that autobiographical memories influence the self, as well as emotions, behaviors, and psychological well-being both over time and immediately upon retrieval. The second part of the chapter draws on psychology and disciplines such as anthropology and material culture studies to demonstrate how personal objects and dress can serve as powerful reminders of past experiences and past selves. It also attempts to elucidate the mechanisms through which personal objects and dress may influence psychological well-being. The chapter concludes by highlighting the need for further research in this area and how this research may help enhance vulnerable individuals’ well-being while reducing the environmental impact of the fashion industry.
... (AWM 04) Thus, the prevalence of bikinis in women's volleyball is common so that some athletes never bothered with the uniform rules. Meanwhile, the ability of athletes to conform to the rules indicates the flexibility of the athletes' selfconcept through clothing [27], which portrays an attitude of professionalism. Thus, they play and respect the rules of dress issued by the International Federation of Volleyball (FIVB) as is the international rule of sand volleyball. ...
... The dress design adopts the type of women's clothing for beach and outdoor activities in summer in the country where the sand volleyball sport was created. Therefore, a professional sand volleyball athlete should follow the established dress code to maintain the authenticity of the sport's characteristics [27]. Furthermore, one of the characteristics of professional sand volleyball athletes is focusing on developing self-potential in sports, and differentiating the sports atmosphere from other social situations [28], so that the designs of formal sand volleyball dress for females should be maintained. ...
... Wearing formal clothing is thus related to psychological formality and social distance, whereas casual clothing is related to intimacy and familiarity. For example, people who wear formal clothes describe themselves as more competent and rational, whereas people who wear casual clothes describe themselves as more friendly and laid-back (Hannover & Kühnen, 2002;Peluchette & Karl, 2007). The current article examines the impact of wearing formal clothing on cognitive processing, proposing that wearing formal clothing induces more abstract cognitive processing. ...
... Processing style also influences employee concerns about treatment at work, estimated monetary savings, and whether people approach decisions in pragmatic or idealistic manners, all of which are real-world decisions that could plausibly be made while wearing either formal or casual clothing (Cojuharenco, Patient, & Bashshur, 2011;Kivetz & Tyler, 2007;Tam & Dholakia, 2011). The formality of clothing might not only influence the way others perceive a person (Albright et al., 1988;Forsythe, 1990;Reid et al., 1997), and how people perceive themselves (Hannover & Kühnen, 2002;Peluchette & Karl, 2007), but could influence decision making in important ways through its influence on processing style. ...
Drawing from literature on construal-level theory and the psychological consequences of clothing, the current work tested whether wearing formal clothing enhances abstract cognitive processing. Five studies provided evidence supporting this hypothesis. Wearing more formal clothing was associated with higher action identification level (Study 1) and greater category inclusiveness (Study 2). Putting on formal clothing induced greater category inclusiveness (Study 3) and enhanced a global processing advantage (Study 4). The association between clothing formality and abstract processing was mediated by felt power (Study 5). The findings demonstrate that the nature of an everyday and ecologically valid experience, the clothing worn, influences cognition broadly, impacting the processing style that changes how objects, people, and events are construed.
... Damhorst defined dress similarly to how we are defining fashion, so her results are directly relevant to this research. Damhorst's analyses focused on research wherein fashion items affected the inferences of others but researchers have found that fashion items can also impact self-inferences (Hannover & Kühnen, 2002;Hebl, King, & Lin, 2004;Kellerman & Laird, 1982). Thus, to continue to assess the state of knowledge about the communicative nature of fashion, the goal of this research was to conduct a content analysis of research published since Damhorst's analysis (after 1986), identifying fashion and its impact on both person perception and self-perception. ...
... Previous researchers have found that fashion manipulations affect self-perceptions (Hannover & Kühnen, 2002;Kellerman & Laird, 1982). Kellerman and Laird asked students to put on eye glasses and rate themselves on trait descriptive adjectives. ...
Fashion is the way we wear our clothes, adorn our bodies, and train our bodies to move [Craik (1994)15.
Craik, J. (1994). The face of fashion: Cultural studies in fashion. New York, NY: Routledge.View all references. The face of fashion: Cultural studies in fashion. New York, NY: Routledge]. To assess the state of knowledge about the communicative nature of fashion, the goal of this research was to conduct a content analysis of research published after 1986, identifying fashion's effect on perceptions. Articles for analysis (N=115) were identified from online database searches. Coding categories developed by Burns and Lennon [1993. The effect of clothing on the use of person information categories in first impressions. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 12(1), 9–15] and Damhorst [1990. In search of a common thread: Classification of information communicated through dress. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 8(2), 1–12] were used to code dependent variables. Results found that information communicated by fashion was related to potency (35.3%), evaluation (32.1%), physiological and biological traits (11.8%), demographic characteristics (8.3%), miscellaneous (5.3%), dynamism (5.7%), and quality of thought (1.5%). To further analyse information communicated by fashion, we recommend more research on effective coding taxonomies.
... Using the Big Five personality traits model, this study found that conscientiousness was related with a classic style of dress, defined as formal, conventional, and representative clothing. The Big Five model describes people with high levels of conscientiousness as organized, reliable, punctual and neat (Costa and McCrae, 1992), and wearing formal clothing was found to support a self-perception of neatness, cultivation, and restraint (Hannover and Kühnen, 2002). This research also found conscientiousness to be negatively correlated with camouflage and positively correlated with assurance, fashion, and individuality. ...
Research has shown that women tend to use clothes to present or disguise their bodies and that clothing practices can be predicted by body image. This study explored the relationships between clothing practices, personality traits, and body image among Israeli women, using the Big Five personality traits model (NEO-FFI) and a body image measure (MBSRQ) to explore clothing styles and practices among Israeli women (N = 792, Mean age = 42.19). It found that women with are more openness to experience (OR = 1.8; IC 95%: 1.05–3.0), who seek fashion (OR = 2.05; IC 95%: 1.37–3.05) and individuality (OR = 3.96; IC 95%: 2.46–6.3) are more likely to exhibit a urban, sophisticated style of dress. These women are less motivated by comfort (OR = 0.49; IC 95%: 0.31–0.77) and camouflage (OR = 2.05; IC 95%: 1.37–3.05), that are associated with casual, minimalist style of dress. This study indicates that openness to experience may foster body-positive clothing practices. In this way, their choice of clothing can help women overcome objectification and cultural body-ideal pressures, promoting self-validation and mastery.
... Furthermore, clothing can influence self-perception. People wearing formal clothing considered themselves as competent and rational (Hannover and Kühnen, 2002;Peluchette and Karl, 2007) and also have enhanced abstract cognitive processing (i.e., comprehensive mental representations) and increased perceived social difference and power (Slepian et al., 2015). ...
In his paper “Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science,” Andy Clark seminally proposed that the brain's job is to predict whatever information is coming “next” on the basis of prior inputs and experiences. Perception fundamentally subserves survival and self-preservation in biological agents, such as humans. Survival however crucially depends on rapid and accurate information processing of what is happening in the here and now. Hence, the term “next” in Clark's seminal formulation must include not only the temporal dimension (i.e., what is perceived now) but also the spatial dimension (i.e., what is perceived here or next-to-my-body). In this paper, we propose to focus on perceptual experiences that happen “next,” i.e., close-to-my-body. This is because perceptual processing of proximal sensory inputs has a key impact on the organism's survival. Specifically, we focus on tactile experiences mediated by the skin and what we will call the “extended skin” or “second skin,” that is, immediate objects/materials that envelop closely to our skin, namely, clothes. We propose that the skin and tactile experiences are not a mere border separating the self and world. Rather, they simultaneously and inherently distinguish and connect the bodily self to its environment. Hence, these proximal and pervasive tactile experiences can be viewed as a “transparent bridge” intrinsically relating and facilitating exchanges between the self and the physical and social world. We conclude with potential implications of this observation for the case of Depersonalization Disorder, a condition that makes people feel estranged and detached from their self, body, and the world.
... We wish to be clear that we are not attempting to claim that clothing has no behavioral impacts on a participant. Previous research clearly indicates that different clothing choices can change the way that participants describe themselves (Hannover & Kuhnen, 2002) and other measures of self reflection. Furthermore, studies such as those by López-Pérez et al. ...
Adam and Galinsky (2012) motivated their theory of enclothed cognition using experimental results showing that wearing a doctor's coat improved selective attention by reducing errors on incongruent Stroop trials. While many other studies have pursued extensions of this idea, there have been no published replications of this influence on the Stroop effect. This preregistered, direct replication attempt uses equivalence testing and the small telescopes framework from Simonsohn (2015) to argue that such an effect, if it exists, is too small to have been reliably detected under the original design. Theoretically predicted sequential effects as small as 7 ms were successfully detected at α = .05, indicating that the failure to find an effect of lab coat is likely not due to power limitations or poor experimental technique.
... Similarly, a study conducted by Rebecca Walther (2018) on police public perception identified the appearance of a police officer, in this case, their uniform can elicit or influence the perception of a police officer. Additionally, studies by Hannover and Kuehnen (2002) suggest that clothing can alter the self-perception and mood of an individual. Moreover, similar studies undertaken by Balkin and Houlden (1983) deduced that the uniforms of police officers conveyed impressions of reliability, competence, and intelligence this is in cohorts with other past studies that have found that police uniforms can influence perception among the police or the public at large. ...
This paper intends to review studies on the perception of police uniform concerning colour and the
components of the uniform. Although the police uniforms are perceived to be the unifying factor or
element within the policing sector there have been studies, which suggest that police uniform can
influence a negative or positive perception. Most of the past and recent studies have demonstrated
that colour and other components of police uniform significantly influence perception in regards to
police uniforms. Coherently, the dark and grey police uniforms have been noted to depict
aggressiveness or negativity, which in turn, perceptions. Besides, multiple uniform components such
as hats, gloves, vests, baton, and sunglasses have been observed to have a significant influence on
perception in regards to police officers.
... Individuals who wear formal clothing are perceived by others to be more competent across a variety of occupational contexts (Behling & Williams, 1991;Furnham, Chan, & Wilson, 2013;Gherardi, Cameron, West, & Crossley, 2009). Adopting formal attire can also influence the extent to which people feel ambitious, authoritative, trustworthy, and powerful (Hannover & Ku¨hnen, 2002;Peluchette & Karl, 2007;Slepian, Ferber, Gold, & Rutchick, 2015). Thus, clothing can carry specific associations that guide, and perhaps bias, perceptions of ourselves and others. ...
The theory of enclothed cognition proposes that wearing physical articles of clothing can trigger psychological processes and behavioral tendencies connected to their symbolic meaning. Furthermore, past research has found that increases in power are associated with greater approach orientation and action tendencies. In this study, we integrate these two literatures to examine how embodying the role of a police officer through wearing a uniform would affect responses on a reaction-time measure known as the Shooter Task. This first-person video game simulation requires participants to shoot or not shoot targets holding guns or objects. The task typically elicits a stereotypical pattern of responses, such that unarmed Black versus White targets are more likely to be mistakenly shot and armed Black versus White targets are more likely to be correctly shot. Based on the relationship between power and action, we hypothesized that participants who were randomly assigned to wear a police uniform would show more shooting errors, particularly false alarms, than control participants. Consistent with our hypotheses, participants in uniform were more likely to shoot unarmed targets, regardless of their race. Moreover, this pattern was partially moderated by attitudes about the police and their abuse of power. Specifically, uniformed participants who justified police use of power were more likely to shoot innocent targets than those who were wary of it. We discuss implications for police perceptions and the theory of enclothed cognition more broadly.
... We wish to be clear that we are not attempting to claim that clothing has no behavioral impacts on a participant. Previous research clearly indicates that different clothing choices can change the way that participants describe themselves (Hannover & Kuhnen, 2002) and other measures of self reflection. Furthermore, studies such as those by López-Pérez et al. (2016) and Civile and Obhi (2017) indicate measurable effects that appear to depend on both the significance attached to the clothing and that participants actually wear it. ...
Adam and Galinsky (2012) motivated their theory of enclothed cognition using experimental results showing that wearing a doctor's coat improved selective attention by reducing errors on incongruent Stroop trials. While many other studies have pursued extensions of this idea, there have been no published replications of this influence on the Stroop effect. This preregistered, direct replication attempt uses equivalence testing and the small telescopes framework from Simonsohn (2015) to argue that such an effect, if it exists, is too small to have been reliably detected under the original design. Theoretically predicted sequential effects as small as 7 ms were successfully detected at alpha=.05, indicating that the failure to find an effect of lab coat is likely not due to power limitations or poor experimental technique.
... Our study provides important psychological data to buffer a growing body of work assessing the legality of dress codes (Siner, 2017) and demonstrating how individuals use clothing to judge others (Hannover & Kühnen, 2002;Kwon & Farber, 1992). Whereas attire may be only one symbol of professionalism (Naughton et al., 2016), our results show that clothing is enough of a cue for people to make significant character judgments. ...
Does dressing in line with societal clothing rules make a woman appear more professional and competent? We used a within-subjects design and tested if participants rated women dressed in compliance with school and workplace clothing rules more positively than women not dressed in compliance with rules. Participants (N = 89) at a mid-sized mid-western university rated 10 pictures of women captured from the internet on 11 attributes. Participants rated the 5 women dressed following clothing rules higher on a composite measure of positive attributes (intelligent, competent, powerful, organized, efficient, and professional), F(1, 86) = 68.92, p < .001 ηp² = .45. Participant’s ratings did not correlate with their own self-reported levels of sexism. Participants’ gender was not a significant correlate. Our findings indicate that how students perceive women significantly relates to dressing in code. Participants rated women in less revealing and less tight clothing more positively.
... This is an important lack in the social signal processing literature, since clothing affects behavioral responses in the form of impression formation or person self-perception. Several past studies in the social sciences aimed to assess this influence, showing that formality of the clothing influences impression of others towards a person [10] as well as the self-perception of people towards themselves [13], [1]. More recently, the influence of clothing on the decision making of individuals has been investigated [38]. ...
In our society and century, clothing is not anymore used only as a means for body protection. Our paper builds upon the evidence, studied within the social sciences, that clothing brings a clear communicative message in terms of social signals, influencing the impression and behaviour of others towards a person. In fact, clothing correlates with personality traits, both in terms of self-assessment and assessments that unacquainted people give to an individual. The consequences of these facts are important: the influence of clothing on the decision making of individuals has been investigated in the literature, showing that it represents a discriminative factor to differentiate among diverse groups of people. Unfortunately, this has been observed after cumbersome and expensive manual annotations, on very restricted populations, limiting the scope of the resulting claims. With this position paper, we want to sketch the main steps of the very first systematic analysis, driven by social signal processing techniques, of the relationship between clothing and social signals, both sent and perceived. Thanks to human parsing technologies, which exhibit high robustness owing to deep learning architectures, we are now capable to isolate visual patterns characterising a large types of garments. These algorithms will be used to capture statistical relations on a large corpus of evidence to confirm the sociological findings and to go beyond the state of the art.
... While several researchers have confirmed that clothing worn impacts thoughts about the self, Hannover and Kühnen (2002) were interested in uncovering processes that would explain why clothing could have this effect. They began with examining what role priming might have in explaining how clothing impacts self-perceptions. ...
The purpose of this research was to provide a critical review of key research areas within the social psychology of dress. The review addresses published research in two broad areas: (1) dress as a stimulus and its influence on (a) attributions by others, attributions about self, and on one's behavior and (2) relationships between dress, the body, and the self. We identify theoretical approaches used in conducting research in these areas, provide an abbreviated background of research in these areas highlighting key findings, and identify future research directions and possibilities. The subject matter presented features developing topics within the social psychology of dress and is useful for undergraduate students who want an overview of the content area. It is also useful for graduate students (1) who want to learn about the major scholars in these key areas of inquiry who have moved the field forward, or (2) who are looking for ideas for their own thesis or dissertation research. Finally, information in this paper is useful for professors who research or teach the social psychology of dress.
... Several studies also support the idea that different styles of clothing can affect perceptions of self and others (Banerjee, 2004;Brodeur, de Man, & Stout, 2006;Hannover & Kühnen, 2002;Judd, Bull, & Gahagan, 1975;Sani & Thompson, 2001;Stangor et al., 1992;Unkelbach, Forgas, & Denson, 2008). Head coverings, like the turban for men or the hijab for women, are particularly politically charged items of clothing in many Western countries (Greenwood & Christian, 2008;Ruby, 2006;Saroglou, Lamkaddem, Van Pachterbeke, & Buxant, 2009;Unkelbach et al., 2008). ...
Possible factors in prejudice toward Muslims and those perceived to be Muslims were investigated. We specifically investigated cues of foreignness that may communicate threat. Using a 2 (Complexion: dark vs. light) ¥ 2 (Dress: Middle Eastern vs. Western) ¥ 2 (Name: Allen vs. Mohammed) between-subjects design, we expected cues of foreignness (dress and name) to have a greater impact on perceptions of targets than phenotype (complexion). Participants reviewed portraits of young men varying in the manipulated characteristics and gave their impressions. Generally, complexion did not affect perceptions, but portraits in Middle Eastern dress were rated less positively. There was a name by dress interaction in which Allen in Western dress was rated least negatively. Implications for future research are discussed.
... 2517), and therefore unrelated to their reason for dress. Hannover and Kϋhnen (2002) found that the formally dressed participants responded more to the formal adjectives and the reverse was true for the casually dressed participants. The main effect of the adjective list was found to be statistically significant. ...
The influence of an individual's dress practices on his/her sense of self has been studied for many years. Courses such as the Dress and Humanity course at Utah State University have been developed to educate students on the impact of dress on society. In this study, students in the Dress and Humanity course were given a pre-course and post-course survey to determine if self-perceptions related to dress practices underwent a change over the duration of the semester. Significant differences were found in the categories of body image, evaluating self-esteem, and communication of self to others. A relationship was found between survey responses and gender, degree of importance of clothing purchases, and how much money participants spent in the 365 days previous to the pre-course survey.
Enclothed cognition refers to the systematic influence that clothes can have on the wearer's feelings, thoughts, and behaviors through their symbolic meaning. It has attracted considerable academic and nonacademic interest, with the 2012 article that coined the phrase cited more than 600 times and covered in more than 160 news outlets. However, a recent high-powered replication failed to replicate one of the original effects. To determine whether the larger body of research on enclothed cognition possesses evidential value and replicable effects, we performed z-curve and meta-analyses using 105 effects from 40 studies across 24 articles (N = 3,789). Underscoring the marked improvement of psychological research practices in the mid-2010s, our results raise concerns about the replicability of early enclothed cognition studies but affirm the evidential value for effects published after 2015. These later studies support the core principle of enclothed cognition-what we wear influences how we think, feel, and act.
Dieses Kapitel vermittelt folgende Lernziele: Wissen, was man unter einem Untersuchungsdesign versteht. Verschiedene Klassifikationskriterien für Untersuchungsdesigns kennen. Die Vor-und Nachteile unterschiedlicher Untersuchungsdesigns abwägen können, insbesondere unter Berücksichtigung von Aufwand und Aussagekraft. Wissen, wie man das geeignete Untersuchungsdesign für das eigene Forschungsproblem auswählt.
Emblematic power is entrenched in the uniform and bodily image of the police. The COVID-19 pandemic has afforded a new layer of understandings of ‘dirty work’ with police officers, and has shown how the police uniform is perceived to be an involuntary vehicle for physical contamination and symbolic taint. This article is based on interviews with 18 police officers from 11 UK police forces over the summer of 2020 and explores how the COVID-19 pandemic caused increased fear and anxiety about virus contraction, particularly when officers were not prioritised for testing and vaccinations at the time. The possibility of transmitting COVID-19 to family members motivated officers to treat their uniforms differently, and they undertook purification rituals to mitigate violations of the physical and symbolic space around the body. Fear and anxiety of ‘the unknown’ is a motivator for discussions about long-term effects of officer well-being, and the significance of learning to prepare for future pandemics.
Research shows that clothing style can influence self-perception, cognition and behaviour. However, the concept of personal clothing style and how it is linked to self-concept from an individual and subjective perspective of the wearer has received limited empirical attention. This qualitative study aimed to explore women’s lived experiences and perceptions of personal clothing style. Using a homogeneous sample of seven female participants, data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis revealed that personal clothing style constitutes an embodiment of the true self, representation of the ideal self and expression of the creative self. More specifically, personal clothing style is predicated on self-knowledge, consistency and enduring sense of comfort. It is also perceived to actualize desired self-conceptions and one’s creative potential. Findings not only provide an empirically founded conceptualization of personal clothing style, but also identify its important psychological properties with implications for both psychology and fashion research.
In his paper ‘Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science’ Andy Clark (2013) seminally proposed that the brain’s job is to predict whatever information is coming ‘next’ on the basis of prior inputs and experiences. Perception fundamentally subserves survival and self-preservation in biological agents such as humans. Survival however crucially depends on rapid and accurate information processing of what is happening in the here and now. Hence the term ‘next’ in Clark’s seminal formulation must include not only the temporal dimension (i.e. what is perceived now); but (ii) also the spatial dimension (i.e. what is perceived here or next-to-my-body). In this paper we propose to focus on perceptual experiences that happen ‘next’, i.e. close-to-my-body. This is because perceptual processing of proximal sensory inputs has a key impact on the organism’s survival. Specifically, we focus on tactile experiences mediated by the skin and what we will call the ‘extended skin’ or ‘second skin’, that is immediate objects/materials that envelop closely our skin, namely clothes. We propose that the skin and tactile experiences are not a mere border separating the self and world. Rather they simultaneously and inherently distinguish and connect the bodily self to its environment. Hence these proximal and pervasive tactile experiences be viewed as a ‘transparent bridge’ intrinsically relating and facilitating exchanges between the self and the physical and social world. We conclude with potential implications of this observation for the case of Depersonalisation Disorder, a condition that makes people feel estranged and detached from their self, body and the world.
Consumers often spend a considerable amount of time and resources on clothing, with the hope of influencing how others perceive them. Little is known, though, about how the clothes one wears might influence him/her to behave differently. This research examines the impact of clothes style (formal vs. informal) on consumers’ choice of healthy or unhealthy foods. We find that formal and informal clothes styles can activate different clothes-image associations and thus make consumers more likely choose a food type (healthy or unhealthy) that is congruent with a specific set of clothes-image associations, referred to as clothes-food congruence. For example, wearing formal clothes can activate such formal-clothes associations as being self-controlled and organized. Formal- (vs. informal-) clothes associations are perceived to be congruent with healthy (vs. unhealthy) food choices. Hence, we suggest that clothes-food congruence mediates the relationship between clothes-image associations and food choice. Implications for research as well as for practice are discussed.
The main objectives of this commentary are to discuss the replication study of Adam and Galinsky (2012, Experiment 1) by Burns, Fox, Greenstein, Olbright, and Montgomery, clarify the main idea behind enclothed cognition, supplement the literature review presented by Burns et al., discuss why our original study failed to replicate, and offer potential avenues for future research. Overall, we believe the replication study was conducted competently, and thus the results cast doubt on our finding that wearing a lab coat decreases errors on the Stroop test. At the same time, Burns et al. also identify several successful conceptual replications of our original effects, and we present additional studies that support an enclothed cognition perspective. The sum total of the available data suggests that the core principle of enclothed cognition—what we wear can influence how we think, feel, and act—is generally valid.
In diesem Kapitel wird zunächst auf das Selbstkonzept, das aus multiplen Selbstaspekten besteht, und die Wege der Aktivierung von Teilen des Selbstkonzepts eingegangen. Anschließend werden die Funktionen des Selbst, hier vor allem die strukturierende, die motivational-emotionale und die handlungsregulierende Funktion, beschrieben. Des Weiteren werden Wege der Selbsterkenntnis (Introspektion, Selbstbeobachtung und Vergleich mit anderen Personen) erklärt. Das Kapitel endet mit einer Darlegung von Strategien, die vor allem bei der Bedrohung des Selbst eingesetzt werden, um ein positives Selbstbild aufrechtzuerhalten (Selbstwertbestätigung, selbstwertdienliche soziale Vergleiche und selbstwertdienliche Attributionen).
Women experience gender stereotyping at the workplace not only by men but also
by other women. Despite an increase in diversity and equality at the workplace,
women in India still face gender bias and are represented less at boardroom level.
According to an annual survey by Grant Thornton (2017), India ranks third lowest
in the proportion of business leadership roles held by women. Though gender roles
in India are changing, women in top positions are still facing various hindrances.
The higher the position a woman holds in an organization, harsher are the judgments
made if her clothing is perceived as inappropriate. Thus, this chapter
sheds light on how women managers on a daily basis use attire to manage their
identities.
This research aimed at testing whether the association of formality
of clothing with mental abstraction found in prior research depends
on whether individuals are (made) aware of the formality of their
clothing prior to measuring mental abstraction. In two preregistered
studies participants estimated the formality of their clothing and
performed an action identification task (Study 1) or categorization
task (Study 2) as measures of mental abstraction. In addition, we
varied the order of assessing formality of clothing and mental
abstraction to manipulate the accessibility of formality of clothing
before completing the mental abstraction tasks. When assessing
formality of clothing prior to mental abstraction we did not obtain
a reliable correlation so that the assumed decrease of this relation
in the reversed order condition could not be tested. When pooling
the data of both experimental conditions, the results of Study 1
support the hypothesis that formality of clothing is positively correlated
with mental abstraction and are compatible with the hypothesis
of a causal mechanism where formality of clothing influences
mental abstraction through changes in subjective social status and
power. Study 2 did not yield evidence for a positive correlation
between formality of clothing and mental abstraction.
Clothing conveys a strong communicative message in terms of social signals, influencing the impression and behaviour of others towards a person; unfortunately, the nature of this message is not completely clear, and social signal processing approaches are starting to consider this problem. Wearable computing devices offer a unique perspective in this scenario, capturing fine details of clothing items in the same way we do during a social interaction, through ego-centered points of views. These clothing characteristics can be then employed to unveil statistical relations with personal impressions. This position paper investigates this novel research direction, individuating the main objectives, the possible problems, viable research strategies, techniques and expected results. This analysis gives birth to brand-new concepts such as clothing saliency, that is, those parts of garments more relevant for triggering personal impressions.
Dieses Kapitel vermittelt folgende Lernziele: Wissen, was man unter einem Untersuchungsdesign versteht. Verschiedene Klassifikationskriterien für Untersuchungsdesigns kennen. Die Vor-und Nachteile unterschiedlicher Untersuchungsdesigns abwägen können, insbesondere unter Berücksichtigung von Aufwand und Aussagekraft. Wissen, wie man das geeignete Untersuchungsdesign für das eigene Forschungsproblem auswählt.
An important dimension of linguistic variation is formality. This study investigates the role of social distance between interlocutors. Twenty-five native Dutch speakers retold eight short films to confederates, who acted either formally or informally. Speakers were familiarized with the informal confederates, whereas the formal confederates remained strangers. Results show that the two types of interlocutors elicited different versions of the same stories. Formal interlocutors (i.e. large social distance) elicited lower articulation rates, and more nouns and prepositions, both indicators of explicit information. Speakers addressing the informal interlocutors, to whom social distance was small, however, provided more explicit information with an involved character (i.e. adjectives with subjective meanings). They also used the word and more often as a gap filler or as a way to keep the floor. Furthermore, a small social distance elicited more laughter, interjections, first-person pronouns and direct speech, which are all indicators of involvement, empathy and subjectivity.
The series of studies explored the role of visual, auditory, tactile-kinesthetic, and olfactory modalities in physical attraction toward a romantic partner in four cultures. Participants (N = 1,330) from four European countries, Russia (n = 433), Portugal (n = 248), Georgia (n = 436), and France (n = 213) completed the surveys rating the degree of their physical attraction and how important the various sensory modalities are in their romantic attraction to a partner. Factor analysis revealed 13 sensory factors, among those are expressive behavior, dancing, singing, facial structure, body characteristics, hair and eye features, voice, expressive manner of speaking, skin, dressing, and lips. ANOVA showed cross-culturally common and most prevalent sensory factors of romantic attraction as well as differences among cultures. These differences are explained by climate variations, cultural values, and traditions.
Researchers' performances in the field are gendered, classed, and ethnicized. We are watched and judged by our respondents based on how we look, what we say, and how we say it. Our appearance in the field may increase or decrease our chances of creating rapport, it may encourage respondents to talk to us or discourage them entirely from taking part in our research. Whereas we have no absolute control over all the factors determining how we present ourselves in the field, we do have some power over our dress. Although the act of getting dressed for fieldwork may appear inconspicuous and mundane, I argue in this article that its implications are most relevant for our thinking about how we design and perform fieldwork. Particularly the assumptions regarding our respondents' and our own class, gender, and ethnicity that we make before entering the field are worthy of careful consideration as they display our thought processes and, as such, are part of academic analysis.
URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1502146
In this paper I will be using various concepts, some of them are new and others old are widely accepted. Cultural and sociological theories have frequently tried to give oversimplified explanations of the motives of human clothing. Dress is not motivated only by modesty, adornment, and protection, or even-a still more one sided theory offered by Freud-by sex alone. All dress appears to be motivated primarily by the environment. Although the purposes of clothing are determined by environmental conditions, its form is determined by man's own characteristics, and especially by his mental traits. Forms of clothing are influenced by physical environment and social conditions, including sex relations, costume, caste, class, and religious, metaphysical, or other supersensory relations. Dress is founded primarily in the world of emotions. It is not only a kind of covering but also a kind of mimicry through which man expresses many of his subjective social sentiments. The development of dress precedes from two poles-the cultural-psychological and the concrete psychological characteristics of men.
In this paper I will be using various concepts, some of them are new and others old are widely accepted. Cultural and sociological theories have frequently tried to give oversimplified explanations of the motives of human clothing. Dress is not motivated only by modesty, adornment, and protection, or even-a still more one sided theory offered by Freud-by sex alone. All dress appears to be motivated primarily by the environment. Although the purposes of clothing are determined by environmental conditions, its form is determined by man's own characteristics, and especially by his mental traits. Forms of clothing are influenced by physical environment and social conditions, including sex relations, costume, caste, class, and religious, metaphysical, or other supersensory relations. Dress is founded primarily in the world of emotions. It is not only a kind of covering but also a kind of mimicry through which man expresses many of his subjective social sentiments. The development of dress precedes from two poles-the cultural-psychological and the concrete psychological characteristics of men.
This study focuses on city employees and their perceptions regarding the importance of dress and appearance in the public sector workplace. Using the impression management literature and self-presentation theory, we examine the impact of mode of dress worn (casual, business casual, formal business) on their self-perceptions of creativity, productivity, trustworthiness, authoritativeness, friendliness, and competence. We also examine their beliefs regarding the impact of employee appearance on customer perceptions of service quality. Our results suggest that “you are what you wear.” Respondents felt more competent and authoritative when wearing either formal business or business casual, more trustworthy and productive when wearing business casual, and least friendly and creative when wearing formal business attire. Respondents also believed that uniforms had a positive impact on customer perceptions of overall service quality, and that tattoos, athletic wear, unconventional hairstyles or hair color, sweat pants, facial piercings, revealing clothing and clothing with tears, rips or holes had a negative impact. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Framing issues of organizational ethics in terms of virtues and moral agency (rather than in terms of rules and ethical behavior) has implications for the way social science addresses matters of morality in organizations. In particular, attending to matters of virtue and moral agency directs attention to the moral identity, or self-concept, of persons, and to the circumstances that influence self-identity. This article develops parallels between philosophical theories of virtue and the concept of moral identity as developed in social cognitive identity theory. Explicating notions of virtue and moral agency in terms of social cognitive identity theory, in turn, helps direct attention to a range of factors - including both organizational and extraorganizational, macro-cultural ones - that can foster or inhibit moral agency in organizations.
Zusammenfassung. Mitglieder individualistischer Kulturen definieren ihr Selbst vor allem als eine autonome, von anderen unabhangige Einheit (independente Selbstkonstruktion). Demgegenuber sehen Mitglieder kollektivistischer Kulturen ihre Identitat vorwiegend in ihrer Verbundenheit mit anderen Menschen (interdependente Selbstkonstruktion). Fruhere Autoren haben postuliert, dass Personen in Abhangigkeit ihrer Selbstkonstruktion soziale Information unterschiedlich verarbeiten. Auf welche Weise Selbstkonstruktionen das Denken, Fuhlen und Handeln von Menschen beeinflussen, war bislang jedoch nur ungenau spezifiziert. Ein Grund hierfur kann darin gesucht werden, dass kausale Annahmen uber den Einfluss beider Selbstwissensarten in rein kulturvergleichenden Studien nicht uberpruft werden konnen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein Modell des Selbst dargestellt, das die kulturvergleichende Perspektive und kognitionspsychologische Annahmen uber die Dynamik der menschlichen Informationsverarbeitung zu integrieren ve...
This study examined employee preferences for different styles of workplace attire and how wearing various styles of clothing affected their self-perceptions. Respondents felt most authoritative, trustworthy, and competent when wearing formal business attire but friendliest when wearing casual or business casual attire. Significant two-way interactions were found between dress preference and mode of dress worn on self-perceptions of productivity, trustworthiness, creativity, and friendliness. Suggestions for future research and implications for HRD professionals are proposed.
Clothing color and style are significant factors in impression formation in first-time dealings with strangers. Four common
police uniform color schemes are evaluated for their influence on seven scales of impression formation with a sample of 737
citizens in a Midwestern city. Consistent with the previous literature, the all black color scheme was viewed most negatively
on six of the seven scales. The light blue shirt and navy blue pants color scheme created the most positive impression on
all seven scales. The implications of these findings for police-community relations and department uniform selection are discussed.
We hypothesized that attitudes characterized by a strong association between the attitude object and an evaluation of that object are capable of being activated from memory automatically upon mere presentation of the attitude object. We used a priming procedure to examine the extent to which the mere presentation of an attitude object would facilitate the latency with which subjects could indicate whether a subsequently presented target adjective had a positive or a negative connotation. Across three experiments, facilitation was observed on trials involving evaluatively congruent primes (attitude objects) and targets, provided that the attitude object possessed a strong evaluative association. In Experiments 1 and 2, preexperimentally strong and weak associations were identified via a measurement procedure. In Experiment 3, the strength of the object-evaluation association was manipulated. The results indicated that attitudes can be automatically activated and that the strength of the objectevaluation association determines the likelihood of such automatic activation. The implications of these findings for a variety of issues regarding attitudes—including their functional value, stability, effects on later behavior, and measurement—are discussed.
The accessibility of a category in memory has been shown to influence the selection and interpretation of social information. The present experiment examined the possibility that information relevant to a trait category (hostility) presented outside of conscious awareness can temporarily increase that category's accessibility. 108 male undergraduates initially performed a vigilance task in which they were exposed unknowingly to single words. Either 0, 20, or 80% of those words were semantically related to hostility. In an unrelated 2nd task, 20 Ss read a behavioral description of a stimulus person (SP) that was ambiguous regarding hostility and then rated the SP on several trait dimensions. The amount of processing Ss gave to the hostile information and the negativity of their ratings of the SP both were reliably and positively related to the proportion of hostile words to which they were exposed. Several control conditions confirmed that the words were not consciously perceived. It is concluded that social stimuli of which people are not consciously aware can influence conscious judgments. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Attempts to organize, summarize, or explain one's own behavior in a particular domain result in the formation of cognitive structures about the self or self-schemata. Self-schemata are cognitive generalizations about the self, derived from past experience, that organize and guide the processing of the self-related information contained in an individual's social experience. The role of schemata in processing information about the self was examined in 2 experiments by linking self-schemata to a number of specific empirical referents. In Exp I, 48 female undergraduates either with schemata in a particular domain or without schemata were selected using the Adjective Check List, and their performance on a variety of cognitive tasks was compared. In Exp II, the selective influence of self-schemata on interpreting information about one's own behavior was investigated in 47 Ss. Results of both experiments indicate that self-schemata facilitate the processing of information about the self, contain easily retrievable behavioral evidence, provide a basis for the confident self-prediction of behavior on schema-related dimensions, and make individuals resistant to counterschematic information. The relationship of self-schemata to cross-situational consistency in behavior and the implications of self-schemata for attribution theory are discussed. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Recent research has indicated that a perceiver's expectancies about a target person can lead that perceiver to channel social interaction with the target in such a way that the target person's behavioral response may confirm the original expectancy, thus producing a self-fulfulling prophecy. It is suggested that once the target person behaves, the target may undergo a self-perception process and internalize the very disposition that the perceiver expected him or her to possess. Such a change in the target person's self-concept is apt to affect his or her behavior in future and different situations not involving the original perceiver. To test this hypothesis, 40 undergraduates first participated in an initial interaction with the experimenter, which purposefully was biased to produce either introverted or extraverted behavior on the part of the target S. On both a subsequent self-description measure and on a variety of behavioral measures involving a subsequent interaction with a confederate, Ss displayed evidence of having internalized the dispositions implied by their earlier responses during this initial interaction. Implications for the self-fulfilling prophecy are discussed. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
concerned with correction processes in judgment / under what conditions do people attempt to correct judgments they have already made; when are they motivated to do so; and how do they go about it / raise a very telling point at the outset: exactly what does it mean to hold an accurate, unbiased belief / this is a critical issue for models . . . that posit a motivation to hold accurate beliefs / note that "accuracy" can be defined by the individual in several ways: a judgment free of presumed bias, but perhaps also one that conforms to contemporaneous social norms as to appropriate beliefs to hold (via., political correctness of beliefs) / in other words, an important theoretical and research issue for those concerned with accuracy motivation is that of the definition and standards of accuracy as held by the individual
[discuss] the circumstances under which a person is motivated to correct a judgment / analyze the epistemic and social motivations the individual may have for correction (such as a desire to hold valid beliefs), as well as the potential interpersonal costs of holding socially undesirable opinions (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Three studies tested basic assumptions derived from a theoretical model based on the dissociation of automatic and controlled processes involved in prejudice. Study 1 supported the model's assumption that high- and low-prejudice persons are equally knowledgeable of the cultural stereotype. The model suggests that the stereotype is automatically activated in the presence of a member (or some symbolic equivalent) of the stereotype group and that low-prejudice responses require controlled inhibition of the automatically activated stereotype. Study 2, which examined the efforts of automatic stereotype activation on the evaluation of ambiguous stereotype-relevant behaviors performed by a race-unspecified person, suggested that when subjects' ability to consciously monitor stereotype activation is precluded, both high- and low-prejudice subjects produce stereotype-congruent evaluations of ambiguous behaviors. Study 3 examined high- and low-prejudice subjects' responses in a consciously directed thought-listing task. Consistent with the model, only low-prejudice subjects inhibited the automatically activated stereotype-congruent thoughts and replaced them with thoughts reflecting equality and negations of the stereotype. The relation between stereotypes and prejudice and implications for prejudice reduction are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We hypothesized that attitudes characterized by a strong association between the attitude object and an evaluation of that object are capable of being activated from memory automatically upon mere presentation of the attitude object. We used a priming procedure to examine the extent to which the mere presentation of an attitude object would facilitate the latency with which subjects could indicate whether a subsequently presented target adjective had a positive or a negative connotation. Across three experiments, facilitation was observed on trials involving evaluatively congruent primes (attitude objects) and targets, provided that the attitude object possessed a strong evaluative association. In Experiments 1 and 2, preexperimentally strong and weak associations were identified via a measurement procedure. In Experiment 3, the strength of the object-evaluation association was manipulated. The results indicated that attitudes can be automatically activated and that the strength of the object-evaluation association determines the likelihood of such automatic activation. The implications of these findings for a variety of issues regarding attitudes--including their functional value, stability, effects on later behavior, and measurement--are discussed.
When describing themselves, females endorse expressive personality traits more frequently than males. Males, in contrast, consider relatively more instrumental traits as self-descriptive. The present investigation focusses on the mechanism by which this sex difference emerges across the course of development. Specifically, it is hypothesized that self-related knowledge referring to expressive or to instrumental traits becomes situationally activated when the person behaves in a «typically feminine» or «typically masculine» manner, and that this knowledge will be subsequently more accessible. To test this assumption, girls and boys were asked to perform either a «typically feminine» or a «typically masculine» activity, i.e., changing a doll baby's diaper or pounding large nails into a piece of wood. When no such activity was required, girls described themselves using more expressive and fewer instrumental traits than boys. Also, as compared to boys, girls required shorter processing times for «me» or «not me» judgments to expressive traits but responded slower to instrumental ones. However, girls and boys who performed the «feminine activity» endorsed more expressive traits and processed them faster than same-sex members of the no-activity control group. Moreover, girls and boys who performed the «masculine activity» accepted instrumental traits more frequently and responded faster to them than same-sex control group members. These results are consistent with the assumption that across the life span, chronic sex differences in the self-concept about gender are formed as females are more frequently encouraged to engage in «typically feminine» activities and males to act in a «typically masculine» manner.
A questionnaire was administered to 61 people on a university campus to study the influence of clothing style and sex on the formation of first impressions. Analysis showed that clothing style and sex of the subject influenced subjects' perceptions of others, in particular, that subjects rated others wearing similar clothing as themselves more positively and that the ratings of women were less harsh then those of men. Subjects also rated less common clothing styles in the university context more extremely.
Three studies tested basic assumptions derived from a theoretical model based on the dissociation of automatic and controlled processes involved in prejudice. Study 1 supported the model's assumption that high- and low-prejudice persons are equally knowledgeable of the cultural stereotype. The model suggests that the stereotype is automatically activated in the presence of a member (or some symbolic equivalent) of the stereotyped group and that low-prejudice responses require controlled inhibition of the automatically activated stereotype. Study 2, which examined the effects of automatic stereotype activation on the evaluation of ambiguous stereotype-relevant behaviors performed by a race-unspecified person, suggested that when subjects' ability to consciously monitor stereotype activation is precluded, both high- and low-prejudice subjects produce stereotype-congruent evaluations of ambiguous behaviors. Study 3 examined high- and low-prejudice subjects' responses in a consciously directed thought-listing task. Consistent with the model, only low-prejudice subjects inhibited the automatically activated stereotype-congruent thoughts and replaced them with thoughts reflecting equality and negations of the stereotype. The relation between stereotypes and prejudice and implications for prejudice reduction are discussed.
This study examined the influence of a female instructor's clothing style on students' perceptions of an instructor's characteristics. Social perception provided the theoretical framework. Formality of clothing style, students' clothing interest, and students' gender were the independent variables. Perception of the instructor's characteristics was the dependent variable. A 25-item questionnaire was administered to 216 college students from three universities. Perceptions of the instructor's characteristics varied significantly with formality of clothing style. The students' clothing interest influenced perceptions to some extent; gender of students did not.
A questionnaire was administered to 61 people on a university campus to study the influence of clothing style and sex on the formation of first impressions. Analysis showed that clothing style and sex of the subject influenced subjects' perceptions of others, in particular, that subjects rated others wearing similar clothing as themselves more positively and that the ratings of women were less harsh then those of men. Subjects also rated less common clothing styles in the university context more extremely.
-For this study of perceived behavior and academic ability in a secondary school setting, four clothing styles including two styles of school uniforms were photographed and manipulated. 270 students and 20 teachers fmm a public high school and a private school, in which uniforms are required, participated. A repeated-measures analysis of variance as well as a Tukeyls test were used for data analysis. Independent variables were sex of the model, school, and style of dothing. Dependent variables were perception of behavior, scholastic achievement, and scholastic potential. Perception of school-related behavior and scholastic ability of the models dressed in four styles of clothing varied significantly by style of dress. There were also significant effects for sex of the model and status (teacher vs student) of the perceiver. Results were similar for the two schools in that a school uniform positively affected the perception of academic abiliries and school-related behavior of the clothed models for students and teachers. Person perception has been an important area for empirical research for decades. Results leave no doubt that physical appearance is an important variable in the perceiver's judgment of such things as an individual's character or abilities (Gross & Crofton, 1979). A halo effect appears to be operating, whereby an attractive person is perceived as more sociable (Lennon &
Photographs of five clothing styles were manipulated in this investigation of perceived behavior, academic potential and intelligence of high school students. Teacher and student subjects from three urban secondary schools with 97%, 56% and 30% minority enrollments participated in the study. A repeated measures analysis of variance as well as a post hoc test were used for data analyses. Independent variables were clothing styles, sex of the model, school and race. Dependent variables were perception of intelligence, scholastic ability and school related behavior. Student and teacher subjects perceived differences in behavior, academic potential and intelligence of the models based on clothing worn. Differences for behavior and academic potential were significant for clothing style and sex of the model. There were significant interactions for academic potential by sex of the model and style, for school and style, as well as for style, school and race.
Stimulus photographs of four clothing styles worn by a male and a female model were used to investigate the role clothing plays in perception of intelligence and academic expectations of high school students. Subjects were 750 high school students and 159 teachers from six schools in Ohio. One large suburban school, two urban schools, and three rural schools were represented. Repeated measures ANO VA was used to determine F value, and post hoc tests were conducted. Results indicate perception of intelligence and academic achievement are influenced by dress. Significant differences were found in perception of intelligence and scholastic ability for both student and teacher subjects based on clothing styles and sex of the model. There were significant differences among the schools for students but not for teachers. The influence of dress and gender on teachers'perception of the intellectual capabilities of students has serious implications for the classroom.
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of a female teacher's clothing style on student perceptions of teacher characteristics, including approachability, knowledge, respect, and overall acceptability. High school students were provided with photographs of a teacher model dressed in four clothing styles and were asked to select one of the photos for each of 20 statements designed to reflect teacher characteristics. Chi square results revealed differences between the clothing styles on 19 of the 20 statements.
The present study examined the immediate and delayed effects of unobtrusive exposure to personality trait terms (e.g., "reckless," "persistent") on subjects' subsequent judgments and recollection of information about another person. Before reading a description of a stimulus person, subjects were unobtrusively exposed to either positive or negative trait terms that either could or could not be used to characterize this person. When the trait terms were applicable to the description of the stimulus person, subjects' characterizations and evaluations of the person reflected the denotative and evaluative aspects of the trait categories activated by the prior exposure to these terms. However, the absence of any effects for nonapplicable trait terms suggested that exposure to trait terms with positive or negative associations was not in itself sufficient to determine attributions and evaluations. Prior verbal exposure had little effect on reproduction of the descriptions. Moreover, no reliable difference in either evaluation or reproduction was found between subjects who overtly characterized the stimulus person and those who did not. Exposure to applicable trait terms had a greater delayed than immediate effect on subjects' evaluations of the stimulus person, suggesting that subjects may have discounted their categorizations of the stimulus person when making their immediate evaluations. The implications of individual and situational variation in the accessibility of different categories for judgments of self and others are considered.
227 female university faculty and staff completed a clothing image measure (in which 5 costumes were rated on 15 attribute indicators) as well as measures of actual and ideal self-image, self- and ideal congruity, clothing behavior, and achievement motivation. Results support the hypothesis that achievement-motivated (AM) Ss are more likely to wear professional costumes than nonachievement-motivated (NM) Ss, because AM Ss are more likely to have higher professional actual (and ideal) self-images and therefore experience more self-congruity (and ideal congruity) with professional costumes than NM Ss. In contrast, NM Ss are more likely to wear other costume styles (e.g., feminine, collegiate, casual) than AM Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the role of anticipated-interaction instructions on memory for and organization of social information. In Study 1, Ss read and recalled information about a prospective partner (i.e., target) on a problem-solving task and about 4 other stimulus people. The results indicated that (a) Ss recalled more items about the target than the others, (b) the target was individuated from the others in memory, and (c) Ss were more accurate on a name–item matching task for the target than for the others. Study 2 compared anticipated interaction with several other processing goals (i.e., memory, impression formation, self-comparison, friend-comparison). Only anticipated-interaction and impression formation instructions led to higher levels of recall and more accurate matching performance for the target than for the others. However, the conditional probability data suggest that anticipated interaction led to higher levels of organization of target information than did any of the other conditions. Discussion considers information processing strategies that are possibly instigated by anticipated-interaction instructions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the self-fulfilling influences of social stereotypes on dyadic social interaction. Conceptual analysis suggests that a perceiver's actions based upon stereotype-generated attributions about a specific target individual may cause the behavior of that individual to confirm the perceiver's initially erroneous attributions. A paradigmatic investigation of the behavioral confirmation of stereotypes involving physical attractiveness (e.g., "beautiful people are good people") is presented. 51 male "perceivers" interacted with 51 female "targets" (all undergraduates) whom they believed to be physically attractive or physically unattractive. Tape recordings of each participant's conversational behavior were analyzed by naive observer judges for evidence of behavioral confirmation. Results reveal that targets who were perceived (unknown to them) to be physically attractive came to behave in a friendly, likeable, and sociable manner in comparison with targets whose perceivers regarded them as unattractive. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Many personality trait terms can be thought of as summary labels for broad conceptual categories that are used to encode information about an individual's behavior into memory. The likelihood that a behavior is encoded in terms of a particular trait category is postulated to be a function of the relative accessibility of that category in memory. In addition, the trait category used to encode a particular behavior is thought to affect subsequent judgments of the person along dimensions to which it is directly or indirectly related. To test these hypotheses, undergraduates first performed a sentence construction task that activated concepts associated with either hostility (Exp I, 96 Ss) or kindness (Exp II, 96 new Ss). As part of an ostensibly unrelated impression formation experiment, Ss later read a description of behaviors that were ambiguous with respect to hostility (kindness) and then rated the target person along a variety of trait dimensions. Ratings of the target along these dimensions increased with the number of times that the test concept had previously been activated in the sentence construction task and decreased with the time interval between these prior activations and presentation of the stimulus information to be encoded. Results suggest that category accessibility is a major determinant of the way in which social information is encoded into memory and subsequently used to make judgments. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study looks at some effects of five different styles of women's clothing: Formal Skirt, Formal Pants, Casual Skirt, Casual Pants, and Jeans. There were no significant differences in compliance to a request to fill out a questionnaire made by experimenters dressed in the five clothing styles, although experimenter age and sex effects were found. Ratings of photographs of the five dress styles indicate that a model was viewed by both male and female subjects as most happy, successful, feminine, interesting, attractive, intelligent, and wanted as a friend when wearing a Formal Skirt outfit and as least so when wearing Jeans. She was also seen as more active when wearing pants as compared with a skirt. Subjects' reasons for choosing what clothing to wear did not indicate that how one will appear to others is the major factor in clothing selection. It appears that clothing does communicate something about the wearer but may influence behavior toward her primarily in the absence of other information about her status.
How likely people are to think of themselves in terms of a given personal characteristic is predicted from the distinctiveness postulate that the person, when confronted by a complex stimulus (such as the self), selectively notices and encodes the stimulus in terms of what is most peculiar about it, since these peculiar characteristics are the most informative in distinguishing it from other stimuli. This partial view of the person as an information-encoding machine (one is conscious of oneself insofar as, and in the ways that, one is different) is used to derive four predictions implying that ethnic identity is salient in children's spontaneous self-concepts to the extent that their ethnic group is in the minority in their social milieu at school. Our measure of salience of ethnicity was its being spontaneously mentioned by the children in response to a nondirective "Tell us about yourself" question. All four predictions were confirmed, though for several of the findings there are plausible alternative explanations.
The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of a male teacher's clothing and selected students' characteristics on students' perceptions of teachers' characteristics. The sample consisted of 152 male and female high school students. Respondents selected one of four photographs of a male teacher model dressed in four different clothing styles for each of 20 teachers' characteristic statements. The mediating effects of students' gender, formality of clothing, and perceptions of the importance of clothing were also investigated. Significant differences among the four clothing styles were found for all 20 statements. Students' gender and rated importance of clothing had some influence on this relationship. The results supplement previous research on female teachers by suggesting that different types of clothing also influence students' perceptions of male teachers and that students' characteristics have some mediating effect.
Previous research has shown that trait concepts and stereotype become active automatically in the presence of relevant behavior or stereotyped-group features. Through the use of the same priming procedures as in previous impression formation research, Experiment 1 showed that participants whose concept of rudeness was printed interrupted the experimenter more quickly and frequently than did participants primed with polite-related stimuli. In Experiment 2, participants for whom an elderly stereotype was primed walked more slowly down the hallway when leaving the experiment than did control participants, consistent with the content of that stereotype. In Experiment 3, participants for whom the African American stereotype was primed subliminally reacted with more hostility to a vexatious request of the experimenter. Implications of this automatic behavior priming effect for self-fulfilling prophecies are discussed, as is whether social behavior is necessarily mediated by conscious choice processes.
Readiness depends on how accessible categories are to the stimulated organism. Accessibility is a function of the likehood of occurrence of previously learned events, and one's need states and habits of daily living. Lack of perceptual readiness can be rectified by relearning the categories, or by constant close inspection of events and objects. Sensory stimuli are "sorted" to appropriate categories by searching for and using cues. 4 mechanisms are proposed: "grouping and integration, access ordering, match-mismatch signal utilization, and gating." Failure of perceptual readiness may occur because of inability to learn appropriate categories or through interference of accessible categories. These ideas may shed light on "perceptual defense." 88 references.
Das dynamische Selbst. Zur Kontextabhängigkeit selbstbezogenen Wissens [The dynamic self. The context-dependency of self-related knowledge
- B Hannover
Hannover, B. (1997a). Das dynamische Selbst. Zur Kontextabhängigkeit selbstbezogenen Wissens [The dynamic self. The context-dependency of self-related
knowledge].
Zur Entwicklung des geschlechtsbezogenen Selbstkonzepts: Der Einfluß "maskuliner" und "femininer" Tätigkeiten auf die Selbstbeschreibung mit instrumentellen und expressiven Personeigenschaften
- B Hannover
Hannover, B. (1997b). Zur Entwicklung des geschlechtsbezogenen Selbstkonzepts: Der Einfluß "maskuliner" und "femininer" Tätigkeiten auf die Selbstbeschreibung mit instrumentellen und expressiven Personeigenschaften.
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THE CLOTHING MAKES THE SELF 11