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Does Clothing Have an Impact on Social Interactions:
An Observational
Study in the Classroom
There are many reasons why we choose to wear a
particular article or style of clothing. Many of us consider our choice in
clothing as an extension of our identity. While many others pick items from
their wardrobe that reflect their current mood. There are also many times when
we choose to dress a certain way in anticipation of being in a particular social
setting. Even people who don't seem to bother with matching clothes or wearing a
designer label or walk around wearing clothes that are torn and dirty, are
making a statement. What remains to be examined is whether or not there is a
clear relationship between the clothing we wear and our social interactions.
The implications of such a relationship could lend itself to a variety of
benefits. Imagine knowing that if you are dressed a particular way; you are more
likely to get better service in a restaurant. We already know that when showing
up for a job interview, there is certain dress attire that will make you more
likely to get the job. Why do you think that when you're single and going out,
you tend to spend more time getting ready and dressed up? The answer is because
we associate first impressions and attraction to our physical appearances.
A
variety of studies using empirical reasoning in many different settings, have
tried to establish a relationship between the two. Pamela Regan of California
State University, Los Angeles was cited in the Washington Post as saying "First,
people need to dress appropriately – if you want to be treated well, then dress
the part," after she concluded an observational study of shoppers, the service
they received and the way they were dressed. Published in the Psychological
Reports, 2002 her study titled "Customer Service As A Function of Shopper's
Attire'" revealed that upon entering a store, it took more than 20 seconds
longer for an employee to approach a shopper dressed in gym clothes, as opposed
to one dressed as if she were on her way to work. She concluded, "Clothing, like
other aspects of appearance, seems to exert at least some influence on how we
are perceived and treated by others," (204).
For our particular study, we
wanted to examine the relationship between the dress of a student and their
participation in class as well as whether it made a difference in their
interactions with the professor. As dress is important in the job setting,
social setting, and even consumer setting, the participation of students in
class as well as their relationship with their professors has a strong impact on
their success in college. It for this reason that the following study is worth
examining and has much relevance to the human world. Its possible implications
may also give helpful strategies for current and prospective classroom students
to better succeed in their studies.
Method
Participants and Study
Design
Undergraduate students in the general education requirement class for
Literature participated in this study. The class was selected as it was
currently being taken by each of the researchers and was felt to be a class that
heavily relied on class participation. The study was conducted during a regular
class meeting and consisted of 92 students assigned to one of two groups (n = 1)
for those dressed up and those dressed down (n = 2). Dressed up was
operationally defined as a student wearing dress pants, khakis, skirts, suits,
dress shirts, sweaters and no sneakers. Dressed down was operationally defined
as jeans, sweats, t-shirts, etc For this study there were 35 students grouped
as dressed up and 57 as dressed down.
Each participant was also categorized
as male (n = 1) or female (n = 2). This study had 35 males and 57 females. Of
the males, 12 were dressed up and 23 dressed down. In the group of females, 23
were dressed up and 34 were dressed down. During this naturalistic observational
study, each researcher recorded how many students there were, how many males or
females there were, how they were dressed, how many times they raised their hand
to answer a question and how many times the professor called on them to answer.
Results
The results revealed a relationship did exist between the
dress of the participant and the number of times they raised their hands. A
point-biserial correlation was calculated as the variable of dress was
dichotomous and the number of times they raised their hands was a continuous
variable. This test revealed a negative correlation where rpb = -0.147. What
this means is that participants who were dressed up, raised their hands more.
Computing the t test on these variables resulted in t = 1.414, df = 90.
Therefore p< .05 two-tailed but p> .20 two-tailed.
Calculating the 95%
confidence interval, which would examine the probability of making a Type I
error, resulted in an interval from -.060 to .345. Since this interval contains
0 we cannot reject the null hypothesis that there is no relationship between the
two variables. To distinguish our chances of making a Type II error we
considered the power of our test. The power of our test was .15, which reveals
an 85% chance of making such an error, which we considered very high.
Discussion
While this observational study revealed a relationship
existed between the dress of a student and their participation in class, the
significance was not high enough to reject the null. However our significance
testing also revealed that there was a high possibility of making a Type II
error, the error of blindness. From constructing a Binomial Effect Size Display,
as seen in Table 1, we can safely conclude that something is going on as 57% of
students who dressed up were higher in participation than the 43% whose
participation went down.
In order to get more significant findings, future
studies should include more participants. In order to drive the means further
apart we may also want to operationally redefine our terms for being dressed up
and dressed down to significantly distinguish the differences in the groups.
Further considerations might also be made about the differences between males
and their dress and females and their dress.
Now that this study has been
concluded and the data has been analyzed, I would like to re-conduct the study
with a larger group and perhaps in more diverse settings. It is clear that
clothing does have an impact on social interactions however if I were to redo
this study with a similar set-up I would also want to add a survey element to
the treatment. Perhaps self-perceptions on dress have more of an impact on
whether or not a student participates. This survey would examine how the student
feels about their dress. It is possible that a student wearing $200 designer
jeans and a shirt would consider themselves dressed up and participate more.
However, because according to my own definitions this student would be dressed
down it would hinder my results.
Establishing a significant relationship
between dress and participation in class could be useful to many people. Pamela
Regan's study has convinced me that if I want better service, I should dress up
when I go shopping. If this study were to reveal a significant enough
relationship, then students can reconsider how they dress for class as it may
help their participation grade.
References
Regan, P. C., &
Llamas V. (2002). Customer service as a function of shopper's attire.
Psychological Reports, 90, 203-204.
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