The Effect of Contexts, Clothing Cues and Perceiver's Age on Male Impressions.

상황, 의복단서 및 관찰자의 연령이 남자 의복착용자의 인상에 미치는 영향

The purpose of this study was to identify 1) the effect of two contexts (job interview, Informal outing) and clothing cues (type, style, color) on male impresssions 2) the effect of perceiver's age on male impressions created by the clothing cues and contexts. The subjects consisted of 256 male undergraduate students and 256 middle-aged men. The experimental materials developed for this study were a set of stimuli and response scales. The stimuli were 8 color photographs of drawings of a male figure in clothing which were manipulated in two levels, each of three clothing cues including type, style and color. The experimental design was full factorial design of $(2^4contex^2{\times}clothing type^2{times}clthing color^2$. Each of the 16 sub-samples includes 16 subjects from the two perceiver group. Questionnaires used to measure perceivers responses to the stimuli were 7-point semantic differential scales composed of 37 bipolar adjectives representing personal traits. The data was processed by factor analysis, ANOVA, multiple classification analysis, Duncan's multiple range test. The major findings drawn from this study were as follows: 1. Three factors emerged to account for the dimensional structure of the impressions of the male figure in clothing in two social situations. These factors involved evaluation, activity and uniqueness. 2. The contexts, clothing types and clothing styles had significant effects on evaluation, activity and uniqueness. The clothing styles had a considerable effect on both evaluation and uniqueness while the clothing types affected activity. The clothing color had least effect on the impression and had only moderate effect on evaluation. 3. Perceiver's age influenced impressions formed by the social contexts and clothing cues. Male college students were least affected by contexts and clothing cues, while middle-aged men wert affected most.