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.