Mike,+Yeun+Seok,+Hyun+Woo



[]#

Question: How does each culture view clothing formality? How do peoples initial reactions differ when the person is dressed formallly?

Hypothesis: People judge others completely by their outer appearance when they first meet them. Therefore people would have more respect for a teenager in formal clothing than a teenager in their normal casual clothes. If the same person were to give a survey wearing formal clothes and then give a survey wearing casual clothes, the survey would be higher rated by people

Yeun Seok Lee Social Values and Fashion Leadership According to Goldsmith, Heitmeyer, and Freiden, age and gender will play very important role on our experiment. Depending on how we dress, it will definitely affect the people around us to portray us differently. Goldsmith agreed that clothing is the “outer behavior” where we do not need to know the person but to judge them by their appearance. When Goldsmither, Heitmeyer, ad Freiden did research on other people’s behavior just by looking their appearance, they did numerous experiments in different ways. The results were that young females around twenty who dressed very formally got many people’s attention rather than other members. This definitely help us on our research because it gives many advices to try different way. In our experiment we can dress semi-formal, formal, and non-formal. Since gender played the important role, we can ask some of our friends to dress formally or semi-formally to give our surveys.

Effects of Clothing Attractiveness on Perceptions In this article, Lennon emphasized on clothing and the appearances rather than their actual physical beauty. The purpose of the research was to determine whether people perceive others differentially as a function of the attractiveness of their clothing. There were six different models in business clothing. Six of the three models were wearing attractive clothing and three wearing unattractive clothing. Approximately 60 participants listened to a pre-recorded audio tape consisting of 30 recommendations related to marketing a perfume. As a comment was heard, a slide of the woman purported to have made the comment was projected. The result was that the model who were wearing attracting clothing were more positively. This support our experiment that we should focus on clothing and the appearance other than our physical beauty. This also give us some information that we should be aware of during our experiment. When we try to do a survey experiment, mood can greatly change their behaviors and their actions.

Hyun Woo Kim

http://ezinearticles.com/?Behavioral-Benefits-of-School-Uniforms&id=4726150

There are a lot of benefits to wearing school uniforms. There are two benefits: behavioral and economical. Not everyone is gifted with a sense for fashion. With school uniforms, those kids without a knack for following the latest trend will not be isolated and hence be saved from being defaced. Violence, as well as gang issues, will be severely inhibited by uniform policies. The association between school and its uniform will further help discipline students outside school grounds. Since uniforms represents their respective schools, students will be more likely to defer from troublesome activities. Potentially distracting messages that my arise from not prohibiting the style of clothing are also prevented by enforcing school uniforms. The school is also relieved of having to enforce the strict dress code because all clothes are uniform. But perhaps most biggest benefit would be the less amount of money students would spend on clothes. With uniforms, students will no longer have to pursue expensive fashion trends. In conclusion, like how uniforms carry on the school discipline to students outside school grounds, clothing in general take a certain aura from a certain setting to another; a person wearing a full-fledged suit would give off the formal business air.

__[]__

Clothes, specifically uniforms, reveal much about the wearer. Different professions require different uniforms and thus help identify an individual’s employment. The degree to which we make a connection between what we wear and what we do is exploited by undercover police officers; because they wear ordinary street clothing—a far cry from the highly noticeable black and blue outfit of typical police officers—people cannot so easily see their true identities. Uniforms hence function as indicators of specific social positions. For instance, the easily noticeable uniforms of retail employees help customers locate them when in need of help. In closed institutions, such as prisons, where people are isolated from society, clothes help inmates from successfully escaping, as wear a bright orange jumpsuit in the middle of the street would most certainly catch the attention of people. In history, Jews had to wear a distinct, identifying mark of the Star of David to separate them from non-Jewish German citizens. Clothes help identify people with a certain profession, and in terms of our experiment, wearing a business suit may convey the message to near passerby a certain sense of professionalism and sincerity.

Mike Hartman **__ Lit Review __**

The research topic for our group is how clothing affects the perception of others. We would like to find out if people view formal and informal clothing in each country. I looked over four articles on the subject and found all of them to at least possess some useful information. Two of them were particularly helpful. The general consensus of the four articles that I have chosen is that clothing has been a symbol of status for almost the entire existence of humans. However, the US as well as most western countries have begun to dress more informally in recent decades. Even though clothing is now more informal, some studies have shown that people will give up many liberties and commodities just to appear formal and good looking. Clothing used to and in many ways still does represent your type of job. People who wear business suits are clearly distinguishable from the people that wear jeans and work boots. Clothing also changes rapidly and sometimes it can become hard to distinguish what a type of clothing represents. For example, one of my articles mentioned that jeans became popular in the late 1800’s as clothes only for working. The only people who wore them were manual laborers and people of the lower class. A century later, jeans started to become popular with all social classes. Even though social classes began to dress in a similar fashion, brand names became popular with the middle and upper class. One of the articles mentioned how the American style of informal clothes was spread to other parts of the world such as Korea. One of my articles is from the perspective of an immigrant. This person was a native of the Philippines and had lived in the USA and Europe. She started off by saying Europeans think of Americans as being “too casual” and even sloppy. Most Americans like to wear some type of T-shirt and jeans as long as they don’t have to look formal for any occasion. Americans view their clothes as being “simple and easy” rather than sloppy and too casual. The author says that this is because of our easy way of life. Americans value practicality and are generally laid back. Our clothing reflects this way of life because it is enough to get the job done but at the same time still look decent. It has also been influenced by other cultures but not directly taken from one of them. I agree with this article and I think that it does a good job predicting the results of our experiment. I think that people will respond just as well to an informally dressed person as they would a formally dressed person because of the norm of casual clothes in America. Casual and informal clothes are so common, that some workplaces even allow them. Another article I read covered the topic of formal clothing in America. Formal clothing was very popular before World War II and was worn by everyone in most social situations. After World War II, dress clothes began to be used only on special occasions such as family gatherings, church, work, school, and some social events. Today, formal clothes are almost strictly for work and few events such as weddings or dances. Most events have their own type of formal clothing. For example, semi nice clothes that can still be worn in public are usually worn at church or while playing golf. Business suits are worn strictly for working in a professional environment and often represent seriousness. Then there are tuxedos and dresses which are worn specifically for extremely formal social events like weddings or funerals. I think that people might be more willing to take a survey if they knew the survey was serious. Business formal clothes would make some think the survey was serious, but others would question if a business suit is necessary and wouldn’t take the survey. I believe more people would take the survey if the person giving the survey was wearing semi formal clothes because it is the perfect balance between casual and too formal.

Feedback: (Hannah) I think for the second one that is a good one and your on the right path with like testing it and everything. But answer maybe why you choose to do 2 different research topics and why they really aren't that similar with that. For the first one I understand that you are surveying to see if the way people dresses affects peoples approach toward them and talking to them that makes sense, but I don't then understand the connection to the second one? Just some things to think about, the over all research though I don't think you have problem with.

Kari- I'm not exactly sure how the dress of the surveyor is relevant because from what I got reading the plans, it's just a counting of how many people are in the area. But either place you go to, you want to note the type of establishment you're in. Victoria's Secret will most likely have more females in it, while MCSports would most likely have more males in it. Also, I would record the time of day, just to see if that plays a factor in the number or gender of people in the place.

(Brianna Wirtz) For research topic one, it is important to pick a store simpliar to a store in each country. And depending on the store and clothing style of the store is a factor. If it is a store aimed toward women than of course there are going to be more women. I think a department store would be best.

(Nic) I think you should also record men who are only in the store because they are with a woman and there shopping by themselves, and vise versa

=Research Results= ** Mike Hartman ** ** Illinois Results **


 * // Informal // || // Formal // ||
 * 8 || 8 ||
 * 7 || 6 ||
 * 10 || 9 ||
 * 5 || 6 ||
 * 9 || 8 ||
 * 9 || 8 ||
 * 8 || 8 ||
 * 6 || 6 ||
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">10 || <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">10 ||
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">10 || <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">6 ||
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">1 || <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">7 ||
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">10 || <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">9 ||
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">7 || <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">6 ||
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">6 || <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">8 ||
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">7 || <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">5 ||


 * ** Average ** || ** Average ** ||
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">7.53 || <span style="display: block; font-family: Calibri; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">7.33 ||

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: right;">Mike Hartman **__<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Research Analysis __**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Clothing Formality is something we can easily notice when we first view a person. We wondered how clothing formality affects the initial perception of someone. We wondered if people would make an assumption that if someone was more formally dressed they would be more highly respected. Our method to test this hypothesis was an anonymous survey. We went to specific locations, ISU Bone Student Center for me, and the Seoul Central Business District for my partners in Korea. We then administered 15 surveys wearing normal casual clothing. This included jeans, a t-shirt, and casual shoes. We then left and came back to the same spot a different day wearing all formal clothes. This included a dress shirt, dress pants, a tie, and dress shoes. We used the same survey both times so that there was only one variable (clothing) present in the experiment. We felt we could accurately measure how someone felt by how they responded on a survey. However, we knew that if we just asked them what they thought of formal clothing, they would respond how they thought we would want them to instead of giving honest answers. We avoided this by making the topic of the survey to be something completely irrelevant and including one question that would let us know what the subject thought of our survey. We gave 15 surveys in formal clothing and 15 in informal clothing. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">For informal clothing in the US, the ratings on the surveys were 8, 7, 10, 5, 9, 9, 8, 6, 10, 10, 1, 10, 7, 6, 7. For formal clothing in the US, the ratings were 8, 6, 9, 6, 8, 8, 8, 6, 10, 6, 7, 9, 6, 8, 5. For the US, we found that the average grade given by the subjects was 7.53 while wearing informal clothes and 7.33 while wearing formal clothes. This was very surprising to us. This was almost the exact opposite of our hypothesis, which said that the surveys given while wearing formal clothes would be rated significantly higher. The two research articles I found also supported my hypothesis. One article said that clothing simply shows what kind of job the person has. Another article said that people use clothing to generate their initial judgment of others. The general consensus of all the articles researched by our group was that clothing has been a symbol of status for pretty much all of history. Since the formal clothing represents not only a serious profession but also a certain degree of wealth, the surveys should have received better ratings because the person in formal clothing was more respected. We didn’t state in our hypothesis how much higher we expected the formal surveys to be rated which we should have done. I expected the rating for the formal surveys to be about 1 higher on average than the informal surveys. Instead, the informal surveys received an average of .2 higher than the formal surveys. It would have been an even higher number than that if it weren’t for the score of 1 that one of the surveys on the informal side received. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The method we used to conduct our survey had some flaws, but it gave us results that I believe were accurate. The survey takers in Illinois largely consisted of ISU students and employees. Even though our results don’t agree with the hypothesis, we still proved that people judge others based on clothing. The surveys that were given in informal clothes received four 10s and two 9s. The formal survey only received one 10 and two 9s. This was probably because the survey takers didn’t take the survey given in informal clothes as serious as the survey in formal clothes. This led to the survey takers rating the informal survey higher because they didn’t think about it as much. They might have taken it easy on me with the ratings because of the informal clothes. The formal clothes might have led people to answer more honestly, and also rate my survey on a higher standard. I believe this would be true in almost any western culture. The people who took the surveys were a diverse group of people each time. Most were students or ISU employees, but some were construction workers and there was even an ISU police officer. This diverse group could represent mostly any western culture. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Our method wasn’t perfect and it could have been improved in several different areas which would have lead to more reliable results. Probably the largest issue in this experiment was how to make the results as anonymous as possible. The method I used was to tell the survey takers to place the survey face down on a table. This method was effective at making the survey anonymous, but unfortunately, my partners in Korea couldn’t use the same method. I should have had the survey takers place the survey in a box like they did, but I figured that both ways were equally anonymous. The ideal method would have been to have the survey taken online where someone could answer on their own computer and feel completely anonymous. The whole reason we wanted the survey to be anonymous was because we wanted to avoid the Hawthorne effect, which is when people perform differently when they know there is someone watching them. Our surveys might have been rated too high because we were watching the people take the surveys.