The Effect of Age and Clothing Cues on Impression Formation of Men Clothed in Suits

의복단서 및 착용자 연령이 인상형성에 미치는 영향 -남성 정장을 중심으로-

The purpose of this study was to Investigate men's clothing in regard to (1) the effect of wearer's age and clothing: rues on impression formation, and (2) the effect of perceiver's age on impressions formed by the wearer's age and the fuction of clothing cues. The experimental design of this study was between-subjects 24_full factorial design by 4 independent variables. The subjects consisted of 192 subjects in each of two male perceiver groups according to age(20s and 50s). The experimental moterials developed for the study were a set of stimuli al)d a response scale. The stimuli consisted of 16 color photographs made by identical manipulations of 4 independent variables consisting of 2 levels each. Each one of the sixteen sub-samples included 12 subjects from 2 perceiver groups. The independent variables provided by the photographs were (1) wearer's age (20s and 50s), (2) suit color (navy blue and beige),' (3) suit style (single breasted and double breasted), and (4) necktie color (analogous and complementary colors) . The 7-point semantic differential response scale which was designed to measure the impression of the stimuli was composed of 30 bipolar adjectives. The responses to the semantic differential scales were analyzed using factor analysis and ANOVA. The results were as follows:1) Wearer's age, suit color, suit style, and necktie color had significant effects on impression of the 3 factors (appearance·potency, individuality activity, and evaluation) partiafly. However, the suit style was the most dominent clothing cue : the single breasted suit conveyed positive impression of individuality' activity to both of the wearer's age groups than double breasted suit did on both of the perceiver's age groups. 2) Perceiver's age partially influenced impressions formed by the age and the clothing cues of men clothed in suits : the young perceiver's group was less affected by them than middle aged group.