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Clothing and Human Behavior from a Social Cognitive Framework Part I:

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Clothing and Human Behavior from a Social Cognitive Framework Part I: Theoretical Perspectives
Sharron J. Lennon and Leslie L. Davis
Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 1989 7: 41
DOI: 10.1177/0887302X8900700406

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 and Human Behavior
Clothing
from a Social Cognitive Framework
Part I: Theoretical Perspectives
Sharron J. Lennon
Leslie L. Davis

Abstract
This paper represents Part I of a two-part paper which integrates theory and research in social cognition with
research in clothing and human behavior. Part I addresses theoretical perspectives of social cognition including
social perception, categorization, attribution theory, and impression formation. Issues from these theoretical
perspectives are used to interpret existing clothing and human behavior research and to suggest possible future
research.

Social cognition researchers study the cognitive processes
which are the bases for the perceptions and cognitions
individuals use to make judgments about people. Originating
in the field of cognitive psychology, social cognition
emphasizes the use of cognitive psychological processes
with social objects, i.e., people. Several theoretical
perspectives fall under the umbrella term &dquo;social cognition&dquo;
and create a useful framework in which to organize and
analyze research in social cognition. These perspectives
include social perception, categorization, attribution theory,
and impression formation. Social perception researchers
investigate perceptual processes using social objects,
categorization is the process by which perceivers group
social objects into categories, attribution theory deals with
perceived causality of social behavior, and impression
formation refers to the way that bits of information about
people are organized into a general impression based upon
the &dquo;collected knowledge one person possesses about
another&dquo; (Park, 1986, p. 907).
This two-part paper will integrate theory and research in
social cognitive psychology with research in clothing and
human behavior which has investigated the effects of
appearance on the impressions formed and judgments made
of others. In general, research in the clothing and human
behavior area indicates that type of clothing is related to
impressions formed of others and subsequent behavioral
reactions to that person (see Davis, 1984, for a general
review of this research). Part I will address social
Authors’ Addresses: Sharron J. Lennon, Department of Apparel
Merchandising, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405; and
Leslie L. Davis, Department of Apparel, Interiors & Merchandising,
Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331
Downloaded from ctr.sagepub.com by SHARRON LENNON on March 15, 2014
perception, categorization, attribution theory, and impres-
sion formation (see Table 1). Part II will address social
cognition from the perspective of pre-processing, processing,
and post-processing factors which influence social cognitive
activities. Suggestions will be made throughout for further
research in clothing and human behavior from a social
cognition perspective.
Theoretical Perspectives
In the
clothing and human behavior literature, terms such
as person perception, social perception, and impression
formation are often used to describe the cognitive processes
used in making judgments of others based upon their
appearance (Kaiser, 1985, p. 220). While these terms are
not incorrect, they fail to distinguish the theoretical
differences in the research being conducted. The social
cognition framework (see Table 1) is important because it
provides a useful tool in organizing this body of research
according to various theoretical perspectives falling under
social cognition. It also provides researchers in the clothing
and human behavior field with insight as to gaps and
deficiencies in the research currently being conducted and
with possible inspiration for future research. Further, within
each perspective subsumed under the social cognition
framework, clothing will be identified as a variable of
importance. Thus these perspectives are relevant for
clothing researchers to consider.
Social Perception
Social perception may be organized by types of factors

41
 Table 1. Social cognitive framework: Theoretical perspectives.
which affect it: (1) perceiver variables, (2) object or target
variables (stimulus person variables), and (3) situational
variables. Perceiver variables are those aspects of the
perceiver which are likely to affect how the social world is
perceived. Perceiver variables include physical traits such as
vision and hearing accuracy; personal traits such as goals,
values, and personality; and cognitive structures such as
memory, knowledge structures (schema and scripts),
implicit personality theories (Schneider, 1973), and
accessible constructs (Bruner, 1957).
Perceiver variables. The sheer multitude of possible
perceiver variables seems to suggest that much of perception
could reside in the perceiver. Early research in social
perception (Dornbush, Hastorf, Richardson, Muzzy, &
Vreeland, 1965) supports this idea. These researchers found
more similarity between descriptions when one person
described two different people than when two individuals
described the same person. Apparently individuals each
have unique standard dimensions (accessible categories)
which are used to encode people and there are individual
differences in these dimensions (accessible categories).
Related to perceiver variables is the notion of supplementary
projection: Do people project their own qualities and feelings
about the world onto others? For example, do successful
people tend to see others as successful? Complementary
projection also affects perceiver variables. An example of
complementary projection would be when the unfashionable
person sees everyone as fashionable. In summary, there are
many types of perceiver variables or related variables, any
or all of which can affect social perception.
While perceiver variables have a major impact on social
cognition, research on this topic in the clothing and human
behavior area is limited. This is an area deserving of more
research. Researchers have investigated the influence of
one’s sensitivity to appearance cues on impression
Downloaded from ctr.sagepub.com by SHARRON LENNON on March 15, 2014
42
formation (Miller, Feinberg, Davis, & Rowold, 1982;
Rowold, 1984). Indeed, individuals do differ in the extent to
which they use physical appearance cues in forming
impressions of others (Miller, et al., 1982). Going one step
further, Rowold (1984) found that individuals who were
relatively sensitive to the appearance of others were less
likely than those insensitive to the appearance of others to
project their own level of self-esteem on stimulus persons as
they attribute various characteristics to these stimulus
persons based upon appearance cues. Thus it appears that
sensitivity to appearance cues affects supplementary
projection in situations where impressions are formed based
upon appearance cues.
Researchers of clothing and human behavior need to
expand on their investigation of the effect of perceiver
variables on judgments made of others based upon
appearance cues. For example, do individuals have unique
standard dimensions (accessible categories) when making
judgments based on others’ appearance, and if so, what are
these standard dimensions? In addition, since supple-
mentary projection can affect perceiver variables, does
complementary projection also affect perceiver variables in
situations where impressions are formed based upon
appearance cues?
Object variables. Object variables can also affect social
perception. The characteristics of persons being observed
are important in what is actually perceived by the perceiver.
This gets at the objective reality of what is being perceived.
Object variables include the visual characteristics of the
object (what is actually perceived), the salience of these
characteristics, and the similarity between these perceived
characteristics and self-perceptions.
Both salient features of the object (McArthur & Post,
1977) and those features of the object perceived which are
similar to oneself are important in social perception. Both
allow certain categories to be more accessible in the minds of
the perceivers, thus affecting overall impressions made of
the person. Research examining the salience and similarity
factors will be discussed in Part II in the section on pre-
processing factors.
By far the greatest amount of social perception research in
clothing and human behavior has investigated the effect of
visual characteristics (types of clothing styles) of the social
object (worn by the stimulus person) on judgments made of
the social object. This body of research presumes that
clothing symbols serve as a form of nonverbal communica-
tion. In general, the results of this research overwhelmingly
demonstrate that variations in the clothing worn by the
stimulus person (object variable) do affect the social
impressions made of that person. One group of studies has
investigated the effects of specific clothing manipulations on
perceptions of personal traits and attitudes (e.g., Buckley &
Roach, 1974; Conner, Peters, & Nagasawa, 1975; Douty,
1963; Forsythe, Drake, & Cox, 1984; Hamid, 1968, 1969;
Holman, 1980; Johnson, Nagasawa, & Peters, 1977;
Lapitsky & Smith, 1981; Mathes & Kempher, 1976;
Nielson & Kernaleguen, 1976; Paek, 1986). Proceeding a
further step, a second group of studies has investigated the
impact of these perceptions on subsequent evaluative and
behavioral responses to the target person (e.g., Bickman,
1971; Bousaka & Beatty, 1978; Darley & Cooper, 1972;
Green & Giles, 1973; Hensley, 1981).
Situational variables. A third factor which affects social
perception is the social situation or context in which the
observation occurs. Taylor and Fiske (1975) demonstrated
this in an experiment designed to test perceptual salience.
This study revealed that the situation within which an
observation occurs can influence the perceptual salience of
those being observed, which in turn affects perceptions.
Thus another class of stimuli which affect social perception
may be those stimuli which just happen to be around; i.e.,
they may not be at all related to the perceiver or the object of
perception.
Literature from the clothing and human behavior area
provides further evidence of the impact of situation or
context on social perception. Clothing as a form of
nonverbal communication is &dquo;context dependent&dquo; in that the
specific meaning communicated by clothing symbols depends
on the social context in which it is perceived (Kaiser, 1985,
p. 224). For example, Damhorst (1984-85) found that
perceptions of male and female stimulus persons wearing
formal and informal office apparel were affected by the
office setting context in which the stimulus persons were
perceived. In addition, Rees, Williams, and Giles (1974)
found that the perceived appropriateness of students wearing
ties varied between two social contexts, job interview and
college campus. Students on campus were rated more
intelligent when not wearing ties and students on a job
interview were rated as more intelligent when wearing ties.
Apparently &dquo;dress worn by a person takes on meaning
within the context in which the interaction takes place&dquo;
(Damhorst, 1984-85, p. 40).
While researchers have shown that context may be
important, future research in the clothing and human
behavior area needs to be directed towards this context
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dependence issue. Are the meanings attributed to all types of
appearance cues affected by the social context? In addition,
do all social situations affect the meaning attributed to
appearance cues?
Categorization
An inescapable part of all perception is categorization. It
is impossible to look at an object without identifying the
object as &dquo;something.&dquo; Therefore, instead of treating all
objects as different, they are grouped into categories (Rosch,
1973). The perceiver’s grouping of objects into categories is
one means by which the vast complexity of the stimulus
world is reduced and organized (Hamilton, 1979).
Properties of categorization can be found in the doctrines of
Gestalt psychology (Koffka, 1935; Kohler, 1929). Accord-
ing to Gestalt theory people tend to organize perceptions by
means of perceptual grouping of objects and by means of
assimilation (perceiving the similarities between objects)
and contrast (perceiving the differences between objects).
One difficulty regarding categorization is that the categories
perceived may not be accurate or truthful (Bruner, 1957). In
his seminal article Bruner (1957) pointed out that it is
difficult to check on the truthfulness of social perception and
also that it is easy to distort perceptions to confirm one’s
beliefs when dealing with social objects.
Researchers in the clothing and human behavior area have
just recently become interested in the process of ~categoriza-
tion. Buckley (1984-85), using a hierarchical cluster
analytic technique, sought basic level categories of dress.
Three basic groupings were identified: special occasion,
bifurcated, and skirted dress. Results suggested that the
cognitive process involved may have used assumed
contextual features, as well as perceptual structural features
of dress in making the classifications. For example,
bifurcated dress was present in each of the three basic
groupings so apparently the form or structure of dress was
not the sole basis of classification. The author suggested that
subjects might have been basing their classifications on the
context or situation in which the particular ensemble might
be worn. Using a similar procedure Damhorst, Eckman, and
Stout (1986) studied how people categorize dress within
what might be termed a subordinate category, women’s
skirted suits. The respondents were provided a context:
They were to sort women’s suits based on their
appropriateness for retail managers. These authors found
that people classify suits using aesthetic decision rules based
in part on perceptual structural features of the ensemble,
such as garment symmetry, length of skirt, classic tailoring,
and neck emphasis. In three exploratory studies DeLong,
Minshall, and Lamtz (1986) investigated the category-
based processing strategies used by consumers when
evaluating sweaters. In response to the statement &dquo;When I
think about sweater, I think about ...&dquo; their subjects
responded with perceptible properties of sweaters (fiber,
color, softness, and bulk) and an inferred property (warmth)
and provided a general context (worn in the winter) when
one was not provided. Together these three studies which
have investigated the process of categorization of dress have
revealed that while perceptual structural features play an
important role in categorization, the process involved is
43
more complex than simple pattern or feature recognition.
The categorization process with respect to dress may also be
guided by aesthetic decision rules and be based partly on
contextual features which may be assumed when not
explicitly provided.
Stereotyping. In addition to object perception, categoriza-
tion also underlies stereotyping in social perception (Taylor,
Fiske, Etcoff, & Ruderman, 1978). In stereotyping,
individuals are often grouped or categorized according to
similar visual characteristics. Accordingly, it is supposed
that such visual categorization will facilitate one’s ability to
know those personality and behavioral characteristics of the
individuals which are associated with the stereotype.
Stereotyping has been found to be based upon such visual
characteristics as perceived age (e.g., Linville, 1982;
McTavish, 1971), body type (e.g., Litman, Powell, &
Stewart, 1983; Powell, Tutton, & Stewart, 1974), hair color
(Clayson & Maughan, 1986), perceived social status (e.g.,
Lasswell & Parshall, 1961), race or ethic identity (e.g.,
Allport, 1954; Jussim, Coleman, & Lerch, 1987; Katz &
Braly, 1933), and sex (e.g., Locksley, Borgida, Brekke, &
Hepburn, 1980; Rasinski, Crocker, & Hastie, 1985; Taylor
& Falcone, 1982).
The effect of stereotyping on evaluations of individuals is
complex and involves more than simple categorization
(Jussim, Coleman, & Lerch, 1987; Taylor & Falcone,
1982). However, as previously noted, categorization
processes may distort or bias the perception of individuals.
Because visual characteristics can be manipulated through
the use of clothing, the part clothing plays in the stereotyping
process warrants additional research.
Attribution Theory
Attribution theory&dquo;deals
with perceived causality of social
behavior. It, therefore, falls under the more general theory of
social cognition. There are four classic versions of
attribution theory, each of which developed somewhat
independently (Bem, 1967; Heider, 1944, 1958; Jones &
Davis, 1965; Kelley, 1967, 1973).
Naive scientist. Heider (1958) wrote a global, intuitive
book about how people develop explanations for events. He
began with the assumption that people are naive scientists
who try to explain events by drawing conclusions and
making causal attributions. He thought that people have an
innate need to know or to assign causality to events. Heider
argued that, in order to explain events, people need to make
some kind of inference about either a person or the
environment. He posited that there were two ways to explain
behavior: ( 1 ) behavior could have a personal internal
(dispositional) cause or an (2) impersonal external
(situational) cause. People were thought to use information
about dispositional and situational causes to infer causality.
The goal of perceivers was seen as making stable
attributions. Also important was the notion of responsibility
for the effects of behavior. Heider saw his work as a heuristic
device to be used to generate thinking and theorizing and to a
certain extent this is how it was used. His work did have
some influence on the attribution theorizing of Kelley
(1967) and Jones and Davis (1965).
Correspondent inference theory. Correspondent inference
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44
theory (Jones & Davis, 1965) deals with how people
attribute dispositions to an individual based on specific
incidents of behavior. Given that people see a particular
behavior with certain consequences, these researchers
examined the circumstances under which people make
dispositional inferences based on that behavior. Jones and
Davis argued that actions are informative to the extent that
these actions have emerged from a context of choices. They
said that the goal of the attribution process was to make
correspondent inferences about another person, i.e., to reach
the conclusion that the behavior and the intention that
produced it correspond to a stable personality characteristic
within the person. They thought that an examination of the
consequences or effects of an individual’s action was used by
perceivers to infer the individual’s dispositions. If more than
one course of action was available to an individual,
perceivers would try to determine what the chosen behavior
produced that another behavior would not produce, i.e., the
non-common effects. When an individual can make a choice
from a number of possibilities, the perceiver will look for
effects of the possibilities that are not common to each. Thus
understanding decisions and judgments was a matter of
determining the non-common effects. An analysis of the
non-common effects was thought to reveal information
about the person responsible for the behavior. Jones and
Davis had a limited focus, that of single incident behavior.
They paid very little attention to the role of prior information
perceivers might have had about a situation or individuals in
the situation.
Correspondent inference theory provides a framework for
which aspects of clothing and human behavior have been
investigated. From a theoretical perspective Kelley and
Sweat (1983-84) argued that concepts from correspondent
inference theory are useful in explaining attributions of
clothing and appearance, especially in terms of multiple role
dressing. In an empirical study based upon correspondent
inference theory Workman (1984-85) demonstrated that
perceptions of appropriateness of clothing for specific social
situations affected the attribution process. Her results
indicated that subjects noticed, interpreted, and attributed
cause for perceived inappropriate clothing in particular
social situations. Similarly Knox and Mancuso (1981)
found that perceived incongruence between an actor’s
nonverbal message (attire) and verbal message led to
differential attributions of mental health.
Covariation. Kelley ( 1967) introduced the principle of
covariation to attribution theory. This was the notion that
people attribute an effect to something which varies when
the effect varies: It is present when the effect is present and
is absent when the effect is absent. Thus the cause of any
effect is likely to be found in temporal sequence with the
effect. Kelley held, like Heider ( 1944, 1958), that all people
have an innate need to know-to attribute causality for
events. He thought that in attributing causality people tried
to make either personal or situational attributions; i.e., is the
behavior caused by something about the person or
something about the situation? Given the principle of
covariation and people’s need to determine a personal or
situational cause for behavior, Kelley thought that people
examine the variations in effects across different dimensions
 relative to the person whose behavior was being explained.
Kelley held that people assessed their attribution along the
three dimensions of consensus over persons, distinctiveness
over stimuli, and consistency over time or occasions. He
made specific predictions about how these dimensions
interacted in the attribution process. These expectations
were later confirmed by McArthur (1972).
The application of the principle of covariation in clothing
and human behavior research has been all but nonexistent.
However, the ideas and dimensions underlying the principle
of covariation may be useful in predicting and explaining
individuals’ causal attributions of another’s appearance.
Self’-perception theory. Attribution theory can also be
applied to the self. According to self-perception theory
(Bem, 1967, 1972) the process of self-perception is no
different than the process of perception of others. People
view themselves and make attributions for their own
behavior in the same way that they make attributions about
the behavior of others. Bem ( 1972, p. 2) thought that people
become aware of their own attitudes, emotions, and other
internal states by observing their own behavior and the
situations under which the behavior occurs. When internal
cues are weak and/or ambiguous and when external sources
of feedback are absent, the individual is analogous to an
outside observer using external cues to infer attitudes,
emotions, and other internal states.
Self-perception theory suggests that variables, such as
clothing, that affect perceptions of others may also affect
perceptions of self. Referring to previous research in which
perceptions of others’ intelligence were associated with their
wearing of eyeglasses, Kellerman and Laird (1982) investi-
gated the effects of wearing eyeglasses on subjects’ self-
perceptions of intelligence. The researchers found that, al-
though subjects’ actual performance on several intelligence
tests was not improved by the wearing of eyeglasses, subjects
believed they had performed better when wearing eyeglasses.
In addition, when wearing eyeglasses subjects also described
themselves as more scholarly and competent. Innate appear-
ance factors have also been found to affect self-attributions.
For example, McArthur ( 1982) demonstrated that perceived
physical distinctiveness affected self-attributions for social
interactions but not for nonsocial events.
In summary, attribution theory provides models for how
people try to find causes for the behavior of themselves and
others. Attribution theorists assume that there are some
systematic processes by which attributions are made and
that the attributions people arrive at have some conse-
quences for future behaviors and relationships with others.
In general attribution theory is thought to have had an
important impact on the field of social cognition (Fiske &
Taylor, 1984, p. 99), both in generating research and in its
application to social issues. For example, in the clothing
, and human behavior area attribution theory has been used to
direct research investigating types of attire which might be
used to ameliorate stereotypic reactions to the physically
impaired (Miller, 1982). Attribution theory has also been
used (Edmonds & Cahoon, 1986) to explain and predict the
relationship between attitudes concerning crimes and
clothing worn by female victims. Although potentially
useful, attribution theory has had limited application in the
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area of clothing and human behavior. However, as noted by
Kelley and Sweat (1983-84), the number of research
questions stemming from attribution theory &dquo;seem almost as
limitless as variations in actors, perceivers, and situations&dquo;
(p. 54).
Impression Formation
Impression formation typically deals with the manner in
which diverse bits of information about a person are
integrated into a general impression. Work on impression
formation can be traced to the now-classic studies of
Solomon Asch (1946). While addressing the manner in
which specific pieces of information (trait descriptive
adjectives) have an impact on first impressions, Asch
investigated the broader issue of the processes by which
impressions are formed. He was also concerned with the
context in which a trait was presented. It was his view that
adjective traits in isolation take on different meanings than
they do in combination, where the meanings they imply are
influenced by their context. Thus Asch reasoned that the
impression conveyed by a composite of adjective traits was
not predictable from a knowledge of the impressions
conveyed by each component adjective.
Further work has shown that Asch’s (1946) fmdings can
be explained by simple rules of combination or models. One
such model, information integration, predicts that stimulus
information in an adjective list will be appropriately
weighted and then averaged together to form a composite
impression (Anderson, 1971 ). Research has supported the
information integration model (Anderson, 1974). This and
other algebraic models are thought to be potentially useful
for conceptualizing the affects that bits of information have
on impression judgments (Wyer & Carlston, 1979, p.
332).
In support of Asch’s (1946) work several clothing and
behavior researchers have demonstrated that the influence
of a single appearance cue on impression formation is
affected by the presence or absence of other appearance cues
(Baron, 1981; Hamid, 1972; Lennon & Miller, 1984-85;
Thornton, 1944). For example, in a series of studies Lennon
and Miller (1984-85) investigated the combined effects of
specific physical appearance cues, such as hairstyle, skirt
length, and shoe style, on impression formation. Results
indicated that the impact of any one physical appearance cue
decreased in the presence of similar cues (either social or
intellectual) but increased in the presence of dissimilar
cues.
Although much of the first impression literature makes use
of experimenter-provided adjective checklists for people to
use to indicate their impressions, some researchers have
attempted to determine whether or not there are certain
categories used by most people in forming a judgment about
another’s personality (Bourne, 1977; Dornbush et al., 1965;
Park, 1986). These studies generally reveal that there exist
idiosyncratic biases in perceivers as to what categories to use
in describing another person via a verbal or written descrip-
tion. Thus there is little between-subject agreement regarding
the categories used to describe another person. Research in
this area also reveals that written impressions change over
time as well (Fiske & Cox, 1979; Park, 1986).
45
 Impression formation research currently uses models such
as cognitive schemata and sophisticated methodologies
(Lingle & Ostrom, 1979; Park, 1986) from cognitive
psychology. Some current issues are (1) the organization of
person impressions in memory (Lingle, Geva, Ostrom,
Leippe, & Baumgardner, 1979; Wyer & Martin, 1986), (2)
the role of category accessibility in first impressions (Srull &
Wyer, 1979, 1980), and (3) the effects of making a first
impression on memory for information upon which the first
impression was based (Carlston, 1980; Lingle & Ostrom,
1979; Lingle et al., 1979). These three issues, while not yet
directly under investigation by clothing researchers, offer
avenues for future research based on clothing ma-
nipulations.
Conclusions
This paper represents Part I of a two-part paper which
interprets research in clothing and human behavior from the
perspective of social cognitive psychology. Issues from
social perception, categorization, attribution theory, and
impression formation have been used to interpret existing
clothing and human behavior research and to suggest
possible future research. Perceiver, object, and context
variables, all of which affect social perception, have been
shown to be related to or influenced by clothing factors.
Categorization has only recently received treatment by
clothing researchers. This is an extremely important area
which offers the potential for more research. Attribution
theory has been used by a few clothing researchers to offer
theoretical guidance and explanation for their work.
Impression formation research, first developed in the 1940s,
is now much more sophisticated and has been used as a
model in some clothing studies. This paper has shown that
clothing is a relevant variable in social cognition and that the
process by which clothing is related to human behavior may
be studied in an advantageous manner from the framework
of social cognition. It is to be hoped that viewing clothing
and human behavior from the perspective of social cognition
will provide insights that may prove useful to clothing
researchers.
’
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