Abstract

The purposes of this study were to investigate 1) the effect of body exposure and color of a woman's suit on the perception of modesty, and 2) the effect of perceiver's sex and age on impression formed by the function of clothing variables. The instrument of this study consisted of a response scale and stimuli. Thirteen items of 7-point semantic differential scales were developed to measure the perceiver's impression on wearer's modesty. Stimuli were color pictures of a model wearing one of 8 types of suit constructed by a 2 $\times$ 2 $\times$ 2 factorial design. The manipulation of each level of the clothing variables were: color of the suit by black and red, leg exposure by varying skirt lengths to a Chanel-line and mini skirt, and neck exposure by shirt collar blouse and scarf. Two models, representing typical female college students living in Seoul, were selected to eliminate model effect. The sample include 384 subjects, consisting of 4 groups of male and female college students and middle aged men and women. Eight experimental groups were randomly assigned to one of eight stimuli based on between-subject design. One half of each group responded to model 1 and the other half to model 2 of same stimulus. Responses to the semantic differential scales were factor analyzed (pc model, Varimax rotation) to identify factors constructing impression of modesty. Two factors emerged regard­less of subgroups; Elegance and Extroversion factor. The first factor was found to be dominant, accounting for 60 percent of the total variance. The other accounted for just 11 percent. Multidimensional ANOVA (5-way, 3-way) was conducted to test the effect of the clothing variables against two factors identified from the factor analysis. Leg exposure was the most powerful variable affecting the impression of Elegance and Extroversion factor for all per. ceiver subgroups. Neck exposure had primary effect on the impression of Elegance, whereas it partially influenced that of Extroversion. Color of suit had only partial effect on the impression of Extroversion. Hypothesis I was partially supported from the findings above. The effect of perceiver's age and sex on impression by the function of clothing variables was tested by comparing the result between four subgroups. In forming an impression of the wearer's modesty, male college students were least affected by the manipulation of clothing variables, while middle aged males were affected most. In the female groups, there was no age difference and they fell between the male groups in the degree to which they were affected. Hypothesis II was supported only by age difference in two male groups, and by sex difference in two student groups.

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