Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of hair style and hair color on women's impression formation. The experimental design was $2{\times}3{\times}3$ (hair wave$\times$hair length$\times$hair color) factorial design by 3 independent variables. Subjects were 343 women in Seoul. Four factors were derived to account for the dimensions of impression formation. These were neatness, sociability, attractiveness, and femininity. The straight hairs were evaluated neater than the permed hairs, and the permed hairs were evaluated higher in sociability and attractiveness. The short hairs were perceived highest in sociability, and the long hairs were perceived high in attractiveness and femininity. The black hairs were perceived highest in neatness, the bright brown were perceived high in sociability and attractiveness, and dark brown were perceived high in femininity. Attractiveness had significant interaction effects depending on three independent variables: hair wave, lengths, and colors. Long black straight hair was perceived most attractive, and midium length black straight hair was least attractive. The light brown permed hairs were perceived high in attractiveness regardless of hair length. In the case of straight hair, the longer the hair length was, the younger the object women were perceived. The women with the long permed hair were perceived older than the women with short and midium length permed hair.