Dressing “in code”: Clothing rules, propriety, and perceptions

ABSTRACT

Does dressing in line with societal clothing rules make a woman appear more professional and competent? We used a within-subjects design and tested if participants rated women dressed in compliance with school and workplace clothing rules more positively than women not dressed in compliance with rules. Participants (N = 89) at a mid-sized mid-western university rated 10 pictures of women captured from the internet on 11 attributes. Participants rated the five women dressed following clothing rules higher on a composite measure of positive attributes (intelligent, competent, powerful, organized, efficient, and professional), F(1, 86) = 68.92, p < .001 η_p² = .45. Participant’s ratings did not correlate with their own self-reported levels of sexism. Participants’ gender was not a significant correlate. Our findings indicate that how students perceive women significantly relates to dressing in code. Participants rated women in less revealing and less tight clothing more positively.

KEYWORDS:

• Clothing rules
• dressing in code
• sexism

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Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/fpdbh/–Identifiers: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/FT8KM | ARK c7605/osf.io/ft8km.

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/fpdbh/–Identifiers: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/FT8KM | ARK c7605/osf.io/ft8km

Notes

1. OPEN MATERIALS and DATA: All information for independent researchers to reproduce the reported methodology and results are available here (data and materials): https://osf.io/fpdbh/–Identifiers: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/FT8KM | ARK c7605/osf.io/ft8km.