Clothin as a Nonverbal Communicator of Social and Political Attitudes

This research analyzed the responses of 96 subjects on a questionnaire in which they indicated (1) their own attitudes toward social and political issues, (2) their perceptions of attitudes of probable wearers of clothing shown in stimulus photographs, and (3) their own responses to types of clothing shown in the photographs. The subjects represented two types of students attending a large midwestern university: “conservatives,” oriented to the established American culture, and “liberals,” oriented to a counterculture. Data from the two types of subjects were contrasted and compared with data from a random sample of all students. Findings indicated that clothing communicated social and political attitudes among both types of students, those oriented to the established culture and those oriented to the counterculture. In addition, all subjects tended to like and wear types of clothes that they perceived to be consistent with their own attitudes. However, subjects with attitudes oriented to the countercul ture indicated more liking for and more wearing of clothing that reflected their own attitudes than did subjects oriented to the established culture.