Few venues exist for adults to play dress-up, with Renaissance festivals, comic and other media conventions, and live-action role-playing games comprising the bulk of these venues. This sort of behavior is expected of people in their formative years—children and teenagers—where they try on and receive feedback about their selves. What might be the reasoning behind the behavior of adults doing so, especially after primary socialization has occurred?
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Jen Gunnels (2009) studied this question.