{"title":"Dressing up social psychology: Empirically investigating the psychological functions of clothing using the example of symbolic protection","authors":"Robert Gruber, Michael Häfner, Sven Kachel","doi":"10.1111/bjso.12700","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Clothing behaviour remains an understudied research area within social psychology. Through the present research, we aim to anchor attire as an empirical research subject by investigating the psychological properties of one of its functionalities, namely, to provide protection. We argue that attire's undisputed role in shielding humans from environmental hazards may extend to the psychological level and protect them from the incorporeal consequences of existential threats symbolically. In this Registered Report, a mixed-methods approach links an ecologically valid field study of self-presentation in social media posts during Russia's war on Ukraine (Study 1; <i>N</i> = 248) with supraliminal priming of mortality salience in an online experiment (Study 2; <i>N</i> = 248). Across both studies, we expect that mortality concerns let people accentuate the physically protective attributes of clothing (e.g. more layers of clothing) and resort to more in-group prototypical dress styles (i.e. more gender-stereotypical). Findings show that people adjust their clothing preferences in response to existential threats, favouring in-group prototypical clothing (more gender-typical for both women and men in Study 1) and physically protective attire (higher in women and lower in men in Study 2) during high (vs. low) levels of existential threat. By positioning clothing as a research area within social psychology, our goal is to stimulate a wave of research on its profound role for humankind. Furthermore, we provide a dynamic and robust methodological approach to researching terror management theory.</p>","PeriodicalId":48304,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Social Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/bjso.12700","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"British Journal of Social Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12700","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Clothing behaviour remains an understudied research area within social psychology. Through the present research, we aim to anchor attire as an empirical research subject by investigating the psychological properties of one of its functionalities, namely, to provide protection. We argue that attire's undisputed role in shielding humans from environmental hazards may extend to the psychological level and protect them from the incorporeal consequences of existential threats symbolically. In this Registered Report, a mixed-methods approach links an ecologically valid field study of self-presentation in social media posts during Russia's war on Ukraine (Study 1; N = 248) with supraliminal priming of mortality salience in an online experiment (Study 2; N = 248). Across both studies, we expect that mortality concerns let people accentuate the physically protective attributes of clothing (e.g. more layers of clothing) and resort to more in-group prototypical dress styles (i.e. more gender-stereotypical). Findings show that people adjust their clothing preferences in response to existential threats, favouring in-group prototypical clothing (more gender-typical for both women and men in Study 1) and physically protective attire (higher in women and lower in men in Study 2) during high (vs. low) levels of existential threat. By positioning clothing as a research area within social psychology, our goal is to stimulate a wave of research on its profound role for humankind. Furthermore, we provide a dynamic and robust methodological approach to researching terror management theory.
期刊介绍:
The British Journal of Social Psychology publishes work from scholars based in all parts of the world, and manuscripts that present data on a wide range of populations inside and outside the UK. It publishes original papers in all areas of social psychology including: • social cognition • attitudes • group processes • social influence • intergroup relations • self and identity • nonverbal communication • social psychological aspects of personality, affect and emotion • language and discourse Submissions addressing these topics from a variety of approaches and methods, both quantitative and qualitative are welcomed. We publish papers of the following kinds: • empirical papers that address theoretical issues; • theoretical papers, including analyses of existing social psychological theories and presentations of theoretical innovations, extensions, or integrations; • review papers that provide an evaluation of work within a given area of social psychology and that present proposals for further research in that area; • methodological papers concerning issues that are particularly relevant to a wide range of social psychologists; • an invited agenda article as the first article in the first part of every volume. The editorial team aims to handle papers as efficiently as possible. In 2016, papers were triaged within less than a week, and the average turnaround time from receipt of the manuscript to first decision sent back to the authors was 47 days.