A Survey of Psychological Effects on the Clothing Habits of Female College Students

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to examine (1) clothing changing practices of women students, (2) image of four kinds of typical wears: school wears, visiting wears, everyday wears and night wears, (3) psychological effects altered by changing clothes, (4) the relationships between Sensation Seeking and the psychological effects.The results were as follows:1) More than half of the subjects changed night wears into visiting wears when they went out on weekdays, but they continued to wear the night wears for a few hours after rising on holidays.2) The results of image measurements on four kinds indicated that school wears were accepted as public; visiting wears colorful; everyday wears dynamic; night wears static.3) In the study of psychological factors and the image, those individuals with higher scores in “enjoyment factors” tended to perceive visiting wears to be colorful and private, and those with lower scores to be colorful and public.On the other hand, those individuals with higher scores in “mood diversion factors” tended to perceive school wears to be dynamic and plain, and those with lower scores to be static and plain.4) Those individuals with higher levels of Sensation Seeking showed psychological comfort caused by changing their clothing.