Toward a Contextual Social Psychology of Clothing: A Synthesis of Symbolic Interactionist and Cognitive Theoretical Perspectives

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Abstract
This paper proposes an interdisciplinary, conceptual framework for the study of clothing behavior, based upon a synthesis of major concepts from cognitive social psychology and symbolic interactionism. Cognitive theorists regard clothes as cues that may be selected by perceivers to understand observed persons. A symbolic interactionist approach places more emphasis on the role of dress in social communication, with consideration for both wearers' and perceivers' viewpoints. The two conceptual approaches are not mutually exclusive, and they share common concerns for perceivers' evaluations of other persons and situations. A contextual social-psychological study of clothing would allow researchers, using multi-methodological approaches, to test hypotheses that consider social and cognitive dimensions of dress in interpersonal situations.

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