Dress Experiment Assignment

1. Observe how people act towards you when you dress in a way that is out of the ordinary for yourself. 1. Record how responses from others made you feel, and reflect upon your identity and how it is shaped by and reflected in dress. 2. Using systematic observation techniques, record other people’s reactions to your dress, your reactions to reviews, and comparisons of self to others. 3. Understand how role theory helps to explain why we think people should dress in a certain way. A role is defined as the behavior generally expected of one who occupies a particular status. Meets student learning outcome Summarize and classify social science, cultural studies, and fashion studies theories and how these theories help explain dress and appearance patterns, behaviors, and management, and then apply the theories to a situation. Procedure: Select one of the following incongruities in planning the dress you will wear to produce one or more of the following meanings: •Situational incongruity: Dress that is inappropriate for the occasion or situation, such as clothing that is much too formal for class, inappropriate for the weather, or wearing dress shoes to the gym. •Role incongruity: Dress that is inappropriate for a role. For example, if you wore the Cy mascot outfit to class. Or, if you work at Starbucks and wore your work uniform and apron to class. If you wore the garments typically worn by a nun, flight attendant, or construction worker to class and you don’t typically occupy these roles in your life. •Personality incongruity: Dress inconsistent with your self-image or lifestyle and worn in the presence of friends or other people who know you. Examples could be major changes in the amount of makeup or jewelry you normally wear or major changes in the tightness or sexiness of your clothing.    

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