The clothing interest of three groups of young adult men differentiated by stage in life

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate the clothing interest of three groups of men in three stages of their lives, to determine whether their clothing interest changed as they progressed from one stage to another. The sample consisted of 92 college freshmen, 57 college seniors, and 42 post college working men. The instrument used was a five factor questionnaire derived from Gurel's 1974 factor analysis of Creekmore's 1968 "Importance of Clothing" questionnaire. Statistical analysis included frequency distributions, and multivariate and univariate analysis of variance. There was a significant difference between post college working men and the two groups of college students for overall interest in clothing and for Factor I, interest in clothing as concern with appearance. The working men scored significantly higher than the students on Factor I, and on overall clothing interest. There was additionally, a tendency for the working men to score higher on the remaining factors, and for freshmen to score higher than seniors on all of the factors and on the total score. Analysis of demographic data showed tendencies for married working men to score higher than single working men, and for the scores of married working men to increase with increasing number of children. For the working men, interest scores seemed to increase also with the number of years employed. Factor I, interest in clothing as concern with personal appearance, was the most important aspect of clothing interest for all three groups of men.