Effect of Applicant's Clothing on Interviewer's Decision to Hire

Abstract

This research investigated the extent to which an applicant's clothing influenced interviewer's perceptions of management Characteristics and deasions to hire women for management positions. One hundred nine respondents (from marketing and banking) viewed color videotapes of four women applicants interviewing for a management position. The applicants were wearing one of four experimental costumes which differed in masculinity. The respondents rated each applicant on five management characteristics and made hiring recommendations for each applicant. Clothing masculinity was significant in predicting the percep tion of all the management characteristics examined. Applicants were perceived as more forceful, aggressive and so on when wearing more masculine clothing. A p plicants also received more favorable hiring recommendations when wearing more masculine clothing. The mediating effect of the respondent's gender and occupation on perception of management characteristics and hiring decisions was not significant. The findings are discussed from an integrated conceptual framework.

Enclothed cognition

“…Teaching assistants who wear formal clothes are perceived as more intelligent, but as less interesting than teaching assistants who wear less formal clothes (Morris, Gorham, Cohen, & Huffman, 1996). When women dress in a masculine fashion during a recruitment interview, they are more likely to be hired (Forsythe, 1990), and when they dress sexily in prestigious jobs, they are perceived as less competent (Glick, Larsen, Johnson, & Branstiter, 2005). Clients are more likely to return to formally dressed therapists than to casually dressed therapists (Dacy & Brodsky, 1992).…”

The Influence of Social Networking Web Sites on the Evaluation of Job Candidates

“…However, nonverbal cues 16 and photographs 17 (where factors such as applicant clothing 18 vary, influencing the perceived attractiveness of the applicant 19 ) can also account for a significant amount of variance. It seems reasonable to anticipate similar effects for applicant photographs found on social networking Web pages: candidates appearing in photographs of themselves in a drunken stupor are likely to be evaluated unfavorably.…”

The Tie-pology

“…In particular, the consequences of particular dress 'styles' on e.g. hiring decisions (Forsythe 1990), communication (Joseph 1986), organizational decline (Whetten, forthcoming) and CEO turnover (Hambrick, forthcoming) have been documented. Needless to say, the results of this work have been eagerly incorporated into the vast array of popular guides on this subject, such as Dress for Success (Molloy 1975), Dress for Duress (Plys 1990) and Dressing for Recession (Lowengard 1992).…”