The (Female) Graduate: Choice and Consequences of Women’s Clothing

Fasoli, Fabio; Maass, Anne; Volpato, Chiara; Pacilli, Maria Giuseppina

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02401

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol., 29 November 2018

Sec. Gender, Sex and Sexualities

Volume 9 - 2018 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02401

The (Female) Graduate: Choice and Consequences of Women’s Clothing

$\r\nFabio Fasoli,*$ Fabio Fasoli^1,2*

Anne Maass³

Chiara Volpato⁴

Maria Giuseppina Pacilli⁵

¹School of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom
²Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisbon, Portugal
³Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Padua, Italy
⁴Facoltà di Psicologia, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
⁵Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche, Università degli Studi di Perugia, Perugia, Italy

This research investigates how female students choose their graduation outfit and how clothing affects observers’ judgments. In Study 1, we manipulated the students’ graduation outfit so as to look professional or sexy. Female peers, adults, and professors formed a first impression about the students, their thesis work and guessed their graduation scores (thesis points and final mark). All participant groups judged the professionally dressed students as more competent, as having put more effort in their thesis, and as having obtained better scores than when the same students dressed sexy. In Studies 2 and 3 we replicated previous findings by using photos portraying real students in their actual graduation outfits. We found that sexy clothing, considered inappropriate for the occasion, affected estimated and actual graduation scores negatively and that this effect was mediated by perceived incompetence. Results are discussed with respect to women’s evaluation on the basis of their appearance.

Introduction

In Western societies it is common and culturally legitimate to consider women’s value in relation to the pleasantness of their appearance (Bartky, 1990; Loughnan and Pacilli, 2014). Clothing choices are a crucial part of this appearance. Also, the physical attractiveness of women is increasingly equated with sexiness (Allen and Gervais, 2012). As a consequence, women tend to mold their public self-image through a sexualized appearance (Ward et al., 2016).

Often, this sexualized appearance is required in an explicit way, such as when famous women were banned from the red carpet in Cannes or receptionists were sent home because they were not wearing high heels and, thus, were not conforming to the “dress code” and norms associated to this specific context (Barnes, 2015; Johnston, 2016). At other times, sexualized outfits are considered inappropriate. For instance, female students were punished, or even banned from college, because their skirts were judged too short or their tops and pants too tight for the school context (Valenti, 2015). Thus, women constantly need to monitor their looks and modify their outfits depending on what is required in a given setting (Smolak et al., 2014). Whether an outfit is too sexy for certain contexts and whether a woman should or should not wear a given outfit is a question of debate. Yet, women necessarily need to make a choice.

The present research aims at examining how female students choose their outfits for their graduation. In Italy, where the current research was run, thesis defense and graduation generally constitute a single, rather formal event at the end of which the student is publically declared “Laureate” (as we will explain in greater detail below). On the one hand, we investigated the effects of wearing a sexy (vs. professional) graduation outfit on observer judgments. On the other hand, we examined how students choose their graduation outfit and which image they want to convey. In so doing, we also tested the impact of objectifying TV consumption and self-objectification as potential moderators of outfit choice and of the observers’ judgments. Indeed, being exposed to objectifying media and focusing on the own appearance influence women’s self-perception and clothing choices (Ward, 2016).

Clothing Choices and Observers’ First Impression

Clothes are elements that are used to express one’s identity (Piacentini and Mailer, 2004). Individuals have control over what they wear and are conscious of what they may communicate through clothing (Crane, 2012). Compared to men, women are believed to invest more time and money in choosing their clothes (Goldsmith et al., 2012). Moreover, women choose clothing more thoughtfully to match the social activities they have to perform (Kwon, 1997), probably because wearing an outfit that is perceived as appropriate for the occasion increases their satisfaction (Lee and Choo, 2015). Since adolescence, women decide what to wear depending on how they feel, what they want to express, and what reflects their idea of beauty (Piacentini and Mailer, 2004). Hence, clothing choices depend on how individuals perceive themselves. In fact, women’s weight, body confidence and level of self-objectification influence their clothing choice either for fashion or for comfort (Tiggemann and Andrew, 2012a,b; Grogan et al., 2013).

If clothes express an individuals’ identity, they also provide clues that observers can use to form first impressions. For instance, women wearing sensual and “revealing” clothes are usually perceived to be less competent, intelligent and moral than those women who are more fully or more appropriately dressed for the context (Gurung and Chrouser, 2007; Graff et al., 2012; Smolak et al., 2014; Daniels and Zurbriggen, 2016; Fasoli et al., 2018). In addition, women wearing provocative clothes are usually targets of negative evaluations and more likely to be blamed if they happen to be victims of sexual harassment, rape or domestic violence (Loughnan et al., 2013; Pacilli et al., 2017). On the contrary, women wearing a masculine outfit, such as a suit, are perceived to be more professional, as having better managerial skills and a higher likelihood of succeeding in a manager career (Forsythe, 1990; Thurston et al., 1990).

However, these judgments vary across contexts and situations. Glick et al. (2005) have demonstrated that women in high-status (i.e., managerial) positions are perceived to be less competent if they are dressed sexy (e.g., low-cut shirt and short skirt) rather than professional (e.g., black trousers and business jacket). In contrast, the same outfits did not have this impact on judgments of women enrolled in a low-status job (i.e., receptionists). Recently, similar effects have been observed for minimal changes in a woman’s clothes, such as skirt length and number of unfastened buttons on a blouse (Howlett et al., 2015). Hence, it seems that dressing sexy can have negative consequences on how competent women are perceived, especially when little other information is available and in professional contexts in which sexy clothing is considered inappropriate (e.g., management).

Mass Media and Sexual Objectification

Mass media play a critical role in shaping women’s ideals and in affecting their self-perception. Over the last years, magazines have increasingly portrayed women and girls in sexualized clothes such as low cut skirts, short tops, and high-heels (Graff et al., 2013). Simultaneously, mass media – especially television – are portraying women as sexual objects by dressing them sexily (Collins, 2011). Such mass media portrayals influence women’s clothing and make-up styles (Hirschman and Thompson, 1997) and define beauty ideals that women try to reach and represent in their everyday life (Grabe et al., 2008).

Women’s portrayals in mass media are known to affect how women see themselves, their body satisfaction and self-objectification (Ward, 2016). As a consequence, Gurung and Chrouser (2007) have suggested that media exposure may also affect observers’ judgments of provocatively dressed women in everyday life. Hence, in our research we will explore whether habitual consumption of objectifying TV would affect students outfit choice and observers’ judgments of women wearing graduation outfits varying in “professionalism” vs. “sexiness”. We predict that students wearing a sexy outfit will receive more negative judgments especially from those observers who are not frequently exposed to objectifying TV. On the contrary, observers who report a high consumption of objectifying TV will not perceive sexy dressed students that negatively, because they are likely to consider women’s sexualization as normative.

At the same time, we will examine whether self-objectification plays a role on observers’ judgments of other individuals. It is well documented that mass media affect people’s self-objectification, which, in turn, impacts on people’s behaviors (Smolak and Murnen, 2011). However, to our knowledge, less is known about the extent to which individuals’ own appearance focus and body image concerns impact on how they judge other people on the basis of the clothes they wear. We expect more negative judgments of sexy dressed students by those observers who self-objectify less. In contrast, observers who self-objectify strongly should show less bias against sexy dressed students because they may perceive sexy clothing as more normative and acceptable.

The Research Context

In Italy, graduation consists in presenting and defending a thesis in front of a committee, typically composed of 5/7 professors. This is a public and formal event attended by family and friends. The committee evaluates the student’s performance and thesis work by assigning a grade to the thesis (usually ranging from 0 to 8), which is then added to the grade point average (GPA) obtained by the students during their entire academic career. The sum of GPA and thesis points constitutes the final graduation mark that ranges from a minimum of 66 to a maximum of 110 (plus the additional honor “cum laude”). Since in such occasion the students do not wear a robe, this context provides an ideal opportunity to test how observers evaluate a female student and her work depending on the outfit she chooses for a formal event like her graduation. At the same time, it also offers an opportunity to examine how female students choose to dress depending on the impression they want to make and on their personal characteristics. Moreover, Italy, compared to other European countries, has a significant history of objectifying mass media (CENSIS, 2006; see also Volpato, 2011) both in Italian advertisements and TV (Guastini et al., 2014). Hence, Italy represents an ideal context to investigate whether chronic exposure to objectifying TV has an impact on TV-consumers’ judgments and choices.

Overview of Research

Across three studies, we examined how women choose their graduation outfit and what inferences observers draw on the basis of their outfit. In so doing, we extend previous research that merely examined work-related situations (Glick et al., 2005; Howlett et al., 2015) to a context (i.e., university) where students’ outfits are often question of debate and where competence and diligence are highly valued. In Study 1, we investigated whether the graduation outfit worn by female students would impact the observers’ perception of the students’ competence and sexiness, two aspects that are typically tested in research on women’s sexualization. Also, we examined whether and how the outfit influenced the perception of students’ effort and final outcomes. Hence, we not only focused on person perception, but we move forward to test how the attire influenced expectations about the students’ diligence and ability of graduating successfully.

Moreover, we considered the observer’s perception of different observer samples varying in age, status, and experience with Thesis committees. Students’ attires may indeed be perceived very differently by people who have different fashion styles, belong to different generations, have different backgrounds and experiences (young female peers and adults), or hold different roles (students and professors). Students and professors are known to have different opinions about clothing, with faculty members favoring students’ conservative clothing and students preferring trendy clothing (Ruetzler et al., 2012). Also, a recent study (Cabras et al., 2018) has shown that teachers perceive sexualized (vs. non-sexualized) students as more likely to engage in behavior impeding learning (e.g., not paying attention in class, copying homework, etc.). Thus, the inclusion of female peers, adults from the general population, and professors allowed us to gauge the generality or specificity of reactions to professional vs. sexy clothing.

In Study 2, we examined the reasons behind students’ outfit choices and, importantly, we tested observers’ impressions with reference to students’ outfit used in real life. In particular, we asked students who had recently graduated to indicate what motivated them to choose their graduation outfit. At the same time, the students and their outfits were evaluated by a group of observers who also guessed the final mark obtained by the students. This allowed us to test the link between students’ outfit and observers’ perceptions. In Study 3, we extended results of Study 1 by using photos of real female graduates wearing professional or sexy outfits, providing generalizability and higher ecological validity to our research. Finally, across studies, we explored the role of objectifying TV consumption and self-objectification in guiding the observers’ judgments and the students’ outfit choices.

Study 1

In Study 1 we tested whether students’ outfit would influence observers’ judgments. We predicted that students wearing a professional outfit would be judged as more competent (and as considering competence more important; Hypothesis 1) and as less sexy (and as considering appearance less important; Hypothesis 2) than those wearing a sexy outfit. Moreover, we expected that, the professionally (vs. sexily) dressed students would be thought to have earned better grades for their thesis, resulting in a higher overall graduation mark (Hypothesis 3). We also hypothesized that observers would expect professionally dressed students to have produced a thesis of higher quality (Hypothesis 4) and to be more likely to succeed in their future careers (Hypothesis 5). Importantly, these hypotheses were tested on three different samples, namely female student peers, an adult population, and university professors. Hence, we explored differences due to age and status on observers’ judgments.

Methods

Participants

Six hundred and sixty-seven participants accessed the survey. Inclusion criteria to define the final sample were the following: (a) being Italian, (b) not knowing the person in the picture, and (c) having completed the survey in all of its parts. The final sample consisted of 573 participants. In particular, the sample involved 223 female university students (“female peer” sample, M_age = 20.66, SD = 1.81), 295 adults (“adult” sample, 104 men, 3 unknown; M_age = 48.58, SD = 8.56) and 55 university professors (“professor” sample, 25 men, M_age = 51.11, SD = 10.11). The majority of the three samples came from Northern Italy (73.5%, n = 421), was Catholic (57.1%, n = 327), not politically identified (34.9%, n = 200) or left/center-left (27.1%, n = 155). Students were all undergraduate and mostly unemployed (83.6%, n = 179), all professors held a Ph.D., and the majority of the adult sample had a high school diploma or higher education (76.5%, n = 178) and was employed (71.9%, n = 212).

The majority of professors (81.5%) indicated that, in their Schools, the student’s evaluation and graduation takes places immediately after the defense. Moreover, they neither strongly agreed nor strongly disagreed with the fact that students of their Schools usually wear professional graduation outfit [M = 3.54, SD = 1.44; t-test against midpoint (4) on a scale from 1 = completely disagree to 7 = completely agree: t(53) = −2.37, p = 0.02] and they did not find, on average, students’ outfits either very appropriate or inappropriate to the context [M = 4.04, SD = 1.54; t-test against midpoint: t(53) = 0.17, p = 0.86].

Procedure

Participants were recruited through students’ contacts and social networks, with the exception of the professors who were recruited among contacts of the researchers. Participants were invited to take part in a study about first impressions and provided with a link to an online survey. After consenting to participate in the study, they reported their demographic information (i.e., gender, age, nationality, geographical background, occupational status, religion and political orientation), were introduced to the study, and then viewed a photo of a female student in her graduation outfit. The cover story mentioned that the student obtained a M.Sc. degree and the picture portrayed her right before the defense. Participants were randomly exposed either to a student in a sexy or in a professional outfit (with pictures randomly taken from the pool of materials described below). Then, they were asked to rate the student’s performance and career success. Next, they rated the student and indicated their outfit choice. Finally, they completed the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale and objectifying TV consumption scale. At the very end, before being debriefed and thanked, participants indicated whether they knew the person portrayed in the picture (yes/no) and the degree of certainty (from 1 = not at all to 7 = completely).

Materials

Photos

Photos of 37 female students (M_age = 22.59, SD = 1.49) were taken to assure a broad range of stimuli. Photographed students were all White, all Italian except for one, and mostly coming from Northern Italy (77.8% of participants). Following previous research on this topic (Glick et al., 2005; see also Lennon et al., 2017), we considered two types of outfit: “sexy” outfits were provocative and revealing clothes and “professional” outfits consisted of business and formal clothing. Thus, each student volunteer was asked to dress up with two different outfits, namely a professional (e.g., trousers or semi-long skirt, shirt covering neckline and breast, jacket, and flat shoes) and a sexy outfit (e.g., short skirt or mini dress, evident neckline, and high heels). Pictures of the person wearing the two outfits were taken in the same position (i.e., frontal, standing and with a thesis in her hands) and from the same distance. Faces were blurred in order to protect the person’s privacy and to avoid effects of other appearance related features (e.g., make-up). The background was always a white wall. For the female peer and adult samples, all 74 photos were used, whereas for the professor sample we selected 4 target students shown either in a professional and sexy outfit, resulting in eight photos to which participants were randomly assigned. Photographed students also judged their own outfits as reported in the Supplementary Information S1.

Students’ perception

Participants rated the student’s competence (competent, intelligent; α = 0.81), sexiness (sexy, attractive; α = 0.83), and beauty (elegant, fashionable, and feminine; α = 0.67). They then indicated how much they believed the student cared about appearing competent and intelligent (importance of competence, α = 0.85), and about appearing beautiful, elegant, feminine, fashionable (importance of beauty; α = 0.89). Answers were provided on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (completely). Indexes were created by averaging the ratings referring to each variable.

Students’ performance

Participants were asked to guess the number of points (from 0 to 8) the student had earned for her thesis and her final mark (from 66 to 110, where “66” represents the minimum a student could obtain as a final mark in order to graduate). Participants also made guesses about the student’s thesis work by answering three questions (i.e., “how much effort do you think she put in her thesis work?”, “How logical and organized do you think her thesis is?”, “How original do you think her thesis is?”). Answers were provided on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (completely). An index of thesis evaluation (α = 0.87) was calculated by averaging the ratings for the three items. The higher the score, the better the performance.

Career success

Participants indicated the likelihood that the student would have a successful career by responding to two items (i.e., “How easily do you think she will find a job?”, “How successful do you think she will be in her career?”). Answers were provided on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (completely). An index of career success (α = 0.82) was calculated by averaging the ratings for the two items with higher scores indicating a higher likelihood of success.

Outfit choice

Participants also indicated the likelihood that they would have worn that outfit if they were the student on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (completely).

Objectified body consciousness scale

Participants – with the exception of the professors – completed the 18 items of the body shame and body surveillance subscales of the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (OBCS; McKinley and Hyde, 1996). Answers were provided on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (completely). Since the same pattern of results emerged when considering the two subscales, an index of self-objectification (α = 0.87) was calculated, with higher scores indicating higher self-objectification.

Objectifying TV consumption

Participants indicated how frequently they watched popular TV shows on a scale from 1 (never) to 4 (always), with an additional response option indicating that they did not know the program. The TV shows had been pretested (n = 38 men and n = 35 women) by asking participants to judge the degree to which the show was objectifying (i.e., portraying women as sexual objects or as ornaments) and paying attention primarily to women’s bodies rather than to their personality (responses’ scale from 1 = never to 4 = always). Eight of the TV shows were classified as objectifying (M = 3.17, SD = 0.67) and 8 as non-objectifying (M = 1.50, SD = 0.79). Five additional TV shows, located in the middle range (M = 2.93, SD = 0.79), were included as fillers but not considered in the analyses. The three groups of TV shows were all significantly different from each other, ts > 7.19, ps < 0.001. An objectifying TV consumption index was calculated by subtracting the frequency of watching non-objectifying TV from that of objectifying TV. Thus, the higher the score, the higher was the consumption of objectifying TV.

Results

Effects of Clothing on Observer Ratings

ANOVAs were run for each dependent variable, including outfit (professional vs. sexy), participants’ gender (male vs. female) and sample (female peer vs. adults vs. professors) as between-participants variables. Effects, means and standard deviations by experimental condition on each dependent variable are reported in Table 1.

TABLE 1

TABLE 1. Cronbach’s alpha, means and standard deviation, and main effects of outfit on all the dependent variables (Study 1).

Significant effects of outfit were found on all dependent variables with the exception of beauty and career success. In particular, confirming hypotheses 1 and 2, participants judged the target students in a professional outfit as being more competent and less sexy, and as giving more importance to competence and less to beauty than when the outfit was sexy. Moreover, confirming hypothesis 3, participants attributed more thesis points and a higher final mark to the students when wearing a professional rather than a sexy outfit. The same students were rated as having put more effort into their thesis work when dressed professionally, as predicted by hypothesis 4. Finally, participants also indicated that they would have chosen the professional rather than the sexy outfit if they were the student.

Interestingly, a significant interaction between outfit and sample emerged, F(1,551) = 3.11, p = 0.045, www.frontiersin.org = 0.01, for career success. Pairwise comparisons (Bonferroni’s correction) indicated that female peers perceived the professionally dressed students (M = 4.73, SD = 1.16) as more likely to find a job and to have a successful career than when the same students were presented with a sexy outfit (M = 4.26, SD = 1.20; p = 0.008). On the contrary, adults (M_professional = 4.03, SD = 1.38 vs. M_sexy = 4.33, SD = 1.37; p = 0.03) judged the students wearing a sexy outfit as having higher chances of success. Professors (M_professional = 4.23, SD = 1.20 vs. M_sexy = 4.87, SD = 1.00; p = 0.09) showed a non-significant trend in the same direction.

No significant effects or interaction with gender were found (Fs < 3.28, ps > 0.07). The only gender difference was on outfit choice with men (M = 3.07, SD = 1.92) reporting they would have chosen the sexy outfit slightly more than women (M = 2.36, SD = 1.81) if they were the student, F(1,555) = 3.81, p = 0.05, www.frontiersin.org = 0.01.

Mediation Analyses

Previous studies (Glick et al., 2005; Howlett et al., 2015) merely tested whether clothing affected the target’s perceived competence. Here, we wanted to explore whether such perception could affect perception of the student’s performance. Hence, two mediation analyses predicting an impact of outfit on final mark and thesis points via perceived competence were run by using Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS macro (Model 4) for SPSS and bias-corrected intervals (5000 bootstrap resamples). The analysis on thesis points showed that professional outfit was associated with higher perceived competence (b = 0.25, SE = 0.05, t = 4.92, p < 0.001) and competence was also positively associated with thesis points (b = 0.42, SE = 0.04, t = 10.13, p < 0.001). Supporting a partial mediation, the direct effect of outfit on thesis points (b = 0.24, SE = 0.05, t = 4.46, p < 0.001) was reduced when considering competence as mediator (b = 0.13, SE = 0.05, t = 2.67, p = 0.008). Confirming the mediated path, the indirect effect was statistically significant (a^∗b = 0.10, SE = 0.02, 95% CI [0.06, 12)] as was the Sobel test (z = 4.41, p < 0.001). Similarly, the direct effect of outfit on final mark (b = 1.57, SE = 0.44, t = 3.60, p = 0.003) was reduced when entering competence as mediator (b = 0.93, SE = 0.43, t = 2.17, p = 0.030). The significant indirect pathway of students’ outfit on final mark was mediated by perceived competence (a^∗b = 0.65, SE = 0.15; 95% CI [0.38, 0.99]; z = 4.12, p < 0.001). Together, these results indicate that a sexy attire decreased perceived competence which, in turn, led observers to imagine that the student must have performed worse.

The Role of Exposure to Objectifying Television on Observer Ratings

Overall participants reported low levels of objectifying TV consumption and a preference for non-objectifying over objectifying TV (M = −0.27, SD = 0.41). A univariate ANOVA showed that this was especially true for adults (M = −0.34, SD = 0.39) and professors (M = −0.39, SD = 0.25) and less so for young female students (M = −0.14, SD = 0.43), F(1,560) = 15.09, p < 0.001, www.frontiersin.org = 0.051. This effect may be explained by age; in fact when entering this variable as a covariate in the analysis, age was the only significant predictor of objectifying TV consumption, F(1,558) = 4.08, p = 0.044, = 0.007.

Next, we ran a moderation analysis on each dependent variable to test whether participants’ consumption of objectifying TV moderated the effects of outfit (−1 = sexy and 1 = professional) on the perception of students and of their graduation outcomes. Analyses were performed using Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS macro (Model 1) and bias-corrected intervals (5000 bootstrap resamples), introducing the mean centered moderator and controlling for the participants’ gender and age as covariate. Among all analyses only one significant result involving objectifying TV consumption was found. Specifically, the interaction term between outfit and objectifying TV consumption was significant for thesis points (b = −0.13, SE = 0.05, t = −0.2.41, p = 0.01). Participants low in objectifying TV consumption estimated more thesis points obtained by the professionally than by the sexy dressed students (b = 0.37, SE = 0.08, t = 4.86, p < 0.001), whereas participants high in objectifying TV consumption did not differentiate between thesis points attributed to professionally and sexy dressed students (b = 0.11, SE = 0.08, t = 1.46, p = 0.14).

The Role of Self-Objectification on Observer Ratings

Participants reported overall moderately low levels of self-objectification (M = 3.54, SD = 0.93), with the female peer sample (M = 3.80, SD = 0.87) reporting greater self-objectification than adult participants (M = 3.28, SD = 0.90), F(1,446) = 8.85, p = 0.003, www.frontiersin.org = 0.019. The same analyses as above were conducted using self-objectification (mean centered) instead of objectifying TV exposure as moderator variable, while controlling for gender and age. We will only report significant findings involving a self-objectification moderation effect.

A significant interaction was found for thesis points (b = −0.12, SE = 0.06, t = −2.06, p = 0.04), suggesting that low self-objectified participants attributed more thesis points to the professionally than to the sexy dressed students (b = 0.33, SE = 0.08, t = 3.94, p < 0.001), whereas no difference was found for participants with higher level of self-objectification (b = 0.08, SE = 0.08, t = 1.03, p = 0.30). Similarly, as shown by the significant interaction on students’ career success (b = −0.14, SE = 0.06, t = −0.2.29, p = 0.03), low self-objectified participants perceived the students wearing a professional outfit as more likely to be successful in their career than when the same students were dressed in a sexy fashion (b = 0.22, SE = 0.09, t = 2.51, p = 0.01). On the contrary, high self-objectified participants did not perceive differences in success likelihood depending on how the students were dressed (b = −0.06, SE = 0.09, t = −0.73, p = 0.47).

Interestingly, the interaction effect on perceived competence (b = −0.11, SE = 0.06, t = −2.04, p = 0.04), showed that all participants perceived the professionally dressed students as more competent than the sexy ones, but the effect was more evident for those reporting low (b = 0.40, SE = 0.08, t = 5.09, p < 0.001) than high levels of self-objectification (b = 0.17, SE = 0.08, t = 2.20, p = 0.028). The significant interaction on perceived sexiness (b = −0.16, SE = 0.07, t = −2.22, p = 0.026) showed the opposite pattern: high self-objectified participants (b = −0.53, SE = 0.10, t = −5.14, p < 0.001) judged the students sexier when dressed in a sexy rather than professional way than participants low in self-objectification did (b = −0.20, SE = 0.10, t = −1.98, p = 0.047).

Discussion

Study 1 illustrates the risks associated with sexy clothing during thesis defense and graduation. Women were judged approximately equally beautiful regardless of outfit, which may not be surprising given that they were the same women photographed in identical poses. Provocatively dressed women were generally judged as more sexy and as caring more about their appearance. However, when students dressed sexy, they were generally thought to perform worse (they were associated with less thesis points, a lower final mark, and a thesis of lower quality) and were perceived as less competent and as caring less about competence. Importantly, these effects emerged for all participant groups, indicating that female peers, adults and professors made similar judgments based on the attire. Hence, no group seems to be immune to the outfit bias. Importantly, our mediational analyses suggest that participants “penalized” students dressed sexy because they perceived them as less competent (see Cabras et al., 2018).

The only variable judged differently by the three groups was anticipated career success. Whereas female peers thought that the professional attire would facilitate finding a job and succeeding in a career, the general adult population and the professors (albeit the trend was non-significant in the latter case) thought that the sexy attire was advantageous. This result is open to different interpretations: students may believe that dressing professionally not only conveys the idea of being competent and skilled, but also communicates the ability to conform to job norms. Hence, for young people, communicating competence (rather than sexiness) through clothing should be advantageous. Adults, instead, may believe that looking sexy implies advantages when applying for a job and this is why they associated a sexy outfit with higher career success likelihood. However, these are only speculations and whether the observed differences reflect generational or age differences remains an open question for future research.

Study 1 also investigated two potential moderators of the outfit effects, namely exposure to objectifying TV and the degree of self-objectification. TV consumption turned out to be relevant only for thesis points’ attribution. Only participants with low levels of objectifying TV consumption thought that the sexy (vs. professionally) dressed student had obtained fewer thesis points. The same pattern was found for participants low in self-objectification. Furthermore, self-objectification exerted effects on other dependent variables. The less participants self-objectified, the more they rated the professionally dressed students as competent and the more optimistic they were about their career perspective. Together, the moderating function of TV consumption and self-objectification was limited to a few dependent variables, but, where moderation was found, a consistent pattern emerged. In all cases, participants less exposed to objectifying TV and with lower levels of self-objectification attributed greater competence and success to women dressed in a professional rather than sexy fashion, thus showing a stronger outfit bias. Participants with high objectifying TV consumption and high self-objectification were less likely to distinguish between sexy and professional attire, possibly because they consider sexy clothing as more “normative.”

Study 2

Study 2 moved to the “real world” and investigated how students choose their graduation outfits and how these clothes are perceived by observers. In particular, we asked female students who had graduated in the last few years to provide a photo portraying them on the graduation day along with ratings concerning their outfit. Different participants were then exposed to these pictures and asked to draw inferences about the students and to evaluate their attire.

Hence, we extended our previous findings in different ways. First, we explored how graduation outfits are chosen in real life and which student characteristics relate to this choice. In particular, we predicted that students with lower self-objectification and lower consumption of objectifying TV, and those who attribute greater importance to competence will be more likely to have chosen an outfit that was expressing their competence rather than their beauty or personality (Hypothesis 1). Second, we examined what inferences external observers would draw about these students and whether impressions about the students and their outfits would affect observers’ expectations of obtained thesis points and final mark. In line with Study 1, we expected that a perception of the student as more competent and less sexy would predict an estimation of more thesis points and a higher final mark (Hypothesis 2a). Moreover, a perception of their outfit as more appropriate was predicted to be linked to higher estimated final mark and thesis points (Hypothesis 2b).

Third, we tested whether the perception of the students’ outfit could explain their actual thesis points that determined the students’ final mark. We were interested in examining whether the outfit perception would predict the evaluation given by the committee. If the outfit affected the raters’ estimation of thesis points (as already shown in Study 1), then the committee may have been influenced in much the same way, assigning more thesis points to the professionally dressed students. In particular, we not only asked our raters to judge how appropriate the outfit was for the occasion, but also how sexy and masculine it was. We relied on (a) appropriateness as it was an important aspect reported by students themselves (see Supplementary Information S2), (b) on sexiness because findings of Study 1 showed a negative effect of sexy outfits on observers’ judgments, and (c) on masculinity as research has shown that a more masculine outfit (e.g., suit) is preferred in more formal contexts and conveys greater competence (Kelan, 2013). Hence, we predicted that perception of the outfit as more appropriate, masculine and less sexy would be positively associated with more thesis points obtained by the student (Hypothesis 3). This prediction should not regard the pre-defense GPA based on exams since it should not be affected by graduation outfit.