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Perceptions of functional clothing by able‐bodied people: the other side
Author(s) -
FREEMAN CARLA M.,
KAISER SUSAN B.,
CHANDLER JOAN L.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
journal of consumer studies and home economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.775
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1470-6431
pISSN - 0309-3891
DOI - 10.1111/j.1470-6431.1987.tb00145.x
Subject(s) - clothing , semantic differential , psychology , perception , dimension (graph theory) , social psychology , developmental psychology , mathematics , archaeology , neuroscience , pure mathematics , history
Functional clothing was examined as a factor in social interactions between physically disabled and non‐disabled people. In the present study, the perceptions of able‐bodied college students were compared with the evaluations of students with physical disabilities from a previous study. Seven line drawings of clothing with functional features were rated on semantic differential scales in a self‐administered questionnaire. The non‐disabled students were more positive than the disabled students on all of the scales for five of the seven styles. The able‐bodied subjects also tended to use more global constructs when perceiving the styles than did their disabled counterparts, who were more likely to distinguish function as a separate dimension. Sex differences were found, with a tendency for the females to be more positive than the males in their ratings of the styles. Implications of the data and suggestions for further research are discussed.