Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Clothing behavior related to attitudes toward certain clothing standards, clothing interest, orthodoxy, and conformity

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/z890rx013

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  • The purposes of the study were to explore the possibility of relationships existing among clothing behavior, attitudes toward certain clothing standards, interest in clothes, religious orthodoxy, and conformity among a group of Seventh-day Adventist college girls; and to determine whether or not factors of socio-economic level, type of secondary education (parochial, non-parochial), and church membership background affected these relationships. To measure these relationships a questionnaire containing five scales was developed. Two scales, attitude and behavior, were devised by the writer; three were adapted from existing measures. The attitude and behavior scales were based on statements from the clothing literature of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination and reflected a conservative interpretation of their clothing standards. The five scales were scored on the basis of agreement or disagreement, from one to five, with this interpretation of the standards. Low scores indicated agreement and high scores showed disagreement. Four judges evaluated the measure for validity and appropriateness to the subjects to be tested after which a pretest was given to 22 girls in a western Seventh-day Adventist college. The results of this pretest were analyzed and the measure was revised where necessary. The participants were 167 girls in a midwestern Adventist university. The information describing the subjects revealed that most of them were Seventh-day Adventists, from Seventh-day Adventist homes, who had graduated from Adventist secondary schools which they had attended for at least two years. They were members of the middle and lower socio-economic groups, from small urban centers or farms (one-fourth came from urban areas of over 100,000 people). These subjects were not chosen randomly and therefore the findings are applicable only to the participants. An analysis of the data revealed that there were significant relationships between clothing behavior, attitude toward the clothing standards of the church, and religious orthodoxy. Conformity did not appear to be significantly related to the first four variables in this study. Attitude was the most important factor in reflecting clothing behavior; orthodoxy ranked next. Clothing interest was of only slight value in reflecting clothing behavior, for these subjects. Two intervening variables--socio-economic level and type of secondary education--were not significantly related to clothing behavior, attitude, interest, orthodoxy or to conformity. Church membership background (including subjects' and parents' church membership) was not related to any of these variables except religious orthodoxy. It was found to be moderately correlated with orthodoxy and, therefore, the effects of these factors could not be entirely discounted. Conclusions were that relationships did exist among the variables of clothing behavior, attitude, interest, and orthodoxy, but not conformity; and that factors of socio-economic level, type of secondary education, and church membership background did not relate to any of these variables except orthodoxy for this group of subjects. In general the subjects who agreed most with Seventh-day Adventist clothing standards in their clothing behavior agreed in their attitude toward the standards, were more orthodox to the church, and somewhat less interested in clothes, than subjects who disagreed with the clothing standards defined by this measure.
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