Dressed Emotions : How Attire and Emotion Expressions Influence First Impressions

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-5020247/v1

Both the way a person dresses and their emotion expressions influence interpersonal perception, yet the combined impact of attire and emotional expressions remains understudied. We investigated how attire, as a signal of status, interacts with emotional expressions to create first impressions. Study 1 examined inferences drawn from formal versus casual attire in business and leisure contexts. Study 2 explored how these dress styles, combined with expressions of anger, sadness, and neutrality, affected observers' perceptions of the expresser’s traits and emotion expressions across both contexts. Results indicate that even though attire consistently informs inferences about status, dominance, and to a lesser extent, affiliation across contexts and genders, emotion expressions exert a stronger influence on these judgments. Attire also impacted on emotion perception, affecting ratings of secondary emotions and the perceived authenticity of expressions, with emotions of formally dressed individuals perceived as less authentic. These findings suggest that when emotional information is available, observers rely more heavily on it than on stereotypes associated with dress formality or gender. Emotions may take precedence because, unlike attire, they offer insights into the expresser's momentary state of mind.

"What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today, when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language." —Miuccia Prada

In 2018, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. Congress regarding the company's data privacy practices, many news outlets and commentators observed that he was wearing a rather ill-fitting suit and appeared subdued. His conservative attire was seen as an attempt to appear more serious, contrite, and in control of his emotions during the high-stakes hearing (Friedman, 2018; Mahdawi, 2018). Similarly, in the 2016 U.S. presidential debates, Hillary Clinton's preference for pantsuits was perceived by some reporters as an attempt to convey a more emotionally reserved and presidential demeanor (Friedman, 2016). As these news reports indicate, dress style is considered as informative of people’s personality and goals and even their expected emotional reactions. Yet, nonverbal communication research has largely neglected this potential source of information. The present research had the goal to investigate the role of attire in the formation of first impressions. Notably, in most situations, attire will combine with another potent source of information about people’s personality (Hareli & Hess, 2010; Knutson, 1996) and goals – emotional facial expressions. However, to our knowledge no study to date has considered the joint effect of emotion expression and attire on first impressions. The present research was designed to address this gap in the literature.

We predicted that attire by itself impacts on person perception. Further, we expected that attire both influences emotion perception directly and interacts with emotion expression to form first impressions. Figure 1 describes the underlying model.

Attire

Traditionally, much of the research on the recognition of facial expressions used still photographs that are highly controlled with regard to appearance cues, often to the point of removing even hairstyle cues by framing the faces in ovals (e.g., Calvo & Lundqvist, 2008; Philip et al., 2018). In real-life, however, people regularly perceive faces in their natural context, i.e., the body of the expresser and their attire (Hester & Hehman, 2023). As such, when considering the interaction between emotion expression and attire, it is useful to consider attire as a nonverbal cue that frames the emotion expression.

Attire as a social signal

The way a person dresses has been shown to signal, among other things, how credible (O’Neal & Lapitsky, 1991), sociable (Johnson et al., 1977) professional, intelligent, competent, efficient, honest, and reliable a person is (Kwon, 1992). Thus, attire is one of the cues that observers use when forming first impressions of others (Howlett et al., 2013). In a recent review, Hester and Hehman (2023) specify four types of inferences that can be drawn from attire: social categories, cognitive states, status, and aesthetics. These inferences are based on the fact that attire carries cultural meaning (McCracken, 1988) based on the prevalent social and cultural norms (McCracken & Roth, 1989).

At the same time, emotion expressions can be a source of information for these very same characteristics (Hareli & Hess, 2010). As such, attire can be expected to interact with perceived emotion expressions to influence first impressions.

In turn, information regarding social group membership gleaned from attire may influence both emotion recognition and the inferences drawn from emotions. For example, knowing that a (male) expresser is black or of high status leads observers to more readily label their expression as angry (Hugenberg & Bodenhausen, 2003; Ratcliff et al., 2012). In the same vein, previous studies have shown that a person’s profession impacts judgment about their emotions. For example, a person identified as a surgeon was rated as expressing less intense emotions then when the same individual was identified differently. This difference in judgement is driven by the stereotype expectation that surgeons will control and restrain their emotions (Hareli et al., 2013).

Attire as a signal of social status

The present research focused on attire as a signal of status. Status can be defined as ‘‘the outcome of an evaluation of attributes that produces differences in respect and prominence’’(Keltner et al., 2003, p. 266). Status refers to an individual’s standing in the hierarchy of a group as a result of that person’s prestige, and the honor and deference accorded to them by the group (Lovaglia & Houser, 1996) and it has been shown that people are sensitive to cues that mark social status (Ridgeway, 1987). One factor that signals a person’s social status and related constructs such as social power and competence is the way a person dresses (Damhorst, 1990; Hester & Hehman, 2023). People who are dressed formally, such as in a business suit, are perceived as having higher status than people who are dressed casually (Fortenberry et al., 1978; Furnham et al., 2013; Gouda-Vossos et al., 2019; Kwon & Johnson-Hillery, 1998).

Social status and emotion expression

Importantly, people share beliefs about how individuals are expected to react emotionally as a function of their status and the degree to which they are likely to express these reactions (Keltner et al., 2003). For instance, Conway et al. (1999) found that participants perceived low-status relative to high-status individuals as displaying less anger, disgust and happiness, but more sadness and fear, and similar levels of love.

Importantly, high-status individuals are considered freer to express anger compared to low-status individuals (Ridgeway & Johnson, 1990). Consequently, expressions of anger can serve as a signal for status. In this vein, research by Tiedens (2001) found that men who expressed anger were seen as more competent and were conferred higher status than men expressing sadness. However, more recently, evidence for the notion that anger expressions in a work context are perceived as inappropriate, an overreaction, and as a lack of self-control and hence denote low rather than high status has also been advanced (Porat & Levy Paluck, 2024). Regardless of the nature of the judgment, both lines of research share the idea that the emotions that a person expresses inform status-related impressions and decisions concerning the expresser.

Further, a given expression is typically perceived as reflecting emotions in addition to the focal expression (i.e., secondary emotions) (Kafetsios & Hess, 2023; Russell & Fehr, 1987; Russell et al., 1993; Yrizarry et al., 1998). There is evidence that the effect of status on emotion perception is not restricted to the perception of the focal emotion shown, but also extends to the perception of these additional, secondary expressions. For example, Algoe et al. (2000) found that even though fear expressions were rated as most fearful, any expression shown by a person high in status (a supervisor) was rated as signaling less fear than the same expressions shown by a person with lower status (an employee). In sum, information about the social status of an expresser affects the perception of both the focal emotion as well as of secondary emotions. The effects of status on perceived emotions are consistent with stereotypes suggesting that high-status people are more dominant, self-confident, emotionally stable, and assertive than low-status people (Heilman et al., 1989).

Social status and emotional authenticity

High-status individuals tend to be motivated to ensure that others are aware of their status. To achieve this goal, they manage their impressions to make sure that others are aware of their (positive) characteristics (Leary & Jongman-Sereno, 2017). This implies that they manage and monitor their behavior in ways that may appear inauthentic even though they signal real characteristics. As noted above, emotions signal status by communicating status relevant information. Specifically, affective control theory posits that observers assume that emotions displayed by others are consistent with the expresser’s status (Smith-Lovin, 1990). As such, high-status individuals would be expected to show emotions that signal being in control such as anger and neutrality (Hareli et al., 2009). In contrast, low-status individuals would be expected to show sadness (Tiedens, 2001) in a similar context. As such, one can expect that observers will perceive expressions of anger and neutrality by individuals wearing formal dress as a sign of high status and hence as more congruent but also as more strategic. However, from a self-presentation perspective, all expressions shown by high status individuals might be perceived as less authentic than those shown by individuals whose attire denotes low status (Hall et al., 2005; Tiedens et al., 2000).

For the present research, we showed participants photos of individuals who wore either casual or formal business or leisure clothes (see Figure 2 for examples). We added leisure attire as a context as much of the research cited above focused on attire in a business context. Adding a leisure context allowed us to test whether effects generalize to a different context.

Study 1 served to assess the inferences that participants draw from the type of attire (casual vs. formal) in the absence of a facial expression. For this, we blurred the faces as shown in Figure 2. In Study 2, actors showed expressions of anger, sadness and neutrality. Anger and sadness were chosen because these emotions are specifically associated with status (Tiedens, 2001). Participants rated both focal and secondary emotions and were asked to make inferences regarding the social dominance and affiliativeness of the expresser as well as the authenticity of the expression shown.

We predicted that dress style would serve as a signal of status. As such, we predicted that individuals wearing formal attire would be perceived as more dominance and as having higher status. We further predicted, that in Study 2 the emotion expressions of individuals wearing formal dress would be perceived as less authentic. Further, expressers showing anger and neutrality would be rated as more dominant than those showing sadness. Based on research showing that in general women are perceived as less dominant and more affiliative (e.g., Hess et al., 2009) we expected this to be the case as well.

Methods

Participants

A total of 102 (49 men, 48 women, and 5 who identified as other) participants with a mean age of 38 years (SD = 12.5) were recruited through Prolific Academic and completed the study. A sensitivity analysis using simr (Green & MacLeod, 2016) revealed more than 80% power for small to medium effect size of d =.35 for the focal main effect of attire.

Stimulus Materials

Facial expressions of anger, sadness and neutrality shown by four men and four women were selected from the subset of young posers of the FACES database (Ebner et al., 2010). Using digital manipulation, all faces were inserted into a matching body shown from the knees up. For the business context, formal dress for both men and women consisted of a business suit without a tie and a white shirt under the jacket. In the casual dress condition, posers wore blue jeans. Men wore a blue sweater with a bright blue shirt underneath, and women wore a long-sleeved blue T-shirt (see Figure 1, upper row).

For the leisure condition, faces were inserted into a matching body dressed for a formal vs informal party. Men were dressed in a blue lapel tuxedo, white shirt, and blue bow tie. The tuxedo jacket had a two-button front closure. Women wore a blue cocktail satin sheath dress with a blazer-style top. The dress had long sleeves, a notched lapel, and a v-neckline. The waist was cinched with a matching belt, and the skirt was knee-length. In the casual leisure dress condition, men wore a light blue, button-up dress shirt with long sleeves and blue jeans and women were dressed in a light blue belted shirt dress. Blue shades for all clothing varied from light blue to slightly darker blue between expressers to allow for some variation (see Figure 1, lower row). Women’s dresses were chosen to not expose skin on the torso as this may have separate effects on social perceptions. For Study 1 all faces were blurred. Each participant saw one man and one woman of a different identity, wearing either casual or a formal attire from one of the two contexts. Actors were counterbalanced across participants.

Procedure and Dependent Measures

For the manipulation check, participants rated each photo on the degree to which the person appeared to have high status. They also rated each person with regard to their level of self-confidence, competence, professionalism, trustworthiness, dependability, cheerfulness, approachability, and friendliness. In addition, they rated their emotional authenticity and the degree to which they adhere to norms. All ratings were made on 7-point Likert scales ranging from 0 (not at all) to 6 (to a large extent).

A principal component analysis with Varimax rotation was conducted on these ratings. A two-factor solution that explained 63.8% of the variance was chosen based on the scree-plot (see markdown in the supplementary materials for details). Due to high cross loading (> .4) dependable was excluded from further analysis. Based on this analysis, two composite scores were created: dominance (self-confidence, competence, professionalism, and adheres to norms, α = .73) and affiliation (trustworthiness, cheerfulness, approachability, friendliness, and authenticity, α = .88).

Compliance with Ethical Standards

The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work. The authors have no competing interests to declare.

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments (except for pre-registration). The study was approved by the Ethics committee of XXX (No. 119/24, the identity of the institution was removed to facilitate a blind review). The data and the complete markdowns used for the analyses reported herein are freely available and can be found at https://osf.io/shvz8/?view_only=8390995ebbdf48fd98323aab26403b32.

Results

We conducted 2 (actor gender: male, female) x 2 (attire: causal, formal) x 2 (context: business, leisure) mixed model analyses using lme4 (Bates et al., 2015) and lmerTest (Kuznetsova et al., 2017) in Rstudio (RStudio Team, 2019).

Manipulation check

For ratings of high status, the expected main effect of attire emerged, F(1,300) = 281.67, p < .001, η_p² = .43, such that individuals wearing formal dress (M = 4.87, SD = 0.97) were rated as higher in status than individuals wearing casual dress (M = 3.21, SD = 1.29). In addition, an actor gender x context, F(1,300) = 20.20, p < .001, η_p² = .05, and the attire x actor gender x context interaction, F(1,234) = 21.20, p < .001, η_p² = .03, emerged significantly.

As shown in Figure 3, only for casual dress did actor gender have an impact on the perceived status of the actor, which varied by context. Specifically, in the business context, men were rated as having higher status than women, t₃₀₀ = 5.99, p < .001, whereas in the leisure context the opposite was the case, t₃₀₀ = 4.55, p < .001.

Dominance

A significant main effect of attire, F(1,300) = 160.93, p < .001, η_p² = .31, emerged such that, as expected, individuals wearing formal attire were perceived as more dominant (M = 4.50, SD = 1.09) than individuals wearing casual attire (M = 4.00, SD = 1.14).

A significant main effect of actor gender, F(1,300) = 4.17, p = .042, η_p² = .01, an attire by actor gender, F(1,300) = 6.40, p = .012, η_p² = .02, and an attire by context interaction, F(1,300) = 4.97, p = .026, η_p² = .02, were qualified by the three-way interaction, F(1,300) = 5.84, p = .016, η_p² = .02. Specifically, context qualified the actor gender effect only for casual attire, such that men wearing casual attire in the business context (M = 4.03, SD = 0.79) were rated as more dominant than women wearing casual attire (M = 3.46, SD = 0.91; t₃₀₀ = 4.42, p < .001). For all other conditions, no significant difference between men and women emerged, all t’s < 1. No further main effects or interactions emerged significantly.

Affiliation

Significant main effects of attire, F(1,300) = 24.26, p < .001, η_p² = .06, and context, F(1,300) = 12.42, p = .001, η_p² = .03, emerged, as well as a significant actor gender x context interaction, F(1,300) = 12.43, p < .001, η_p² = .03. Specifically, individuals wearing casual attire were overall perceived as more affiliative (M = 3.88, SD = 0.98) than individuals wearing formal attire (M = 3.52, SD = 1.06). Further, individuals in the business context were rated as more affiliative (M = 3.96, SD = 1.02) than individuals in the leisure context (M = 3.44, SD = 0.99). Finally, men in the leisure context were perceived as more affiliative (M = 3.61, SD = 0.92) than women (M = 3.26, SD = 1.03, t₃₀₀ = 3.39, p < .001), whereas in the business context an opposite trend emerged (M_men = 3.88, SD = 1.04; M_women = 4.04, SD = 1.01, t₃₀₀ = 1.60, p = .111).

Discussion

The findings provide strong evidence that the formality of the attire that a person wears, has a strong influence on perceived status and dominance and a somewhat lesser but still evident effect on perceived affiliation. The overall findings that individuals wearing formal attire were perceived as higher in status as well as being more dominant and less affiliative than individuals who wore casual attire was not qualified by gender or context. As suggested by previous research focusing on business attire (e.g., Fortenberry et al., 1978; Furnham et al., 2013; Gouda-Vossos et al., 2019; Kwon & Johnson-Hillery, 1998), wearing formal dress enhances perceived status and dominance. Interestingly, this finding generalizes to the leisure context, suggesting that formality in general might be associated with status. By contrast, the (small) reduction in perceived affiliation suggests that wearing formal attire might make people appear more distant.

However, context and actor gender did influence ratings as well. Specifically, context qualified the interaction between actor gender and attire for ratings of high status and to a lesser degree for dominance ratings. Specifically, men wearing casual business attire were rated as higher in status than women, whereas the opposite was the case for leisure attire. In both contexts, no gender differences emerged for people wearing formal attire. Also, men wearing casual attire were rated as more dominant in the business context.

This finding is rather interesting considering gender stereotypes. Even in modern egalitarian societies, men are often attributed more status than women. This seems to be especially prevalent in the business context (Ridgeway, 2011). Thus, wearing a business suit (as was done by Hillary Clinton) may indeed palliate this uneven initial perception, as gender differences in perceived status and dominance disappeared when formal attire was worn. Thus, for women wearing casual attire in a business context might backfire regarding their perceived dominance – notably this composite variable also included the variables professionalism and competence, suggesting that women who wear casual attire in a business context are perceived as somewhat lacking in these domains. By contrast in a leisure context, women wearing causal dress may even be perceived as higher in status and at least as no lower in dominance. Hence the issue here is less clear cut.

In sum, as expected, wearing formal attire influenced perceptions of status, dominance and affiliation. Further, the gender of the actor interacted with attire and context. These effects can be best attributed to prevailing gender stereotypes.

However, in addition to gender stereotypes, facial morphology can also signal dominance and affiliation. Specifically, a square jaw, high forehead, or heavy eyebrows cross-culturally connote social dominance (Keating, Mazur, & Segall, 1981; Keating, Mazur, Segall, Cysneiros, Divale, Kilbridge, Komin, Leahy, Thurman, & Wirsing, 1981; Senior, Phillips, Barnes, & David, 1999). On the other hand, a rounded face with large eyes, thin eyebrows, and low facial features – a babyface – connotes approachability (e.g., Berry & McArthur, 1985). The former is more commonly found for men, whereas the latter is more typical for women. These morphological features then interact with emotion expressions, specifically anger and happiness, in the perception of dominance and affiliation (Becker et al., 2007; Hess et al., 2009). These effects were not relevant for Study 1 as faces were blurred and as such rendering facial morphology invisible.

However, in Study 2 facial expressions of anger and sadness as well as a neutral expression will be shown, hence gender effects may be even more prominent in this context. The focus of Study 2 is therefore to assess the interaction between expresser gender, facial expression and attire, in a leisure and a business context.

Participants

A total of 849 (402 men, 439 women, and 7 who identified as other) participants with a mean age of 43 years (SD = 13.8) were recruited through Prolific Academic and completed the study. Participants in this study saw only one photo, hence our goal was to recruit at least 30 participants per cell to assure adequate mean interrater reliability (Rosenthal, 2005).

Stimulus Materials

The stimuli described in Study 1 were used with the faces unblurred. This resulted in a 3 (emotion: anger, sadness, neutral) x 2 (expresser gender: male, female) x 2 (attire: formal, casual) x 2 (context: business, leisure) factorial design. Each participant saw only one expresser.^[1]

Procedure and Dependent Measures

Participants rated how dominant, submissive, competent, friendly, honest, trustworthy and of high status the person shown was. Two composite factors were created, dominance (dominance, competence, high status, leadership, and submissiveness reversed scored, α = .76) and affiliation (friendly, honest, and trustworthy, α = .81).

Participants further rated the degree to which the person expressed anger, sadness, fear, happiness, disgust, and neutrality, as well as the perceived authenticity of the expression. All scales were anchored with 0 (not at all) and 6 (to a large extent). The study was conducted as a complete between-participants design and each participant saw only one model expressing one of the above-mentioned emotions. For compliance with ethical standards and data availability see Study 1.

Results

Inferences

We first analyzed the effects of emotion expression, attire, expresser gender, and context on inferences regarding the expressers’ dominance and affiliation. For this, we conducted separate 3 (emotion expression: anger, sadness, neutral) x 2 (expresser gender: male, female) x 2 (attire: casual, formal) x 2 (context: business, leisure) type III analyses of variance using lme4 (Bates et al., 2015), lmerTest (Kuznetsova et al., 2017) and car (Fox & Weisberg, 2019) in RStudio (RStudio Team, 2019). Contrasts were sum or helmert (emotion) coded.

Dominance

As expected, significant main effects of emotion expression, F(2,825) = 108.95, p < .001, η_p² = .21, expresser gender, F(1,825) = 6.28, p =.012, η_p² = .01, and attire, F(1,825) = 33.13, p < .001, η_p²= .04, emerged, which were partially, and in the case of expresser gender fully, qualified by an attire x expresser gender, F(1,825) = 4.40, p =.036, η_p²= .01, an emotion x context, F(2,825) = 6.25, p =.002, η_p²= .01, an emotion x attire x expresser gender, F(2,825) = 4.09, p =.017, η_p²= .01, and the 4-way interaction, F(2,825) = 7.39, p =.001, η_p²= .02. For means and standard errors see Figure 4. For detailed post-hoc analyses see markdown in the supplementary materials.

Specifically, as expected, individuals who showed sadness were perceived as less dominant than individuals who showed anger or neutrality, who did not differ. This finding is in line with Tiedens’ (2001) findings that anger conveys more dominance than sadness and with findings that neutral expressions can be perceived as similarly dominant as anger expressions (Hareli et al., 2009).

As in Study 1, overall, individuals wearing formal dress were perceived as more dominant than those wearing casual dress, however, this difference did not always reach significance. Thus, perceived dominance of men showing neutral expressions was not affected by dress style. Notably, when actors showed sad expressions (with the exception of women showing sadness in the business context) attire had no effect. As such, sadness, which signals reduced dominance, counteracted the perception of dominance engendered by formal attire.

In fact, the effect of emotion (η_p² = .21) was considerably stronger than the effect of attire (η_p² = .04 versus η_p²= .31 in Study 1). This suggests that emotion as a more proximal, situation driven signal was perceived as more informative than the more distal and stable choice of a specific form of dress.

As regards expresser gender, women wearing formal attire were perceived as more dominant than men, whereas no difference emerged for casual attire. This finding departs from the finding in Study 1, which suggested that men in casual dress are attributed more status and dominance than were women, especially in a business context. This finding supports the notion that adding an emotion expression served to reduce participants' reliance on not only stereotypes related to attire but also on gender stereotypes when making inferences about others. Notably, no main effect and only unsystematic interaction effects involving context emerged. Thus, overall, the effects of formal dress generalized across the two contexts as was found in Study 1.

Affiliation

As expected, significant main effect of emotion expression emerged, F(2,825) = 108.81, p < .001, η_p² = .21, such that individuals showing anger were rated as less affiliative than those showing sadness or neutral expressions, with sadness being slightly less affiliative than neutral (for means and standard errors see Figure 5). A significant emotion by expresser gender, F(2,825) = 5.21, p = .006, η_p² = .01 and an emotion by context interaction, F(2,825) = 7.93, p < .001, η_p² = .02, indicated that the size of this difference varied with context and expresser gender; such that only for women in the business context were neutral expressions rated as significantly more affiliative than sad expressions, t₈₂₅ = 2.40, p = .044.

As regards attire, a significant attire by expresser gender interaction, F(1,825) = 10.56, p = .001, η_p² = .01, emerged, which was qualified by an attire by expresser gender by context interaction, F(1,825) = 4.59, p = .032, η_p² = .01, such that only in the leisure context a difference in perceived affiliation as a function of attire emerged. Specifically, women in formal dress and men in casual dress were perceived as more affiliative. Again, this finding does not match those reported in Study 1.

Further, an expresser gender by context interaction emerged, such that women were rated as significantly more affiliative than men in the business context, whereas in the leisure context no difference was found. This finding matches a trend found in Study 1, where however, the opposite effect was significant in the leisure context.

In sum, as in Study 1, the effect of attire on perceptions of dominance was stronger than on perceptions of affiliation. In the latter case, the effect was more heavily moderated by both expresser gender and context. Notably, overall, adding emotion expression to attire led participants to rely more strongly on this information than on stereotype information based on gender or attire.

Perceived Emotions

As noted above, there is limited evidence that attire, more specifically, the social status information conveyed by attire, may influence emotion perception as people expect different emotions as a function of expresser status. Specifically, high status individuals are considered to be more likely to express anger (Keltner et al., 2003; Tiedens, 2001).

Separate 3 (emotion expression: anger, sadness, neutral) x 2 (expresser gender: male, female) x 2 (attire: casual, formal) x 2 (context: business, leisure) analyses of variance on the perceived emotion scales were conducted to assess the effect of attire both on the focal emotions anger, sadness and neutrality ratings and on ratings of the secondary emotions happiness, fear and disgust. We further assessed the effect of attire on the perceived authenticity of the expression, based on the notion that high status individuals may be perceived as more carefully managing their emotion expressions in the service of self-presentation goals (Hall et al., 2005; Tiedens et al., 2000).

Focal emotions

In line with our predictions, significant main effects of emotion expression emerged for all ratings (see Table 1 for F-statistics, Figure 6 for means and standard errors). Post-hoc analyses confirmed that anger expressions were rated as most angry, sadness expression as most sad, and neutral expression as most neutral (see markdown in the supplementary materials for more detail). Interestingly, neutral expressions were rated as more angry than sad expressions and as more sad than angry expressions. This fits with the notion that nominally neutral expressions are not perceived as neutral (Hess et al., 2023; Lee et al., 2008).

For sadness ratings, an emotion by context interaction, F(2, 825) = 3.22, p = .041, η_p² = .01, emerged, such that only for sad expressions individuals in the leisure context were rated as sadder (M_leisure=4.95, SD = 1.44; M_business=4.53, SD = 1.52). For neutrality ratings, an emotion by context, F(2, 825) = 4.87, p = .008, η_p² = .01, and an expresser gender x context interaction, F(1, 825) = 4.41, p = .036, η_p² = .01, emerged significantly. Specifically, men who showed an angry expression in the leisure context (M = 1.53, SD = 1.57) were perceived as more neutral than those showing the same expression in the business context (M = 1.21, SD = 1.33).

Table 1. Means, standard deviations and F-statistics for the effect of emotion expression on emotion ratings

Rating	Expression	F (2,825)	p	η_p²	M	SD	CI95%
Anger	Anger	183.88	<.001	.31	5.04_a	1.20	[4.90, 5.18]
	Sadness				2.75_b	1.80	[2.54, 2.96]
	Neutral				3.21_c	1.57	[3.02, 3.40]
Sadness	Anger	159.59	<.001	.28	2.42_a	1.77	[2.22, 2.62]
	Sadness				4.74_b	1.77	[4.57, 4.91]
	Neutral				2.95_c	1.54	[2.77, 3.13]
Neutrality	Anger	167.52	<.001	.29	1.51_a	1.62	[1.32, 1.70]
	Sadness				1.72_a	1.72	[1.52, 1.92]
	Neutral				3.77_b	1.53	[3.59, 3.95]
Happiness	Anger	69.17	<.001	.14	1.47_a	1.49	[1.30, 1.64]
	Sadness				1.94_b	1.78	[1.73, 2.15]
	Neutral				3.02_c	1.55	[2.83, 3.21]
Fear	Anger	84.42	<.001	.17	1.97_a	1.60	[1.79, 2.15]
	Sadness				3.71_b	1.72	[3.51, 3.91]
	Neutral				2.64_c	1.54	[2.46, 2.82]
Disgust	Anger	39.57	<.001	.09	4.43_a	1.54	[4.05, 4.41]
	Sadness				3.24_b	1.71	[3.04, 3.44]
	Neutral				3.19_b	1.66	[2.99, 3.39]

NB: Values that share a subscript are not significantly different

Secondary emotions

As expected, participants perceived secondary emotions in the validated emotion expressions we used (Hess & Kafetsios, 2022; Kafetsios & Hess, 2023), such that significant effects of emotion expression emerged for ratings of happiness, fear and disgust (see Table 1 for F-statistics, Figure 6 for means and standard errors).

In addition, a number of effects of context and gender emerged. For happiness, a main effect of context, F(1,825) = 4.38, p = .037, η_p² = .01, was found such that individuals in the business context were rated as happier (M=2.25; SD=1.73) than those in the leisure context (M=1.99; SD=1.72), irrespective of the expression shown. A significant context by expresser gender interaction emerged for disgust, F(1,825) = 4.59, p = .033, η_p² = .01, such that men in the business context were rated as more disgusted (M=3.68; SD=1.65) than men showing the same expression in the leisure context (M=3.29; SD=1.80, t₈₂₅ = 2.80, p = .005), whereas no difference emerged for women (M_business=3.63; SD=1.67; M_leisure=3.68; SD=1.68 t₈₂₅ = 0.21, p = .833).

Main effects of expresser gender emerged for happiness, F(1,825) = 7.32, p = .007, η_p² = .01, and fear F(1,825) = 4.77, p = .029, η_p² = .01, such that men were perceived as happier and less fearful (M_happiness=2.27; SD=1.78; M_fear=2.66; SD=1.79) than women (M_happiness =1.97; SD=1.67; M_fear=2.87; SD=1.75), irrespective the expression shown.

Attire

As regards the effects of attire, an emotion expression by dress interaction, F(2,825) = 3.67, p < .026, η_p² = .01, emerged for happiness ratings. Specifically, a sad expression by a person in formal dress was rated as less happy (M=1.66; SD=1.53), than the same expression shown by someone wearing casual clothes (M=2.20; SD=1.96, t₈₂₅ = 2.94, p = .003).

Further, replicating Algoe et al. (2000) finding for status, a main effect of attire emerged for fear ratings, F(1,825) = 11.44, p = .001, η_p² = .01, such that a person wearing formal attire was perceived as showing less fear (M=2.59; SD=1.74) than a person wearing casual clothes (M=32.95; SD=1.79). Further, for fear a significant 4-way interaction emerged, F(1,825) = 6.38, p = .002, η_p² = .02, indicating that the effect of attire was not significant for all conditions.

In sum, whereas no effects for attire emerged for the focal emotion ratings, some effects of attire emerged for secondary emotions. Notably, we replicated findings by Algoe et al. (2000) that higher status individuals and men are perceived as showing less fear than women.

Perceived authenticity of the expression

The notion that expressions shown by individuals wearing formal attire would be perceived as less authentic was supported by a significant main effect of attire, F(1,825) = 11.28, p = .001, η_p² = .03, such that expressions by individuals in formal dress were perceived as less authentic (M=3.39 SD=1.65) than expressions of individuals wearing casual dress (M=3.77; SD=1.47).

Unexpectedly, emotion expression, F(2,825) = 13.18, p < .001, η_p² = .03, and context, F(2,825) = 12.40, p < .001, η_p² = .01, as well as their interaction, F(2,825) = 3.58, p = .028, η_p² = .01, also had a significant effect on perceived authenticity. Specifically, anger expressions in the business context (M=2.80; SD=1.69) were perceived as less authentic than the same expression in a leisure context (M=3.59; SD=1.56). No difference in authenticity as a function of context emerged for sadness and neutral. It is possible that anger was perceived as less authentic because anger, unless well justified by preceding events, tends to be a less socially acceptable emotion, especially in a business context (Kramer & J. Hess, 2002). This finding is also in line with more recent findings that point to anger expressions in a work context as inappropriate or an overreaction (Porat & Levy Paluck, 2024).

Discussion

As regards person perception, in both studies attire was found to be more relevant for the perception of dominance than affiliation. However, overall, emotion effects on these inferences were much stronger than the effects of attire. Whereas in Study 1 attire had a strong effect on perceived status and dominance that was not qualified by gender or context, the situation was more complex in Study 2. Most notably, the effect of attire was much less evident for individuals who expressed sadness. Sadness signals a lack of dominance (Knutson, 1996), and this signal seems to have overridden the status enhancing effect of formal attire (with the sole exception of women in the business context) on perceptions of dominance. In both studies, the effect of attire on perceived affiliation was much less pronounced and qualified by actor/expresser gender and context.

Overall, the results suggest that when emotion information was available, participants were more likely to base their inferences on this information rather than on stereotypes linked to gender or the formality of the clothes a person wears. This matches findings by Küster et al. (2019) who studied the perception of dominance, competence and empathy as a function of occupation (signaled by a work uniform) and posture. In this case also, participants relied strongly on stereotypes informed by the work uniform when this was the only information available but used posture as the more proximal nonverbal signal to inform their ratings when this information was provided.

Küster et al. (2019) argue that postural information on dominance or empathy is used preferentially because it provides information on the momentary state of mind of the person. It can be argued that emotion expressions provide an even more detailed insight (Hareli & Hess, 2010). Hareli and Hess (2010) argue that emotion expressions can be used to “reverse engineer” the perception of a situation that informs the emotional appraisal process (e.g., Scherer, 1987) that underlies the emotion experienced in that moment. By contrast, a choice of attire might have been made hours earlier or, in the case of the business context especially, be predetermined by external rules. Nonetheless, attire still plays a role for first impressions, albeit one that is more strongly moderated by gender and context.

Overall, attire had a scant impact on emotion perception and these few effects were limited to secondary emotion ratings. Notwithstanding, we replicated findings by Algoe et al. (2000) regarding the perception of fear in high status vs. low status individuals. As regards perceptions of secondary emotions, Study 2 confirmed, as recent discussions on emotion recognition posit, that even in well curated sets of standardized emotion expressions people perceive other, secondary, emotions, especially when expressions are shown in context (Hess & Kafetsios, 2022; Kafetsios & Hess, 2023).

Even though no direct effects of attire on the focal emotion ratings emerged, attire was found to affect the perceived authenticity of emotion expressions such that, as expected, expressions by individuals wearing formal dress were perceived as less authentic. This is in line with the notion that observers assume that high status individuals tend to control their expressions in the service of self-presentation strategies (Hall et al., 2005). Surprisingly, emotion expression and context influenced ratings of authenticity such that anger expressions were perceived as less authentic in the business compared to the leisure context. We speculate that this may be because anger is considered inappropriate in a work context (Porat & Levy Paluck, 2024) and hence might have been unexpected. This notion contrasts findings by Tiedens (2001) to some degree, but the intervening almost quarter century could have wrought a cultural change regarding the inferences drawn from anger shown at work. This may be a question for future research. Finally, contrary to our expectations, showing real male and female faces did not enhance expresser gender effects for dominance and affiliation. In fact, if anything, these effects were reduced when compared to Study 1.

In sum, the present research provides strong evidence that a person's choice of attire can serve as a cue when forming first impressions. This impact is lessened, but not obliterated, by perceivers’ tendency to preferentially base their judgments on emotion expressions. One limitation of the present research is that we only manipulated dress style and not aspects like make-up or accessories which usually also vary with the formality of context. Also, the facial expressions we used were prototypical expression of emotions, which are more intense than real-life expressions usually are (Hess & Hareli, 2016). When faced with more ambiguous or even mixed facial expressions participants might have relied more on attire.

Also, attire signals more than just a person’s status. Among other things, the way a person is dressed determines also inferences of a person’s social identity (Hester & Hehman, 2023). As such, Cox et al. (2016) claim that people tend to view fashionable men as gay. In turn, social identify is stereotypically linked to certain emotions. For example, people perceive more happiness and less anger in the faces of gay versus straight men (Bjornsdottir & Rule, 2017). Finally, in this first investigation on the interaction between attire and emotion expressions we included only three emotions, which have been previously linked to status perception. Future research should therefore broaden both the manipulation of attire and the range of emotion expressions.

Traditionally, effects of attire have been neglected in emotion research. Yet in everyday life, we usually encounter people who are wearing clothes, and their choice of attire should reflect something about who they are or how they want to be perceived. In this research, we focused on the choice of formal versus informal dress style as a signal of status. In Study 1, we found that attire provides a strong cue to status and dominance (and a lesser but still evident cue for affiliation). However, Study 2 revealed that emotion expression is a much stronger social signal of character (Hess & Hareli, 2019). Nonetheless, attire was still found to be influential. As such, the sartorial choices by Mark Zuckerberg and Hillary Clinton may have served them well.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work. The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Results

We conducted 2 (actor gender: male, female) x 2 (attire: causal, formal) x 2 (context: business, leisure) mixed model analyses using lme4 (Bates et al., 2015) and lmerTest (Kuznetsova et al., 2017) in Rstudio (RStudio Team, 2019).

Manipulation check

For ratings of high status, the expected main effect of attire emerged, F(1,300) = 281.67, p < .001, h_p² = .43, such that individuals wearing formal dress (M = 4.87, SD = 0.97) were rated as higher in status than individuals wearing casual dress (M = 3.21, SD = 1.29). In addition, an actor gender x context, F(1,300) = 20.20, p < .001, h_p² = .05, and the attire x actor gender x context interaction, F(1,234) = 21.20, p < .001, h_p² = .03, emerged significantly.

Author Contribution

SH: Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing - Review & Editing. UH: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing - Original Draft. YH: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - Review & Editing. SE: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - Review & Editing.

Data Availability

The datasets and markdowns are available at osf: https://osf.io/shvz8/?view_only=8390995ebbdf48fd98323aab26403b32

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Because initial testing suggested that some participants found the tuxedos “odd,” the information that the person was attending a formal vs informal social event was added for the leisure condition. At the end of the experiment, we also asked four additional questions about the attire, which are not part of this report.

No competing interests reported.

AttireS1S2.pdf

Dressed Emotions : How Attire and Emotion Expressions Influence First Impressions

Status:

Version 1

Abstract

Figures

Introduction

The present research

STUDY 1

STUDY 2

General Discussion

Declarations

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Results

Author Contribution

Data Availability

References

Footnotes

Additional Declarations

Supplementary Files

Status:

Version 1