Perceiver's Occupation and Client's Grooming: Influence on Person Perception

The purpose of the research was to investigate the relationship of the occupations of two groups of perceivers, school counselors and law enformcement officers, and the grooming of male adolescent clients to a) the number of person cues perceived, b) the type of person cues perceived, and c) the content of the inferences made about the client. The research contributed to person perception and clothing research by expanding information on a characteristic of the perceiver by employing an open response format for data collection. Pictorial stimuli and a questionnaire were used for collection of data from 120 subjects. Data were submitted to content analysis, analysis of variance, and loglinear analysis. Counselors noted fewer cues and based their inferences on more general aspects of appearance than did law enforcement officers. Members of each occupation drew inferences appropriate to their occupation. Differences in grooming were related to varying perceptions of the client's attitude; grooming and occupation together influenced perceptions of the client's sociability and family background. The results advance understanding about the perceptual attentiveness and cognitive categories that professionals bring to perceptions of their clients and help to delineate how characteristics of the perceiver and dress of the perceived are related to person perception.

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