Social Psychology Commons^™

Dress And Sex: A Review Of Empirical Research Involving Human Participants And Published In Refereed Journals, Sharron J. Lennon, Alyssa Dana Adomaitis, Jayoung Koo, Kim K. P. Johnson

Publications and Research

Our research purpose was to assess research addressing relationships between dress and sex. Our review was focused on a 25 years span (i.e., 1990–2015) and on empirical research utilizing human participants published in refereed journals. Three main areas of research emerged: (1) dress used as cue to sexual information, (2) dress and sexual violence, and (3) dress, sex, and objectification. Our analyses revealed parents do invest their young children with sex-typed dress however sometimes children demand to wear such dress. Some women intentionally use dress to communicate sexual information but inferences about women who wear sexy dress can be misinterpreted …