Cultural origin: effect on the relationship between selected human values and clothing values

This study examines clothing as a complex category that includes social, psychological, symbolic, and cultural aspects. The research was based on the assumption that human behavior including clothing behavior is the manifestation of an individual's value system.

The study particularly addressed the influence of cultural background on the order of importance of both human and clothing values and the relationship between those two values. The research instrument was designed to measure the degree of importance of six clothing values and eleven human values, and to describe the demographic characteristics of the sample. Data for the study were collected by a mail survey in fall 1997 in Lubbock, Texas. A sample of six hundred women was drawn non-randomly from the membership list of a community-based association. Responses from 231 participants (129 Anglo Americans and 102 Hispanic Americans) were usable. Data were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. T-test, Pearson r correlation, ANOVA, and Tukey post hoc test were employed for statistical analyses. The results of statistical analyses were sufficient to reject the null hypotheses.

Results empirically supported the study's basic assumptions that people with different cultural origins differ in how they rate particular human and clothing values and in the patterns of expressing human values through clothing behavior. Information from this study may be beneficial for better understanding clothing as a multidimensional category and as a form of human behavior. Understanding cultural value patterns both in human and in clothing behaviors may help retailers and marketers in creating adequate value appeal strategies toward distinct cultural market segments.