We are what we wear: The emergence of consensus in stereotypes of students' and managers' dressing styles

This paper presents an experiment demonstrating that the way in which stude nts stereotype themselves and managers in terms of dressing style becomes m ore consensual when these stereotypes are (i) formed within an intergroup c ontext, and (ii) created via interaction premised upon shared social identi ty. This is because the way people dress is often related to their collecti ve identity (Davis, 1992), and because dressing styles may be used as a pot ent symbol of shared beliefs and values. These findings are consistent with the analysis of stereotyping put forward by self-categorization theorists.