Additivity of clothing cues in first impressions

The theory of information integration was used to predict that in first impression situations, clothing/physical appearance cues, like adjective trait descriptions, have differential importance depending upon the type of judgment elicited. One hundred four college aged females viewed and responded to slides of colored line drawings of female stimulus persons. Multiple regression was used to analyze the data. In accord with the theory, it was predicted and found that a linear combination of people's impressions of the stimulus person with one of the clothing/physical appearance cues together with people's impressions of the stimulus person with another of the clothing/physical appearance cues in every case significantly predicted (p < .001) people's impressions of the stimulus person with the two cues combined. Significance of the research and avenues for future research are explored.