Fabric Hand as Perceived by U.S. and Korean Males and Females

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to explore the possibility of developing comparable sets of unipolar adjectives for consumer evaluation of fabric hand for English and Korean speakers. To better understand differences in use of adjectives, the researchers examined (a) how male and female respondents in the United States and Korea apply these adjectives and (b) their preferences for hand for a specific end use for members of the judge's own sex and for the other sex. The research included four phases: focus group interviews, word list development, trial, and final data collection. Stimuli were selected to represent shirting fabrics for U.S. and Korean males and females. Subjects were 70 Korean males, 70 Korean females, 70 U.S. males, and 68 U.S. females. Three hypotheses were examined by using analyses of variance; comments made during focus group interviews suggested interpretations of results. Sex and country interacted to affect responses to fabric hand; sex and country differences were found in fabric preferences for persons of the judges' sex and for persons of the other sex. Results provided implications for international manufacturers and retailers and for researchers using affective stimuli.

Diversity of Research in Textiles, Clothing, and Human Behavior: The Relationship Between What We Know and How We Know

“…Field experiments have been conducted to study the effects of dress on actual behavior (Davis & Lennon, 1983;Miller & Rowold, 1980). Experimentation is also common in textile science research studying human behavior, especially that studying comfort or fabric hand (e.g., Kim & Winakor, 1996;Wilson & Laing, 1995a;Wilson & Laing, 1995b). For example, Wilson and Laing's (1995a) twenty participants made judgments of tactile and thermal characteristics of upholstery fabrics in a controlled laboratory setting.…”

“…For example, studies of social perception as a function of dress (e.g., Clayton, Lennon, & Larkin, 1987;Workman & Johnson, 1989) and studies in which people make inferences about clothing and textile products (Baugh : Davis, 1985Johnson & Workman, 1990) all involve individual data. In textile science, individual data are collected in fabric hand research (e.g., Kim & Winakor, 1996;Wilson & Laing, 1995a) or in any research that measures consumers' attitudes about or perceptions of textiles (e.g., Crown, 1978; Wylie, Crown, & Morris, 1976). Finally, the nature of survey research is such that data collected in that manner are typically individual in origin (e.g., Dickson & Littrell, 1996;Fairhurst, Lennon, & Yu, 1996; Lee & ).…”

“…Research on social perception as a function of dress also frequently uses self-report measures (e.g., Clayton, Lennon, & Larkin, 1987;Johnson & Workman, 1992; Workman & Johnson, 1989). In addition, fabric-hand researchers usually instruct participants to self-report their judgments (e.g., Bogaty, Hollies, & Harris, 1956;Kim & Winakor, 1996).…”

Skin comfort of base layer wool garments. Part 3: The effect of ethnicity on perceptions of comfort using Chinese and Australian wearers

“…However, Japanese judges preferred crisp and stiff summer fabric handle, while the other judges saw these as undesirable characteristics for summer-weight fabric handle. In another study, 11 male and female consumers from Korea and the USA rated seven white shirting fabrics using 18 adjectives that described aspects of fabric handle collected from focus groups. The authors concluded that there were possible cultural differences in the interpretation of 17 of the 18 adjectives as they applied to specific fabrics, but these differences could also be interpreted as differences in the perception of the sensations associated with each adjective between the ethnic groups.…”

Frequency of occurrence and rankings for touch-related adjectives

“…Some researchers have defined fabric hand as a subjective property evaluated by people (Brand, 1964;Schwartz, 1939). Kim and Winakor (1996) attempted to develop sets ofadjectives for consumer evaluation offabric hand for English and Korean speakers. However, typical of research in this area, Kim and Winakor's work is based on psychophysical evaluation of specific stimuli, as opposed to memory of the words.…”