The nature of enclothed cognition as it relates to criminality: A public perception study

The concept of enclothed cognition with regard to criminality is defined by Adam and Galinsky (2006) as a "systematic influence clothes have on the wearer's psychological processes." This study explores the nature of enclothed cognition using a new self-report survey. to answer several questions: Will the public endorse criminal behavior of strangers in costume and will the public endorse the use of costume for criminal purposes on a psychological level? Further, this study explored the public's opinion of clothing and costume as a means of psychological influence. Lastly, the study attempted to determine a link between costume choice and criminal behavior. Results of the study suggest the public does not endorse nor reject the concept of enclothed cognition. Additional results suggest that the public does not endorse the psychological use of clothing for themselves or for a stranger when provided with context. Analyses of the costume choices suggest that a link between costume type and criminal behavior does not exist. ANOVA statistics revealed no statistically significant variation in the demographic variables collected from the participants, suggesting that the concept of enclothed cognition and the opinions of costume use are universal among those variables. Post-hoc analyses extracted vigilantism as a crime type endorsed by 22.1% of the sample. Media and popular culture influences could be responsible for the support of vigilantism.;Enclothed cognition and the associated exploration of costume use appear to be idiosyncratic and best suited to exploration by means other than self-report instrumentation. Limitations of this presentation include, but are not limited to, the construction and execution of the survey instrument as well as the homogeneity of the sample. Further research within this realm could collect a sample from a forensic population to mete out any possible endorsements that went unobserved by the present study. Further endeavors should consider using case study, structure interview, or true experimental means to observe these phenomena.