Dasha Karpovtsev Professor Launier English 1102 April 2012 Identity Formation by the Means of Fashion: The Social and Psychological Motives Behind College Students and their Fashion Behavior I have always been very interested in pursuing a career in Fashion, whether it was working as as a journalist for a Fashion Magazine, or interning as as a Stylist at Vogue. Entering College, it became evident of the various differences among students and their fashion styles, creating an insight into both their personalities and inclusive individuality. But I then began to surmise at the idea of clothing and the general disparate influences it may foreshadow within individuals, and realized the questionable role clothing truly has within our college community. It then becomes interesting to analyze, how does an individual’s personal style seem to reflect identify formation within a College Community and how do other college students perceive one another according to both social and psychological factors? In a sense, it is contradicting to state that we use clothing as a way to conform within our society, because our sense of fashion has always been identified as a personal aesthetic piece, a way of illustrating our distinct originality and character. What I’m trying to inquire in more detail is, can the way we dress actually reflect our overall social life along the lines of our career paths and even personality characteristics through elements such as clothing color, design and its’ general fundamental purpose? Individual development can be foreseen throughout the college years, and clothing might just be one of Karpovtsev 1
Transcript
Dasha Karpovtsev
Professor Launier
English 1102
April 2012
Identity Formation by the Means of Fashion:
The Social and Psychological Motives Behind College Students and their Fashion Behavior
I have always been very interested in pursuing a career in Fashion, whether it was
working as as a journalist for a Fashion Magazine, or interning as as a Stylist at Vogue. Entering
College, it became evident of the various differences among students and their fashion styles,
creating an insight into both their personalities and inclusive individuality. But I then began to
surmise at the idea of clothing and the general disparate influences it may foreshadow within
individuals, and realized the questionable role clothing truly has within our college community.
It then becomes interesting to analyze, how does an individual’s personal style seem to reflect
identify formation within a College Community and how do other college students perceive one
another according to both social and psychological factors? In a sense, it is contradicting to state
that we use clothing as a way to conform within our society, because our sense of fashion has
always been identified as a personal aesthetic piece, a way of illustrating our distinct originality
and character. What I’m trying to inquire in more detail is, can the way we dress actually reflect
our overall social life along the lines of our career paths and even personality characteristics
through elements such as clothing color, design and its’ general fundamental purpose? Individual
development can be foreseen throughout the college years, and clothing might just be one of
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those key characteristics that will provide some sort of perceptions in the way we judge
individuals by their clothing. By exploring the underlying elements that exists in both our
character development as well as overall personal identity, we will be able to comprehend the
role that fashion has in our social environment and the effects it may have on our social life and
general relationships. Through my primary research consisting of a two part survey and focus
group, I will hope to achieve results that will suggest a relationship between clothing color,
personality traits/moods, and the effects on social friendships, amalgamating both psychological
and social factors within College Students.
Review of Literature
When we first think of clothing and style, we begin to differentiate automatically between
the aspect of conforming or individualizing according to specific standards. One of the key
characteristics that I think is important to review according to the research topic would definitely
have to be individuality, and therefore the article "Fashion Victims: On the Individualizing and
De-Individualizing Powers of Fashion." by Bjorn Schiermer would play a major role within
explaining my overall conceptions. On a day to day basis, we find ourselves knowing the times
when we can dress in our own individualistic ways, while on other formal occasions we are
forced to eradicate our personal style, and accommodate ourselves with specific guidelines. This
article provides an insight onto the societal factors that affect the way we as students may present
ourselves throughout school, and the reasoning behind both our rational decisions and
comprehensive judging on other individuals.After reading Schiermer’s article, I then began to
question on what exact characteristics could actually influence our decision on that precise day
on what we’re going to wear and do differences exist along the lines of males and females. The
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article “ The Influence of the Perception of Mood and Self-Consciousness on the Selection of
Clothing” by Yoon-Hee Kwon provides a deep explanation on the general concept of
individuality and fashion, as he further explores the divergent facets of fashion such as
exogenous and endogenous factors. Exogenous factors include weather conditions, social and
physical activities, and wardrobe resources, while endogenous factors include mood, orientation
toward clothing and personality dimensions ( Kwon, 1987, 1988), and by analyzing these
different elements, we can then begin to understand how all these concepts are intertwined with
one another according to our fashion sense.
But have we ever considered the reasoning behind the way our fashion preferences have
expanded are due to historical evolution? I am not referring to the gradual advancement of
humans from apes as you may suppose, but I am actually trying to point our the significance that
history might of had on our unique fashion styles. The article "The Birth of Power Dressing." by
Ulinka Rublack seems to explain the historical evolution of our clothing attire, relating back to
the most prominent contributions in the Renaissance Era where the concepts of luxury,
accessories, and color were introduced (Rublack). When we allude back to the idea that clothing
allows us to develop as individual characters and form our own identities, sometimes we portray
ourselves with either tattoos, piercings, and crazy hairstyles. This can also be referred to
clothing, since college students might perceive their style to be as a work of art, theoretically
speaking, which is further on explained in “Fashion as Art; Is Fashion Art”? by Sanda Miller.
Miller goes on to explain whether fashion can be viewed as a work of art, and then explicates if
clothing has only a functional purpose as opposed to representing artistry according to the
Fashion Theory, contributing back to the idea of individuality throughout College Students.
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As stated before, a college student’s identity development can be interpreted by the means
of fashion and the article "The STYLE Imperative." by Hara Estroff Marano provides concrete
explanations and support in order for us to explore the different motives behind our style
imperative. The article expresses the idea hat fashion truly foreshadows individuality, and takes
into consideration the mind, spirit, and character within a person, and interprets it as a work of
art (Morano). In a sense, this article collaborates some of the ideas stated in Rublack’s previous
article, except it confronts these ideas on a more psychological and philosophical level.
According to Morano, self expression is then identified when it comes to fashion taste, and that
the way a certain person dresses, cannot be judged or ridiculed, for they would be attacking the
person as well as the “eternal soul”. But we cannot always dress exactly the way we like, for the
idea of “conformity” comes into play according to Rublack. In connection to the research
question, if we as college students are striving in our career fields, do we have to loose our
individuality in order to conform with that career field, or does the way we dress already
explicate our overall identity? “ Taste and Fashion: The Social Function of Fashion and Style” by
Jukka Gronow. goes on to explain the reasoning behind the divergent ways that an person can
still keep his or her individuality, without getting lost within the social mass that seems to be
present throughout our modern day culture.
Because our world has been technologically advancing, it is of course presumable that
Fashion has modernized as well. In the article “ The Modernization of Fashion” by Anne
Hollander, the aspects of why our clothing always seems to be changing along with inclusive
style is depicted. The focal argument that this article elucidates is how fashion has now evolved
from not only an aesthetic notion, but to a modern day characteristic that may create insight into
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our work field as well as an educational background (Hollander). I think that the way clothing
has been worn has evolved for multifarious reasons, and now new categories have been created,
ranging from luxury aspects, economic statuses, and overall individual achievements. But the
idea that fashion might seriously participate in the important visual modernity of art, not just in
the moral and economic life of modern society, is itself modern, and quite revolutionary
(Hollander 27).
One of the last sources that I found was the article on “ Social Utility and Fashion
Behavior” by Shelby H. McIntyre, and Christopher M. Miller. This was definitely one of the
most unique articles that I had come across for my paper, since it conducted an actual experiment
on the Fashion Dynamics, with the concepts of personality, environment and social
influences( McIntyre and Miller). It was very interesting to see how this article incorporated the
three different concepts that us college students would find ourself in on a daily basis. The source
also represented a fixed mathematical formula for the way we dress, and concluded a precise
measurement an exact theory on what exact social and psychological factors are combined in
order to understand the distinct clothing attire of each individual. This article presented new and
convoluted experimental approaches when it came to psychological and social factors on
clothing, creating an interesting foundation for my own personal experiment I will be conducting
on the terms of identity formation in College students. All these different Academic voices
presented very concrete ideas and perceptions, which will allow me to create some expectations
for my survey and focus group results, and hopefully depict the outcomes for my overall research
question.
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Methods
In terms of conducting my Primary Research, I would like to create a focus group of
twelve students as well as conduct a two page survey, questioning on the psychological and
social aspects of clothing that elaborate on the concepts of ; colors, moods, and personality traits
(Refer to Appendix A and ). I will also ask for a brief summary of each student’s personal style,
in order to approach the idea of clothing on a more personal level, where each student can be
able to relate to the different characteristics intertwined with identity formation within College.
By interpreting their style choices, I would then create a chart of data, where I would try and find
the relationship between what influences the student to dress a certain way, pertaining back to the
aspects of personality and social characteristics. Within my survey, I would also ask what career
field each student is majoring in and the effects it might have on their overall fashion style if
there any at all as well as important key elements such as color and overall clothing designs.
After asking each student on their comprehensive and main personality traits, major, and overall
mood, I then began to create a relationship in my data between each student and their
psychological and environmental elements.
My Survey will consist of two parts: A general section about people’s views on clothing
as well as even college stereotypes, and the second part on personal characteristics of each
student. The reason why I wanted to create a general section of the Survey, was to to see how
each student reacts to these ideas, and if these ideas are actually present in the college campus
environment on a day to day basis. After analyzing the extensive questions, I could then move
onto the personal section of the survey. The second part of the Survey is created in order to
achieve my actual results in the effects that clothing truly has on forming identity in college, and
how do different concepts such as mood, color and personality traits intertwine with one another
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as stated earlier. After each student fills out his personal views on the influences of clothing on
friendships, I will then collect all the surveys and begin to distinguish the different connections
and relationships among each characteristic. I believe that because of the timing and general
information inquiry needed for this experiment, both the survey and focus group with both strong
methods to use, in order to receive both individual evaluation and opinions from twelve college
students. The weaknesses to these surveys and focus group is that it may lack variety, in a sense
that by only interviewing twelve students, my results might not represent an overall conclusive
result, only a small portion of a student population, skewing the specific outcomes. But because I
tried to choose students with different majors and comprehensive fashion outlooks, I will hope to
achieve results that will foreshadow a general perception of College students and exemplify the
relationships between identity formation and their fashion behavior.
Now you may wonder, if I am already conducting a Survey, what is the point of creating
a focus group? After I collect all the surveys, I would like to have a group discussion where the
students and I would all try and analyze the motives behind our clothing style, and the reasoning
that exists when it comes to college social life and individuality. It is important to gain a personal
feel in the discussion, in order for students to be able to relate with one another and discuss the
different standards and notions that have been set according to society’s implications and the
effects it may have on our identity formation.Within the group discussion, I will have students
examine one another and see if they can create a relationship between the colors of certain
clothing and try and guess that person’s mood and some personality characteristics. What we will
be trying to achieve is actually using that information that was explicated within the survey, and
manipulate it in realistic situations. I can then begin to see how my results are actually used
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within college students and the effects it begins to portray using social and psychological factors,
and if statistical and fixed motives truly exist for the way we dress.
Results
The first part of my Survey consisted of eleven questions that supported my claim on the
importance of clothing when it came to identity formation and foreshadowing our overall
behavior and personality traits. Each question asked the role that clothing plays in each of the
student’s lives, pertaining back to the aspects of friendships, career paths and individuality.
Rating each question 1-5, one being least true and five being most true, the twelve students were
evaluated on their opinions of individual character along with social and psychological factors
and here were the results from the first eleven questions (Refer to Appendix A) :
Dominant color for Depressed/Isolated: Black <---------------
Dominant color for Reserved and Serious: Black <--------------
Dominant color for Assertive/Outspoken: Red
Dominant color for Loud/Aggressive: Red
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-There were three “Reds” chosen as the dominant color for different Personality Traits
- There were two “Blacks” chosen as the dominant color as well
After the Students had completed the first part of the second survey, their next question
was: “What is your Major”. I thought that this would be a very important characteristic to know
through this Primary Research, because right off the batt, the students individuality is linked with
their profession, creating an insight into their interests and general background. Here are the
results of the different percentages of Majors represented by the twelve students:
Psychology Business Engineering Advertising/Public RelationsHumanities English Nursing Photography
8%
17%
8%
8%17%
8%
8%
25%
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-Psychology seemed to be the most popular major throughout the twelve students, coming in at 25%
- Nursing and Advertising/Public relations were both the average Majors, being 17% of the Students, having two students per each of the Majors.
-There was an equal tie between the majors at 8% of: Business, Photography, Engineering, Humanities, and English with only having 1 individual have each major.
On the last part of my Survey, I asked four questions that pertained back to forming
friendships with individuals who may not share the same fashion approach or behavior as you,
and the effects it might have on forming relationships. There were questions that also presented
the concepts of clothing colors once again, and what the students would prefer to wear according
to their general moods, in order to either “blend in” or “stand out”.
-On a day where Students felt in a “good” mood, over 84% of them agreed that they would
likely take both fashion risks and wear bright colors.
-On a day where the Students felt exhausted or in a “bad” mood, they were asked to write
if they would try and wear attention grabbing clothing such as bright colors and patterns,
or try and wear dark colored clothing in order to “hide” and blend in
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Unlikely Likely
84%
16%
33%
67%
Hide and Blend inStand out with Bright Color Patters
Conclusively, over 65% of the students portrayed insecurities when it came to their fashion outlook, because of the psychological effects of being either exhausted or in a generally “bad” mood.
-It seems that with good a mood, confidence begins to flourish, affecting both our fashion risks and clothing colors.
-Over 84% of the students answered that they would seek both attention and risk when it came to their fashion sense, just because they mood was positive and heightened.
- The students were asked on, how likely would they become friends with a group of
individuals if their fashion approach and behavior was the total opposite of theirs, and
here were the results:
- Lastly, to the Individuals who answered “Unlikely to become friends with them” the main
reasons for that response were:
25%
75%
Unlikely to become friends with themLikely to form a friendship
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Different PersonalitiesNot Sharing Common Personal InterestsBoth A&B
56%22%
22%
-What these results mean, is that over half of the students who would not become friends with individuals dressed polar opposite of them, inferred that it would be, because of not being able to share certain characteristics in common, as well as not being able to click with their personalities.
-I find it interesting to see the way these students already created judgements on individuals that do not dress like them, perceiving the ideas of them already having different personalities and overall attitudes.
- The concepts of stereotypes and judgment are then introduced
Over 3/4 of the students believed that just by the way a student dresses, they could interpret in a sense, if that individual could be their friend or not?
Discussion
When I first began this study, I already had some general expectations on both the student
survey and focus group outcomes, along with a comprehensive idea on the effects of fashion
behavior within College. But to my surprise, I did not realize the full extent that fashion seemed
to illustrate throughout the campus community, affecting the concepts of individuality,
friendships, as well as overall personality traits. Through my results, I will be able to analyze
these three main concepts, and distinguish a relationship between the way college students dress
and their assimilation of both the social and psychological factors involved in their social life.
Individuality
Through the first part of the survey, the results reflected that more than 75% of the
student’s responses on the questions were listed as a “5” which meant that they found it to be
‘most true’. The reason why this is an important aspect, is, because most of the questions were
related to the ideas and conceptions of clothing and individuality, and if clothing reflects any sort
of personal feeling, along the lines of attention and distinct character. Those questions
foreshadowed the perception that through our clothing, we are able to illustrate our sense of
character disposition, and creating an insight into who we might be as individuals. Now, of
course other psychological and social factors such as personality traits and the choosing of
friends emerges, but that will be discussed further on, for now the notion of general individuality
is proposed through the question outcomes. So therefore, along the lines the earlier article
"Fashion Victims: On the Individualizing and De-Individualizing Powers of Fashion." by Bjorn
Schiermer, these results seem to suggest that we do use clothing as a tool of individualization as
we are able to reflect ourselves with jewelry, accessories, hair, and now clothing. College
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students exemplify their distinct taste and fashion behaviors, and because most of the students
wrote down “most true” for nearly all of the questions that indicated the portrayal and awareness
through individualization as well as originality, we can infer that clothing is not just a functional
piece of cloth, but an actual perspicacity of independent depiction.
Personality Traits
On the second part of my survey, students were asked to write in the color of clothing that
they would think relates in accordance to the different types of personality traits and moods that
were listed, and the ending results were very diverse in a sense. According to the two data tables,
many of the positive personality traits and moods such as happy, excited, and outgoing, were
viewed as to have very bright colors. These colors consisted of yellow and red as the dominant
colors, which is very interesting because for example, the color red was also associated with
being angry, outspoken and even flirty. Would we be able to prospect at all these personalities
and moods being positive as well? Being loud and aggressive in my opinion, would not always
seem to be a very positive reinforcement, therefore why would the students intertwine the color
red with two different personality types, yet both portraying the same idealistic clothing clothing.
Another example of the same situation was having black as a dominant color for the personality
and mood behaviors of ; depressive/isolated and reserved/serious. I understand the results for
being depressive/isolated as for one of the personality traits since the color black has always
depicted very dark and gothic roots, but of course has revolutionized to be a very diverse color
for any sort of setting. But it still seems a bit peculiar that being assertive and outspoken can
reflect the same characteristics as being depressive and isolated, according to the black dominant
color outcome. From these two charts, I was beginning to apprehend the impact and power that
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clothing appeared to have along the lines of in depth portray of personality traits and everyday
moods. Other clothes such as blue and grey were used in order to illustrate sadness, shyness,
nervousness, exhaustion, and even calmness. Whats interesting to fathom, is that when the
students wanted to either “hide” or go throughout the day unnoticeable, they choose darker
colors in order to not stand out as much, and in general conform throughout the college
environment. On the other hand, students who yearned for attention and felt that they wanted to
take some fashion risks including color and patters, were generally in very good moods, ranging
from : happy, excited, outgoing and even flirty. There evidently seems to be a relationship
between a student’s overall inquiry for attention as well as their comprehensive mood state,
along with personality traits attributes.
Social Environment/ Friendships
One of the last concepts that were concluded throughout my primary research, were the
general aspects of social environment and friendships. What I’ve found out is that, college
students are both judgmental and stereotypical in a sense when it comes to individuals and their
clothing. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not pin pointing college students as being these very
rude and judging individuals who will ridicule you for not dressing a certain way, but through
my research, I have come to understand the way students’ minds perceive one another based on
their fashion behavior. According to my two different charts along the lines of friendships, over
75% of the students stated that they would unlikely become friend with other students who do
not share the same fashion approach and style as them, in other words “complete opposites”. I
was amazed at how easily the students could conclude in their mind that just because a student
does not share their means of fashion, that they automatically could not even become acquainted
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with them. After analyzing these statistics, I wanted to know the reasoning behind these results
and what exactly could be inferred. The students that answered “unlikely to become friends”
were asked to explicate their views and over half of them agreed that they could not see
themselves being friends with individuals who did not share their fashion sense due to both
different personalities as well as lack of common personal interests. It seems that the students
believe that our fashion behavior can provide an insight into specific “common interests” such as
extra curricular activities, hobbies, and even personality traits as mentioned before. Therefore, a
college student’s social life is impacted more by clothing than I necessarily suspected, and our
clothing sense may actually reflect many important aspects that can be used to base off many pre
conceived notions. What we can deduce based upon these characteristics, is that college
friendship formations are heavily impacted by the way student’s portray themselves through the
use of clothing, and can impact their social life on many levels.
Student Majors
Even though the student’s majors were not part of my overall three main concepts of
discussion, I still wanted to point out some unexpected bias that could have emerged throughout
my results. Out of the twelve students, Psychology was one of the dominant majors, even though
the general ratios of the eight different majors were pretty widespread. I tried to find students
with all different types of majors in order to create a much more diverse and assorted group of
individuals, in order to have the most valid conclusive results. But still, Psychology came in at
25% of the overall student group, and therefore I question if this characteristic could of skewed
the results in a sense, because as stated in the beginning of the survey, over 75% of the students
responded with a 5 of “most true” between their clothing and general personality/social life, yet
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there were a couple of students who did not agree. These students were majoring in Engineering,
Advertising/Public Relations, and Business which contain much more mathematical fixations,
logic, and functional dynamics which are exactly opposite in many ways from those of
Psychology, Humanities, and Photography. Therefore I begin to question, if I had a bigger group
of students and an exact equal number ratio of different majors, could I have had much more
disparate results, due to the fluctuations in personalities? But then again, we are looking at
individuals with contrasting personalities, which was one of the important goal within this study,
hence the results would not be skewed? It just seems that because there are more students within
the group that are majoring in more art like and philosophical disciplines, this group might be
more accustomed to the aesthetic nature of clothing, depicting more psychological levels of
expertise when it comes to fashion behavior. All these questions come into mind, but on one
note, I am positive that by having this diverse group of majoring students, we were able to
visually see the differences in both personality traits and social perceptions, aspects that are
essentially needed throughout this study.
Conclusion
“ I think that we form friendships with people that we share a lot in common with,
especially our clothing style” said Sami Millowitz.
Through this study, my entire purpose was to find a relationship, if it even existed,
between the social and psychological factors of; clothing color, personality traits and moods, and
of course overall relationship formation. As college students, we form individual identities
throughout the following years, and by entering the mind of a group of individuals that are
affected by fashion behavior on a daily basis, this creates an insight into the true complexity of
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clothing and the impacts it may render along the lines of sociability. Who ever knew that just by
the way we dress, we would be able to analyze individuals on what moods they may be in, or
their key personality traits that seem to stand out amongst other students. But when would we
know if that student is portraying just their “bad mood” or if he or she is actually a very shy
individual that wants to eradicate the need for attention by wearing dark and seldom colors? That
is where the world becomes infinite, and we may never actually understand the true
complications of this world without entering an Asylum. But from the results explicated
throughout the primary research, we are able to distinguish a relationship between the clothing
colors and styles that we wear, foreshadowing both personality traits and moods within each
individual.
“ Our clothing represents us as individuals I think, and just by the way we’re dressed and
the colors we wear, I’m sure that other people can already have a sense of our personality
and maybe even what mood in...Maybe...” stated Aly Grumbach
By exploring the underlying elements that exist in both our character development as well as
overall personal identity, we will be able to comprehend the important role that fashion has in
our college environment and the effects it may have on our social and general relationships. It is
evident that reflection of individuality will always be conveyed throughout our clothing,
therefore why not question and research the fundamental aspects of fashion? It will only benefit
us in the end. As we are now able to distinctly appreciate the true power that our fashion
behavior has on our social environment, the most important question then becomes...
What color will you be wearing today?
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Works Cited
Gronow, Jukka. "Taste and Fashion: The Social Function of Fashion and Style." Acta Sociologica
(Taylor & Francis Ltd) 36.2 (1993): 89-100.
Hollander, Anne. "The Modernization of Fashion." Design Quarterly.154 (1992): pp. 27-33.
Kwon, Yoon-Hee. "The Influence of the Perception of Mood and Self-Consciousness on the
Selection of Clothing." Clothing and Textiles Research Journal. 1 Jan. 1993. Web. 09 Apr.
* What is your Major: ____________________________
Reflection Questions: Please place a checkmark next to the answer you choose
1) How likely are you to wear bright colors and take fashion risks when you are in a Good Mood?
Likely____ Unlikely____
2) When you feel that you are not at your best, whether you might be exhausted or in a bad mood, what colors would you prefer to wear on that day?
Bright Colors and Patterns to enhance yourself_____ Dark Colors to try and blend in____
3) When you meet a group of people that have a much different approach and fashion taste then you, how likely would you try and form friendships with those people?
Likely_____ Unlikely_____
4) If you chose Unlikely for Question #3, which would be one of the best reasons for that answer?
Different Personalities ____ Might not share anything in common_____ Both____
