Dress and sex: a review of empirical research involving human participants and published in refereed journals

Introduction Review of the progress in any area of inquiry is significant as this assessment enables theory development, identification of trends in topics, funding, and research strategies (Lennon et al. 2001) as well as uncovers future research needs and directions (Damhorst 1990). Several such evaluations have been completed on dress topics including the meanings of dress (Damhorst 1990), the influence of dress on behavior (Johnson et al. 2008), and dress and aging (Twigg 2007) among others. Our interest was in providing a review of empirical research that utilized human participants and that addressed relationships between dress and sex. Several previous researchers either reviewed empirical dress research or performed a content analysis of such research (Damhorst 1990; Johnson et al. 2008, 2014; Lennon et al. 1995, 2001, 2014; Oliver and Mahoney 1991; Twigg 2007). Those studies, published since 1990, focused specifically or partly on dress research with human participants. Although Lennon et al. (2014) noted that dress conveys information related to various aspects of sex (e.g., likelihood of being sexually harassed, intentions concerning sexual activity), none of the Abstract