Although research has shown a general trend that people dressed in neat or professional clothes elicit more helping behavior from other people than when dressed in casual or sloppy clothes, no research has examined the effects of wearing a costume on helping behavior. In this experiment, confederates dressed either in a Santa suit or in street clothes as they volunteered for the Salvation Army as bell-ringers in front of retail stores. The hypothesis that donations would be greater while wearing the Santa suit was not supported by the data; the Santa suit and the street clothes elicited equal amounts of donations.
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References
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BushmanB. (1988) The effects of apparel on compliance: a field experiment with a female authority figure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 14, 459–467. DOI:10.1177/0146167288143004.
