CMJ 48(4) SAKIC,

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Tie – an Accessory Fashion Detail or a Symbol?
Vlado Šakić, Renata Franc, Ines Ivičić, Jelena Maričić
Ivo Pilar Institute of Social
Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia
Aim he irst aim of this study was to establish the frequency of wearing
a tie or business neckerchief on diferent occasions and in relation to age
and educational level. he second aim was to establish whether men who
frequently wear a tie were attributed certain characteristics more oten
than men who rarely wear a tie and to establish whether there were dif-
ferences in the attribution of these characteristics according to sex, age,
educational level, and the frequency of wearing a tie.
Method Data were collected in 2005 by a method of face to face inter-
view on a national representative sample (n = 1007). Participants esti-
mated how oten they wore a tie or business neckerchief on 9 diferent
occasions. hey also estimated whether each of 14 characteristics was
more pronounced in men who frequently wear a tie.
> Correspondence to:
Results Tie was most frequently worn on festive and formal occasions,
such as weddings and festive gatherings, and least frequently on fam-
ily gatherings and when traveling. On all occasions, tie was more oten
worn by men of higher educational level and of older and middle age. A
relatively small proportion of Croatian citizens based their conclusions
on men’s characteristics on the frequency of wearing a tie. Men who fre-
quently wear a tie were relatively most oten attributed the characteristics
of ambition, politeness, and respectability, with signiicant diferences
found between persons who attributed these characteristics according
to sex, age, educational level, and the frequency of wearing a tie by the
participants themselves.
Conclusion Wearing a tie or neckerchief is an exception rather than a
rule for most of the Croatian population, and is associated only with spe-
ciic, primarily festive and formal occasions. Such use of the tie suggests
that people adapt their style of clothing to the expectations of others and
use it as a speciic symbol of the occasion.
Vlado Šakić
Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences
Marulićev trg 19/1
10 000 Zagreb, Croatia
> Received: July 10, 2007
> Accepted: July 27, 2007
> Croat Med J. 2007;48:419-30
www.cmj.hr
419
 Croat Med J 2007;48:419-430
Clothing is a form of non-verbal communica-
tion and represents a systematic way of conscious
or unconscious information transmission (1).
What distinguishes clothing from other forms of
non-verbal communication is that it is the irst
thing we notice when we meet a person for the
irst time. Clothing can inluence our irst im-
pression of a person, create stereotypes, and in-
luence our behavior toward that person (2,3).
herefore, we use clothing as a channel of non-
verbal communication for self-presentation and
impression management (4). Clothing is also
important for our self-concept, since it allows us
to feel safer, more assertive, more powerful, and
more comfortable in a given situation (4,5). Be-
sides that, the clothes we wear are an example of
normative social inluence (6), ie the inluence
we conform to in order to be accepted by a de-
sired social group.
More systematic investigation on the inlu-
ence of clothes on interpersonal relations be-
gan in the 1970s and by now a large number of
studies have conirmed that people form the im-
pressions on other people on the basis of their
physical appearance, especially clothes (7). For
example, Damhorst (8), in his review, conclud-
ed that 94% of the analyzed experimental stud-
ies showed an inluence of clothes on the impres-
sion formation. Research showed that the way a
person is dressed inluences the conclusions oth-
er people make on their traits and characteris-
tics, such as reliability, competence, power/sta-
tus, or their workplace (9-13). People not only
base their conclusions on clothes itself but also
on the appropriateness of clothes to the occasion
(7). Diferent roles or social positions and difer-
ent occupations or work places are oten related
to diferent social norms, including the cloth-
ing norm (4,14-16). Even when we do not place
much importance on social roles, we still use
clothing to adapt to the situation because we care
about the reactions of others. Also, appropriate
clothing facilitates social interaction and helps us
feel more comfortable (4,5). People use clothes
to demonstrate similarities in values and beliefs
with members of their own group, as well as dif-
ferences from the groups they do not belong to
(17-19). he choice of clothes can show our dis-
agreement with certain norms or terminate un-
wanted social interactions.
he greatest part of the research on the in-
luence of clothes on impression formation and
management was conducted in business situ-
ations and is related to conventional or clas-
sic clothing style (14-16,20). hese studies have
shown that the applicant’s clothing at interview
has an inluence on whether he or she will get a
job, and that classically or conventionally dressed
people are more positively evaluated. Classic or
conventional clothing includes a suit for both
men and women and a tie for men. It has been
proven that this style of clothing is associated with
competence and authority in both men and wom-
en, not only in business situations (15,21-25).
According to the available data, 600-700 mil-
lion people across the world wear a tie every day,
and more than two billion Euro is spent on ties
every year, which is more than a yearly budget
of some smaller states (26). According to John-
son (27), the earliest known version of the tie
was found in the mausoleum of the irst emper-
or of China, Shih Huang Ti, who was buried in
210 BC. Tie’s modern history began in the 17th
century, when Croatian soldiers ighting in the
hirty Years’ War spread its forerunner, known
as the
cravat
, all over Europe. In his monograph
Le grande histoire de la cravate,
Francois Chaille
conirms and discusses the Croatian origin of the
cravat (Figure 1), while the Encyclopædia Bri-
tannica states that the noun “cravat” originated
from the words
Crabata
,
Cravata,
and
Croatian,
mentioning the year 1656 as the year of its ap-
pearance (26). he French readily accepted the
special way of tying a piece of cloth around the
neck “
a la Croate
” and citizens of Paris soon took
it to be a symbol of progress (26). During the
French revolution, black cravats were worn as a
sign of protest against reactionary ideas, and the
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than men who wear a tie rarely and to establish
whether there were diferences in the attribution
of these characteristics according to age and edu-
cational levels; and 3) to establish whether there
are diferences between men in the attribution of
characteristics to other men who frequently wear
a tie with regard to the number of diferent situ-
ations in which men themselves frequently wear
a tie.
Figure 1.
Tie with a traditional Croatian pattern called
pleter
.
Methods
cravat soon became a symbol of culture and ele-
gance (26). While the French saw the cravat as a
decoration and a symbol of progress, for the Cro-
atian it was primarily a symbol of idelity. Ac-
cording to the popular tradition, wives and girl-
friends would give cravats to soldiers as a token
of their love, to give them courage and comfort
in diiculties and danger. On the other hand, by
wearing a cravat, the soldier would show the re-
spect for his beloved. his custom symbolized a
man’s loyalty to a woman, as well as established
loyalty as a virtue (28). herefore, through the
history, the tie has symbolized loyalty, culture, re-
inement, style, and elegance; according to John-
son (27) the tie has symbolized social status, oc-
cupation/work place, identity, as well as group
belonging.
In order to examine contemporary symbolical
connotations of the tie, we analyzed the frequen-
cy of wearing a tie on various occasions among
the citizens of Croatia of diferent age and edu-
cational level, as well as the characteristics attrib-
uted to men who frequently wear a tie. Since tie
is a garment worn usually by men, we analyzed
the frequency of wearing a business neckerchief
among women.
Speciic aims of the study were: 1) to estab-
lish the frequency of wearing a tie orbusiness
neckerchief on diferent occasions among peo-
ple of diferent age and educational levels; 2) to
establish whether men who frequently wear a tie
were attributed certain characteristics more oten
Participants and procedure
Data were gathered in 2005 as part of a public
opinion survey, using the method of face to face
interviews. he survey was conducted on a na-
tional representative sample of adult citizens of
the Republic of Croatia (n = 1007). he sample
consisted of 466 men (46.3%) and 541 women
(53.7%). We used a probability sample with mul-
tistage stratiication of Croatian citizens older
than 18 years. he settlements from each county
were selected randomly but proportionally to the
number of citizens in a given county. Accord-
ing to age, there were 261 participants (25.9%)
between 18 and 29 years, 551 participants
(54.6%) between 30 and 60 years, and 186 par-
ticipants (18.5%) older than 60 years. According
to the educational level, 404 participants (40%)
had only primary school or incomplete primary
school, 453 participants (45%) had high-school
education, lasting either three or four years, and
145 participants (15%) had college or university
education.
Instruments and variables
Frequency of wearing tie/business neckerchief.
Par-
ticipants answered the question how oten they
wore a tie or a business neckerchief on nine dif-
ferent occasions: weddings, funerals, festive gath-
erings (eg, christenings), cultural events (eg, the-
ater), business meetings, usual workday, family
gatherings (eg, lunch), travel by plane, and trav-
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 Croat Med J 2007;48:419-430
el by other means of transportation. Participants
responded on a 5-degree scale, with 1 = never,
2 = occasionally, 3 = frequently, 4 = very frequent-
ly, and 5 = always. Survey results were present-
ed in 2 variables: a) frequency of wearing a tie/
business neckerchief on diferent occasions; and
b) general measure of frequent use of tie/busi-
ness neckerchief, regardless of the occasion. he
measure of frequency of wearing a tie/business
neckerchief on diferent occasions was formed
by transforming the 5 original response catego-
ries into the following 3 categories: 0 – never, 1
– occasionally, and 2 – oten (original responses
always, frequently, and very frequently). he fre-
quency of wearing a tie/business neckerchief on
diferent occasions was presented as a percent-
age for each of the given three response catego-
ries. he frequency of wearing a tie according to
age and educational level for each occasion was
presented as means ± standard deviation. On the
basis of frequency of wearing a tie/business neck-
erchief on 9 occasions, we formed a new variable
which represented the number of occasions on
which participants frequently wear a tie/busi-
ness neckerchief (possible range from 0 to 9). On
the basis of this variable, in the later analyses that
were performed only on the sample of men, par-
ticipants were divided into the following four
categories: men who frequently wear a tie in no
situation; men who frequently wear a tie in one
or two situations; men who frequently wear a
tie in three or four situations; and men who fre-
quently wear a tie in ive or six diferent situa-
tions.
Attribution of characteristics to men who re-
quently wear a tie.
Participants were ofered 14
characteristics and traits (eg, more polite, more
educated) which are frequently attributed to
people on the basis of appearance and clothes,
and which difer according to social desirability
and relevance in diferent life domains. For each
characteristic, participants had to asses wheth-
er it more applied to men who frequently wear a
tie than to those who wear it rarely or never. he
possible answers were “No,” “I don’t know,” and
“Yes.” On the basis of the answers for each char-
acteristics, the participants were divided into two
groups – those who considered that a certain
characteristic is more pronounced in men who
frequently wear a tie and those who do not con-
sider so or do not know (categories “No” and “I
don’t know”). he frequency of attribution of a
certain characteristic was presented as the per-
centage of participants who considered that a
certain characteristic was more pronounced in
men who frequently wear a tie than in men who
wear a tie rarely or never.
Besides these measures, we also used data on
participants’ sex, age, and educational level. Ac-
cording to age, participants were divided into
3 categories – younger participants (18 to 29
years), middle age (30 to 60 years), and older age
participants (>60 years). According to the educa-
tional level, participants were divided into 3 cate-
gories – low (primary school or incomplete high
school), medium (high school, lasting three or
four years), and high (college or university) edu-
cational level.
Results
Tie or neckerchief was most frequently worn
at weddings (68.9% of men at least occasionally
wore a tie and 39.9% of women at least occasion-
ally wore a business neckerchief, Figures 2 and 3).
Weddings were followed by festive gatherings (ie,
christenings) and funerals (55.0% and 54.7% for
men; 36.2% and 35.0% for women, respectively).
Cultural and artistic events (theater, concerts)
and business occasions (business meetings or the
usual work day) were next according to the fre-
quency of wearing a tie/business neckerchief (be-
tween 22.6% and 42.6% for men; between 16.8%
and 28.3% for women). A tie/business necker-
chief was least frequently worn at family gath-
erings (eg, lunches, dinners) and while traveling
(between 15.6% and 10.3% for men; between
0.5 and 13.3% for women, respectively).
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Figure 2.
Frequency of wearing a tie on different occasions, shown as percentages (men, n = 466). Horizontal lines – frequent wear; vertical lines
– occasional wear; dots – no wear at all; black – no response.
Figure 3.
Frequency of wearing a business neckerchief on different occasions, shown as percentages (women; n = 541). Horizontal lines – frequent
wear; vertical lines – occasional wear; dots – no wear at all; black – no response.
he analysis of diferences in the mean fre-
quency of wearing a tie (Figure 4) or busi-
ness neckerchief (Figure 5) according to age for
each of the nine occasions (analysis of variance
(ANOVA), data not shown) demonstrated that
younger men signiicantly less frequently than
middle aged men wore a tie on all occasions, ex-
cept when traveling by plane. As opposed to old-
er men, younger men signiicantly less frequently
wore a tie on all occasions, except on business oc-
casions, when both groups wore a tie rarely. his
is probably because they do not have an opportu-
nity for wearing a tie since a large proportion of
younger men is still not employed, while a large
proportion of older men is retired. here were
signiicant diferences between middle-aged and
older men in the frequency of wearing a tie only
in two situations – at funerals and family gath-
erings; in both cases tie wearing was signiicantly
more frequent in older men. Frequency of wear-
423
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