Taste in appearance: self, cultivated dispositions, and cultural capital

263 Pages·2016·1.79 MB·English

by  Yoo Jin Kwon

Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and
Retrospective Theses and Dissertations
Dissertations
2007
Taste in appearance: self, cultivated dispositions,
and cultural capital
Yoo Jin Kwon
Iowa State University
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Kwon, Yoo Jin, "Taste in appearance: self, cultivated dispositions, and cultural capital" (2007).Retrospective Theses and Dissertations.
15977.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/15977
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Taste in appearance: Self, cultivated dispositions, and cultural capital

by

Yoo Jin Kwon

A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Major: Textiles and Clothing

Program of Study Committee:
Mary Lynn Damhorst, Major Professor
Lulu Rodriguez
Joseph Kupfer
Jean Parsons
Susan Torntore

Iowa State University

Ames, Iowa

2007

Copyright © Yoo Jin Kwon, 2007. All rights reserved.
UMI Number: 3259501
Copyright 2007 by
Kwon, Yoo Jin
All rights reserved.
UMI Microform3259501
Copyright2007 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
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ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................................v

CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................1

CHAPTER TWO. BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS.................................7
Definitions of Taste...........................................................................................................7
Taste in Theories of Aesthetics.........................................................................................9
Hutcheson, Hume, and Kant...................................................................................11
Hutcheson and Hume......................................................................................11
Kant.................................................................................................................17
Principles of Taste: Empirically Generalized vs. A priori......................................22
Normative Aspects of Taste....................................................................................27
Discovery of Beauty vs. Projection of Value..........................................................29
Taste in Sociology...........................................................................................................31
Sociological Issues of Taste: Fashion and Stratification........................................32
The Emergence of Taste: The History of Status Markers.......................................36
Taste and Conscious Social Competition...............................................................39
Refuting Class Competition in Taste......................................................................44
Expression of Individuality.............................................................................44
Expression of Collectivity...............................................................................46
Revisiting Taste and Class: Unconscious Adaptation and Distinction...................49
Metatheoretical Understanding of Social Structure and Culture....................51
Taste as Habitus..............................................................................................55
Forms of Taste................................................................................................61
Taste and Cultural Capital..............................................................................64
Taste in Consumption Field............................................................................70
Studies of Taste and Cultural Capital in the U. S...........................................71
Research Questions.........................................................................................................76

CHAPTER THREE. METHODOLOGY...............................................................................81
Research Design..............................................................................................................81
Sample.............................................................................................................................82
Data Collection...............................................................................................................84
Analysis...........................................................................................................................85

CHAPTER FOUR. ANALYSIS.............................................................................................88
Taste as Embodiment of Self..........................................................................................90
Taste as an Extension of the Body..........................................................................94
Taste as an Extension of the Self............................................................................98
Multiple Selves and Clothing Practices................................................................103
Taste and Motives in Appearance.................................................................................111
To Be Appropriate................................................................................................112
To Be Creative......................................................................................................115
iii
To Feel in Control.................................................................................................119
To Feel Comfortable.............................................................................................122
To Look Up-to-Date.............................................................................................124
To Look Put Together...........................................................................................127
Taste and Appearance Management.............................................................................130
Financial Management..........................................................................................131
Time and Labor Management...............................................................................137
Cognitive Effort Management..............................................................................139
Aesthetic Management..........................................................................................143
Judgement of Taste in Appearance...............................................................................150
Judging Embodiment of Self................................................................................150
Judging Exercise of the Motives in Appearance...................................................155
To be Appropriate.........................................................................................155
To Be Creative..............................................................................................156
To Feel in Control.........................................................................................158
To Feel Comfortable.....................................................................................161
To Look Up-to-Date.....................................................................................162
To Look Put Together...................................................................................163
Judging Appearance Management........................................................................165
Cultural Capital and Taste in Appearance....................................................................166
Resources of Cultural Capital Specific to Appearance Consumption..................166
Education: Linguistic Competency and Information Processing..................166
Social Origins: The Influence of Upbringing...............................................171
Occupation: Opportunity..............................................................................173
Social Boundaries and Taste in Appearance.........................................................176
Cultural Proficiency and Aesthetic Experience....................................................183
Aesthetic Reasoning......................................................................................183
Formal Analysis............................................................................................185
Associations..................................................................................................187
Negotiation and Creation of Ambiguity.......................................................189
Cultural Variety............................................................................................192
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Interests....................................................................196
Self-Actualization.........................................................................................200

CHAPTER FIVE. CONCLUSION.......................................................................................203
Limitations and Suggestions for Future Study..............................................................211

REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................213

APPENDIX A: PARTICIPANT INFORMATION..............................................................220

APPENDIX B: PRELIMINARY QUESTIONNAIRE........................................................222

APPENDIX C: SAMPLE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS.......................................................225
iv
APPENDIX D: INFORMED CONSENT DOCUMENT.....................................................228

APPENDIX E: CODING GUIDE........................................................................................232

APPENDIX F: HUMAN SUBJECT REVIEW....................................................................245
v
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the study is to develop a theory about taste in appearance and to
investigate if cultural capital, proposed by Bourdieu (1984), is a relevant concept in
explaining appearance-related consumption. Taste has been studied in two disciplines.
Philosophers defined taste as an aesthetic aptitude or capacity to discover beauty from works
of art. Sociologists conceptualized taste as a cultivated disposition in the guise of an innate
disposition in a broad range of cultural products. While philosophers endeavored to
conceptualized taste in relation to beauty, sociologists associated taste with social acceptance
or attractiveness.
Phenomenological interviews were conducted with 16 participants from upper-middle
and middle class backgrounds who lived in three Midwestern cities. Information about
participants' demographic and family backgrounds was also collected. Participants were
selected through a snowball sampling procedure to have varied background characteristics.
A constant comparative approach to qualitative data analysis was conducted to find important
themes and explore differences among participants related to their backgrounds (Strauss,
1987).
The content of the interviews indicated that taste in appearance is a cultivated
disposition to direct consumption activities. Taste included preferences for putting together
outfits as well as for particular aesthetic elements. Participants described taste in terms of
how they related particular things to themselves (self-concept) and why they liked particular
things (motives). Participants' preferences indicated their struggle with ambivalence about
how much they wanted to fit in but remain somewhat different from others and how much
they wanted to keep their appearance up-to-date and in fashion. Taste was actualized through
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the exercise of appearance-specific motives and efficient appearance management strategies,
including optimizing the use of given resources and negotiating conflicts among preferences
and resources.
With respect to evaluation of taste, participants evaluated taste as a sum of the
appearance and the consumption skills of a person, because taste was communicated through
presentation of one’s appearance. Evaluation included judging how well appearance
embodies an actor, how motives in clothing practice were successfully pursued and how an
actor successfully managed constraints and balanced ambivalent factors.
Level of cultural capital possessed by the participants differentially shaped social
actors' experiences of appearance consumption. The resources of cultural capital, including
upbringing, education, and occupation (Bourdieu, 1984), provided participants with an
aptitude for involvement in appearance consumption, including sensitivity to dressing
appropriately, capacity to construct and communicate meanings, and opportunities and
refinement of dressing practices. Among the participants, about half had background
characteristics indicating fairly high level of cultural capital, and the other half had a middle
range of cultural capital. For those with higher level of cultural capital, manifested taste was
constructed with a higher degree of complexity than among participants with a middle level
of cultural capital. High cultural capital individuals showed greater evidence of aesthetic
involvement through clothing practices.
The findings have practical implications for apparel marketers. Knowledge of levels
of cultural capital of target customers will help define strategies for advertising, store layout
and merchandise display. The findings have useful implications for marketing of products
other than clothing.
1
CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION
Taste in clothing is like a sixth sense for knowing what is right. If someone were to
ask me why I purchased the cardigan that I am wearing, my answer would simply be:
“Because I liked it.” If someone were to ask me why I chose to wear that cardigan with these
pants today, I would probably answer, “Because I felt like wearing them together.” When
looking at clothes, most people almost instinctively know whether they like them or not, even
before their brains are able to generate rational explanations. Knowing that they like
something does not necessarily mean they can articulate a reason. On the other hand, a sixth
sense for clothing can be changeable. The love for a specific garment does not last forever. A
garment exists as part of a person’s daily wardrobe until the garment is sentenced to the
category of “I don’t like it any more” or “It doesn’t fit any more.” This study raises the
question of why people tend to like a certain type of clothing; i.e., why people have certain
preferences or tastes. Taste exerts a strong power over one’s decisions on the management of
appearance, especially in such a varied market that provides endless, affordable alternatives
which suffice for functional need or situational norm.
Despite conventional wisdom, taste does not only pertain to personal predilections or
preferences. Cultural consumption and taste are symbolically communicated establishing
social relationships, networks and status groups (Bryson, 1997). “Taste drives appetite and
protects us from poisons” (Jacob, 2003). Although the “taste” in this quote refers to
physiology, just as taste in food controls the pleasure of the table and protects us from eating
harmful food, aesthetic taste in a similar vein controls the pleasure we obtain from objects
and keeps us from consuming “poisonous” objects. Poisonous clothing, therefore, can be
defined as that which is inappropriate or in bad taste, and which could, consequently, damage
2
one’s reputation in public. Because meaning is always constructed and negotiated in human
interaction (Stone, 1962), one’s taste cannot exist free from interactions with others. What it
means to prefer one thing over another arises through appearance-related interactions, like
other symbolic interactions. Thus, the study of taste as a subject matter requires consideration
of both individual and society. This study is conducted to understand how clothing is
symbolically consumed, how taste is communicated through the consumption of clothing,
and finally, how taste in clothing plays a role in establishing social relationships.
This study notes a judgmental aspect that underlies daily decisions in appearance-
related consumption. An individual’s taste or preference is an expression of his or her
judgment of a style, a reflection of standards or values, and a source of identity. Taste as
judgment is different from other types of value judgments. Taste feels natural and almost
spontaneous. One may or may not feel that one’s taste is formed on the basis of aesthetic,
social or moral values because they are so deeply embedded in one’s disposition or hidden
within one’s consciousness. Fashion and its presentation in the media transform political and
critical issues into seemingly apolitical commodities (Morgado, 1996). Consequently,
individuals have ambivalent feelings about taste, oscillating between taste as a personal
preference without the intervention of any values, and taste as one’s appreciation of aesthetic
quality, which is by definition laden with values (Kwon & Damhorst, 2004).
The study of taste in clothing is fairly exploratory. Studies of clothing have used the
term preference more often than taste (Eckman, 1997; Feather, Ford, & Herr, 1996; Yoo,
2003). These studies used highly controlled visual stimuli that manipulated styling features
such as length or width of garment details to investigate evaluations of attractiveness.
Although some studies investigated personal preference in relation to social psychological