Abstract
This study examines the influence of women's appearance decoration on professional image, preference evaluation, and inferences about age and job. For the purpose of this study, women's appearance decoration was limited to eyeglasses, earrings, hair length, and clothing color. A quasi-experimental method was used for this study. The experimental design was a $3{\times}2{\times}2{\times}4$ (eyeglasses${\times}$earrings${\times}$hair length${\times}$clothing color) factorial design. The model of stimulus photographs was a woman in her late twenties. She wore a tailored collared jacket with a white dress shirt. The subjects were 362 female college students residing in Seoul. The results of the research were as follows. First, the woman wearing glasses and earrings was perceived as more professional than the woman without glasses and earrings. The woman with short hair was evaluated to be more professional than the woman with long hair. Light grey and dark grey jackets enhanced a professional image in the woman than red and dark red jackets. The woman without glasses was preferred more than the woman wearing glasses, and the woman wearing earrings was preferred more than the woman without earrings. Second, the woman wearing wire-rimmed glasses, earrings, and grey jacket with short hair was perceived to have the highest level of professionalism. Third, the subjects perceived the woman wearing wire-rimmed glasses as looking the oldest and the woman without glasses as looking young. The subjects perceived the woman with short hair as looking younger by 3 to 4 years than the woman with long hair. Fourth, the subjects frequently considered the woman wearing the wire-rimmed glasses, the woman with short hair, and the woman wearing the grey jacket as having a professional job.