Comfort Dimensions of Actual and Ideal Insulative Clothing for Older Women

Three dimensions of human comfort with respect to clothing are proposed: physical, psychological, and social comfort. A pilot study of 60 women, aged 60 to 80, was conducted to develop and test a semantic differential measure of these three human comfort dimensions with respect to actual and ideal insulative clothing for indoor wear. An evaluative factor, a measure of overall garment evaluation, also emerged from analysis of the semantic differential. Validity and reliability of the measure were strong for physical and psychological comfort and the evaluative factor but not for social comfort. Thirty-one of the 60 women chose to wear one of three types of insulative clothing for indoor wear on a one day trial basis under reduced household temperatures. Under these environmental conditions physical comfort was correlated substantially higher with overall evaluation than was psychological comfort. Data indicate that (1) garment types presented and worn in this study did not approximate participants' concept of ideal insulative clothing; (2) one's concept of ideal insulative clothing may affect selection of garment type ; (3) perception of comfort and overall evaluation of the garment changed from before to after wearing the garment ; and (4)garment types differentially approached the expectation for ideal insulative clothing on the separate comfort dimensions. Implications for theory and research are discussed.