Influence of Religious Status and Religious Attire on Interviewees

Abstract

To assess the effect of attire and religious status of interviewers on interviewees 84 subjects had interviews with a nun either in street clothes or in habit or a non-nun dressed either in street clothes or in habit. Dependent variables included length of interview, rated depth of interviewee's disclosure, number of controversial interviewee's attitudes reported, number of interviewee's personal experiences reported, and degree of favorable interviewee's response to interviewer. Using analysis of variance, attire but not religious status produced significant mean differences in interviewee's responses. Males were more open in the presence of an interviewer not in habit, females with an interviewer wearing a habit.