Monday, June 18, 2012

Swimwear Choice and Political Affiliation

There are some common assumptions regarding behavioral correlates of political orientations that should be examined critically. One of those is the expected relationship that more politically conservative people should also be more conservative in dress also. 
Three of us, each dressed in a different style of swimwear, approached 200 young women (estimated ages 18 to 30, but no hard data here) and asked them whether they considered themselves to be liberal, conservative, or middle-of-the-road.  While noting their answers, we unobtrusively noted what style of swimsuit they were wearing, coding the possibilities as follows:

0 = wearing non-swimwear
1 = one-piece
2 = bikini
3 = string bikini
4 = topfree

Without going into the details or inferential statistics, the following results were obtained:

                                     Lib.       Mid        Con.

0 (non-swimwear)              9            7            9

1 (one-piece)                   13          23          15

2 (bikini)                          19          20          34
               
3 (string bikini)                 8           20          21

4 (topfree)                       0            0            0

Total                              49          70          79      198

Caution should be made regarding any extrapolations regarding the 2012 Presidental election: this informal polling was done on a beach commonly known as the Redneck Rivieria, and the Conservative - Liberal trends probably reflect better the locales from which the beachgoers came.
Statistically, there does not seem to be any significant relationship between type of swimwear and political orientation.

Note:  This project was done just in fun.  If we attempted to publish in even a minor psychological journal, we'd be a laughing stock! 




  
                

7 comments:

Hell Hound said...

Do I read this that liberal girls are more likely to wear less revealing swimwear?

Mike said...

I think the Redneck Rivieria name accounts for the tilt towards conservative.

Bilbo said...

If you need help with further research, please call.

Anonymous said...

This is onbelieveable.

Roly said...

We can help by doing a comparative survey here in South Africa. Problem is that most traditional dress is topless anyway. Would skew the statistics I think :)

eViL pOp TaRt said...

Thanks for the thought Roly Clu

Anonymous said...

Have you any inclination to replicate this research in 2016?