A new study has shed some light on just how much women judge other women.
The study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, found that women are more quick to judge other women if they are wearing more revealing clothing.
Jessica D. Ayers and Aaron T. Goetz, the authors of the study, proposed that female competition for potential mates leads women to collectively criticize women who they deem “sexually permissive.”
And since revealing clothing serves as a cue to promiscuity, women are motivated to criticize other women who dress in revealing ways.
Ayers told PsyPost, “The main take-home message from this study is that there appears to be a bias in women’s perception of other women. Specifically, if a woman chooses to wear clothing that is more revealing or provocative, then other women are more likely to ascribe negative traits and behaviors to her even if the characteristics they are asked to judge have nothing to do with clothing choice or sexual permissiveness.”
The study also found that other women would judge the target more harshly than men would, suggesting that “women mentally represent the judgments of others, allowing for coordinated condemnation of undesirable behavior.”
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