Uniforms can either erase or enable stranger interaction depending on relative social rank

Evidence

Such relegation to nonperson status which the uniform makes possible would seem to be most likely to occur when the wearer is lower in the social hierarchy than the observer. As Walter Klink has noted in a personal communication, uniforms may also function to open up the possibilities for interaction between strangers, as when similarly garbed but unacquainted soldiers feel free to converse with one another. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 1146

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the mechanism by which uniforms trade nonperson status for membership-based stranger rapport.