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8 results

  • Chapter 9: - Self-“Improvement”

  • Charlotte Markey, Rutgers University, New Jersey
  • Book:
    Adultish
    Published online:
    10 October 2024
    Print publication:
    01 August 2024, pp 161-180

  • Summary

    • It’s understandable to care about your appearance and invest some time, energy, and money into looking your best given the appearance-focused culture we live in. Don’t feel bad for caring about how you look.

    • Before trying to alter your appearance – especially in any permanent way – you should question why you want to invest in your appearance, for who, and what you expect to result from this investment.

    • It’s important to appreciate that your physical appearance is only one part of who you are and altering your appearance will not necessarily improve your life in meaningful ways.

  • How intrasexual competitiveness shapes attitudes towards cosmetic surgery recipients

  • Sarah Bonell, Christoph Klebl, Khandis Blake, Scott Griffiths
  • Journal:
    Evolutionary Human Sciences / Volume 5 / 2023
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    09 November 2023, e30
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  • Cosmetic surgery is extremely popular. Despite this, negative attitudes towards cosmetic surgery recipients prevail. Across two pre-registered studies, we examined whether intrasexual competitiveness explains these negative attitudes. Participants in Study 1 were 343 (mean age = 24.74) single heterosexual American women and participants in Study 2 were 445 (mean age = 19.03) single heterosexual Australian women. Participants in both studies were primed for either low or high intrasexual competitiveness. Contrary to our predictions, we found that priming condition did not influence participants’ derogation and social exclusion of cosmetic surgery recipients. We did, however, find evidence for a ‘relative attractiveness’ halo effect: participants engaged in less derogation and social exclusion when they assumed cosmetic surgery recipients were more attractive than themselves. This suggests that 'pretty privilege' extends not only to women who meet conventional beauty standards, but also to those who are perceived as relatively closer to meeting these standards than the individual with whom they are engaging. Overall, we concluded that intrasexual competitiveness does not encourage the stigmatisation of cosmetic surgery recipients and examined alternative explanations for this phenomenon.

  • Perfectionism and stereotype in plastic surgery

  • L. Hogea, L. Corsaro, T. Anghel
  • Journal:
    European Psychiatry / Volume 65 / Issue S1 / June 2022
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    01 September 2022, p. S331
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  • Introduction

    The concept of beauty has transformed through time and across the globe during specific events in history and continues to evolve.

    Objectives

    This study will focus on how tendency toward perfectionism and stereotypes promoted by media influence beauty perception and the need of plastic surgery.

    Methods

    In this study we examined factors influencing attitudes toward plastic surgery among 23 women with an average 35 years old and the data were collected through three questionnaire: The abbreviated multidimensional perfectionism scale (MPS) is a 30-item measure separated into two 15-item subscales: self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism; The abbreviated perfectionistic self-presentation scale (PSPS) is a 20-item measure divided into two ten-item subscales: perfectionistic self-promotion and non-display of imperfection. Participants’ perceptions of media messages about appearance issues have been assessed using 30 items of the Sociocultural Attitudes toward Appearance Questionnaire-3 (SATAQ-3). Sociocultural attitudes toward appearance, physical appearance perfectionism were considered as predictors of tendency toward plastic surgery.

    Results

    The results showed that there is significant positive association between perfectionism, the influence of mass media and increased women’ s likelihood of undergoing plastic surgery.

    Conclusions

    Our findings suggest firstly that a greater perfectionist tendency and psychological investment in physical appearance predict more favorable attitudes toward plastic surgery. Perfectionists women may choose plastic surgery as part of their need of bodily perfection. Secondly, the choice of plastic surgery depended on sociocultural attitudes toward physical appearance.

    Disclosure

    No significant relationships.

  • Chapter 3 - Second-Hand Faces: Aesthetic Surgery

  • Alanna Skuse, University of Reading
  • Book:
    Surgery and Selfhood in Early Modern England
    Published online:
    11 February 2021
    Print publication:
    18 February 2021, pp 56-80
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  • Summary

    This chapter addresses facial surgery and prosthesis.The early modern period saw the development of medical procedures aimed as much at the augmentation and transformation of the face as at its restoration to ‘normality’. These advanced procedures brought into question the morality of changing one’s appearance. These issues were heightened in discussions of the Tagliacotian rhinoplasty. Promising to graft a new nose on to the faces of men afflicted by syphilis, this operation potentially, and controversially, disguised the results of sexual licentiousness. Moreover, satirists suggested not only that the graft might be taken from another person’s flesh, but that the grafted part might retain a sympathetic connection to its original ‘owner’. The nature of the connection (or lack thereof) between a person’s flesh and their ‘true’ identity was foremost in such discussions. Hester Pulter’s poem on the subject is a witty, sharply satirical admonition against sexual incontinence. Anticipating later works by Butler and Addison, it demonstrates how rhinoplasty became a vehicle for voicing larger concerns about embodiment, sociability, and morality.

  • 14 - Cultural Influences on Body Image and Body Esteem

  • from Section 3 - Cognitive and Social Factors
  • Edited by Fanny M. Cheung, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Diane F. Halpern, Claremont McKenna College, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of the International Psychology of Women
    Published online:
    20 July 2020
    Print publication:
    06 August 2020, pp 190-204

  • Summary

    The influence of ethnicity and culture in body image etiology has only recently been considered. Previous accounts asserting that White women are at increased risk for body dissatisfaction and body-related pathology relative to women of color are being contested after multiple body image investigations using culturally diverse samples report similar or higher risk levels in women of color. Such findings highlight the need to reevaluate the ability of current developmental frameworks, diagnostic criteria, and psychometric tools in capturing body image experiences of ethnically diverse women. Most body image inventories were developed on White women from Westernized cultures, emphasizing weight phobia and Westernized appearance ideals. Such inventories often fail to detect body image concerns in women of color. Broadening the understanding of body image etiology to include the experiences of ethnically diverse women is crucial for accurate identification and effective treatment of body-related pathology and comorbid conditions in women of color.

  • A cutting critique: transforming ‘older’ through cosmetic surgery

  • BRIDGET GARNHAM
  • Journal:
    Ageing & Society / Volume 34 / Issue 8 / September 2014
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    02 April 2013, pp. 1356-1379
    Print publication:
    September 2014
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  • This paper engages with a cultural politics of ‘older’. At the centre of this politics are essentialist discourses of corporeal ‘ageing’ that limit and stigmatise the subjective experience of ‘older’. Drawing together theoretical insights from Foucault's work on care of the self with data from in-depth interviews with ‘older’ people who have undergone cosmetic surgery and cosmetic surgery practitioners, this paper advances the proposition that cosmetic surgery can be re-imagined as an ethical practice of self-care. To critique the limitations imposed by ‘natural ageing’ through an ethic of ‘ageing gracefully’, the paper explores how older people who have undergone cosmetic surgery stylise the ethical experience of ‘older’ through active resistance of an ‘elderly’ identity. It argues that the practice of cosmetic surgery by ‘older’ people constitutes a cutting critique of the limits of ‘older’ and an experiment with the possibility of exceeding and ultimately transforming those limits.

  • Predictors of cosmetic surgery and its effects on psychological factors and mental health: a population-based follow-up study among Norwegian females

  • T. von Soest, I. L. Kvalem, L. Wichstrøm
  • Journal:
    Psychological Medicine / Volume 42 / Issue 3 / March 2012
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    25 July 2011, pp. 617-626
  • Background

    There is limited information about psychological predictors of cosmetic surgery and how cosmetic surgery influences subsequent changes in mental health and overall appearance satisfaction. To date, there is a lack of studies examining this issue, whereby representative population samples are assessed at an age before cosmetic surgery is typically conducted and followed up after such surgery has commonly been performed.

    Method

    We obtained data from a survey study following 1597 adolescent females from a representative Norwegian sample over a 13-year period. Participants provided information on cosmetic surgery, appearance satisfaction, mental health, risky sexual behavior, drug use and conduct problems at two time-points (overall response rate 67%).

    Results

    Of all participants, 78 (4.9%) reported having undergone cosmetic surgery, of whom 71 were operated on during the course of the study and seven before the first data collection. Symptoms of depression and anxiety [odds ratio (OR) 1.66, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.07–2.57] and a history of deliberate self-harm (OR 2.88, 95% CI 1.46–5.68), parasuicide (OR 3.29, 95% CI 1.53–7.08) and illicit drug use (OR 2.46, 95% CI 1.07–5.82) predicted prospective cosmetic surgery. Moreover, those who underwent surgery during the course of the study experienced a greater increase than other females in symptoms of depression and anxiety (t=2.07, p=0.04) and eating problems (t=2.71, p<0.01). Patients' use of alcohol also increased more than among non-patients (t=2.47, p=0.01).

    Conclusions

    A series of mental health symptoms predict cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic surgery does not in turn seem to alleviate such mental health problems.

  • 26 - Cosmetic procedures

  • from Part III - Working with specific units
  • Edited by Geoffrey Lloyd, Priory Hospital, London, Elspeth Guthrie, University of Manchester
  • Book:
    Handbook of Liaison Psychiatry
    Published online:
    10 December 2009
    Print publication:
    24 May 2007, pp 617-631

  • Summary

    Aesthetic cosmetic surgery is a popular lifestyle choice, and attractiveness is a valued attribute in all societies. This chapter guides the reader through the minefield of cosmetic surgery and especially its role in psychosis, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), amputee identity disorder (AID) and eating disorders. The role of a psychiatrist or psychologist is to advise the surgeon and patient on the patient's psychiatric status. Even when patients agree to stop seeking cosmetic surgery, the next goal is attitudinal change and modifying the dream of changing their appearance. This is often seen in mirror gazing and mental cosmetic surgery when patients alter their appearance in their mind. Although this is lot cheaper and less risky than real cosmetic surgery, it is a major obstacle in therapy for overcoming BDD. Amputee identity disorder (AID) is a term used to describe individuals who desire one or more digits or limbs to be amputated.