Consideration of Cosmetic Surgery As Part of Women's Benefit-Provisioning Mate Retention Strategy

Impact of Gender-Role Attitudes and Mental Health on Hostile Sexism and Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery

BACKGROUND

Each year, tens of thousands of people worldwide choose to undergo cosmetic surgery in order to alter their appearance. In recent years, young people have gradually emerged to comprise the main driving force behind the increasing demand for cosmetic surgery. Previous studies have found that sexism may motivate young people to undergo such surgeries. However, few studies have been conducted to determine if this psychological mechanism influences the acceptance of cosmetic surgery among Chinese university students.

METHODS

A total of 579 Chinese university students (280 girls and 299 boys, 17-20 years) volunteered to participate in the online survey. They completed a questionnaire containing the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, the 12-item General Health Questionnaire, the Gender-Role Attitudes Questionnaire and the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale. We firstly evaluated the underlying factor structure of the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and exploring pattern of associations between the constructs was analyzed via path analysis.

RESULTS

According to the findings, hostile sexism was associated with greater levels of acceptance toward cosmetic surgery. Moreover, gender-role attitudes mediated the link between hostile sexism and the acceptance of cosmetic surgery, and this mediation was positively influenced by general mental health.

CONCLUSION

Our study contributes to a deeper understanding of Chinese university students' attitudes toward cosmetic surgery, hostile sexism may contribute to normalizing traditional gender stereotypes and encourage cosmetic surgery acceptability among Chinese university students.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE V

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Applicability of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures to Aesthetic Medicine Patient Archetypes

BACKGROUND

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are valuable in understanding patient motivations, setting expectations, and ensuring satisfaction. As the aesthetic industry expands globally, factors that motivate the treatment goals of the aesthetic patient reflect evolving social, cultural, and commercial influences.

OBJECTIVE

This article will assess the applicability of current PROMs used in aesthetic medicine to an increasingly diverse patient population and consider their ability to measure the underlying motives that drive different types of patients to pursue their specific goals.

METHODS

PubMed database was searched for studies using PROMs to evaluate the motivations and expectations of aesthetic patients.

RESULTS

Seven validated aesthetic PROM tools were reviewed against a backdrop of different patient segments as represented by the 4 patient archetypes: Positive Aging, Beautification, Correction, and Transformation. None of the tools could universally represent the individual motivations and expectations of all 4 patient archetypes.

CONCLUSION

There is a need for updated PROMs in aesthetics that are applicable to patients with different motivations or expected outcomes than the traditional rejuvenation patient. PROMs that help decode patient motivations and that are developed with more diverse patient involvement will help aesthetic clinicians better understand the goals and expectations of new patient segments.

An Evolutionary Perspective on Appearance Enhancement Behavior

Researchers have highlighted numerous sociocultural factors that have been shown to underpin human appearance enhancement practices, including the influence of peers, family, the media, and sexual objectification. Fewer scholars have approached appearance enhancement from an evolutionary perspective or considered how sociocultural factors interact with evolved psychology to produce appearance enhancement behavior. Following others, we argue that evidence from the field of evolutionary psychology can complement existing sociocultural models by yielding unique insight into the historical and cross-cultural ubiquity of competition over aspects of physical appearance to embody what is desired by potential mates. An evolutionary lens can help to make sense of reliable sex and individual differences that impact appearance enhancement, as well as the context-dependent nature of putative adaptations that function to increase physical attractiveness. In the current review, appearance enhancement is described as a self-promotion strategy used to enhance reproductive success by rendering oneself more attractive than rivals to mates, thereby increasing one's mate value. The varied ways in which humans enhance their appearance are described, as well as the divergent tactics used by women and men to augment their appearance, which correspond to the preferences of opposite-sex mates in a heterosexual context. Evolutionarily relevant individual differences and contextual factors that vary predictably with appearance enhancement behavior are also discussed. The complementarity of sociocultural and evolutionary perspectives is emphasized and recommended avenues for future interdisciplinary research are provided for scholars interested in studying appearance enhancement behavior.

Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery among Hungarian Women in a Global Context: the Hungarian Version of the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale (ACSS)

In recent years, the popularity of surgical cosmetic procedures has dramatically increased in the Western world. The Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale (ACSS) provides a measure of psychological acceptance of cosmetic surgery. The original instrument (ACSS) contains three subscales (Interpersonal, Social, and Consider). Since its publication, the ACSS has been adapted for many languages. The primary objective of the present study was to develop the Hungarian version of the ACSS. Furthermore, focus was laid on whether the original factor structure could be replicated with a Hungarian sample despite expectable cultural differences from other national samples. To obtain cross-culturally comparable data, the same scales were used for psychometric analysis as those used in the development of the original ACSS and its various national versions. The Hungarian sample included 482 female participants aged between 18 and 68 years (M = 29.02, SD = 10.71), who completed a questionnaire battery. Validity of the Hungarian version was tested with the following measures: the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-3 (SATAQ-3), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS), and the Photographic Figure Rating Scale (PFRS) developed for women. The results show that the obtained Hungarian version of the ACSS is a reliable and valid measure, which enables researchers in the field to study Hungarian samples. Furthermore, the factor structure of the Hungarian scale is identical with that of the original ACSS, which enables reliable cross-cultural comparisons. For these reasons, the authors expect that the Hungarian ACSS will stimulate more in-depth quantitative research on attitudes towards cosmetic surgery within the Hungarian context, and it will also contribute to a better understanding of acceptance of cosmetic surgery from a cross-cultural perspective.

Differentiation of Self and Mate Retention Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Communication Patterns

Differentiation of self refers to the capacity of individuals to manage their emotions, remain thoughtful in strong emotional experiences, and the ability to experience intimacy and independence in relationships. Individual differences in differentiation of self may influence the performance of mate retention behaviors. Because poorly differentiated individuals find separation and rejection unbearable and anxiety-provoking, we hypothesized that different levels of differentiation is related to different strategies of mate retention behaviors. However, little empirical attention has been given to the relationship between differentiation of self and mate retention behaviors, particularly in non-individualistic cultures. We aimed to investigate the mediating role of communication patterns in the relationship between differentiation of self and mate retention behaviors. The sample included 282 married individuals from Community Centers (some neighborhoods in Tehran, Iran). The results supported the associations between mate retention behaviors and differentiation of self, and also showed that communication patterns mediate this relationship. This study improves our understanding of differentiation of self and mate retention behaviors in the context of long-term committed relationships from an evolutionary psychological perspective.

What Makes a Partner Ideal, and for Whom? Compatibility Tests, Filter Tests, and the Mating Stability Matrix

We introduce a typological characterization of possible human heterosexual couples in terms of the concordance-opposition of the orientations of their active and receptive areas as defined by the tie-up theory. We show that human mating incentives, as characterized by widely adopted approaches, such as Becker’s marriage market approach, only capture very specific instances of actual couples thus characterized. Our approach allows us to instead explore how super-cooperation among partners vs. convenience vs. constriction may be regarded as alternatives modes of couple formation and cohesion, leading to very different types of couples with different implications in terms of stability and resilience. Our results may have interesting implications for future experimental research and for individual and family counseling.