The Gender Difference in Attitudes Toward Cosmetic Surgery
Abstract
As rapid technology advancements, cosmetic surgery is increasingly popular globally. Impacted especially by Korea cosmetic surgery sector, opinion of people in China about surgery could be changing. This study aims in finding out the gender difference in attitudes toward cosmetic surgery in China. By an empirical analysis, it was found there are great gender differences in these attitudes. Men are more likely to feel satisfied with their appearance and oppose it in principle than women. Women in have more supportive attitudes about cosmetic surgery
Content
Abstract 2
Introduction 4
Methodology 5
Nature of the research 5
Sample group 5
The location 5
The instrument 5
The procedure of investigation 6
Method and data analysis 7
Results 7
Figure 1 The reasons why not have cosmetic surgery 7
Figure 2 The opinion of how people look after cosmetic surgery 8
Figure 3 Attitudes toward family or friend got cosmetic surgery 9
Discussion 9
Conclusion, limitation and recommendation 10
References: 11
Appendix A: Cosmetic Surgery Survey Questionnaire 12
Appendix B: Mail to Student Union of Wuhan University 13
Appendix C: Total women/men to whom the answer item applies 14
Introduction
Cosmetic surgery becomes increasingly popular in Asia. For example, Cullenĺ (2005) stated in Time magazine that in Taiwan one million cosmetic surgery procedures were performed in 2004, doubling the number in 1999. Mcmah (2015) reported in NewsAustralia that more than 650,000 people per year get cosmetic surgery in Seoul of Korea, including a growing number of visitors from Japan, China and so on. Someone recently speculated a reason for the rising tendency in cosmetic surgery is the stigma with it has been not exsited (Wiley, 2015). However speculations like this need to be investigated empirically. This study documents people's attitudes toward cosmetic surgery in China.
Tam et al. (2012) studied attitudes toward cosmetic surgery patients and measured the role of culture in describing such attitudes. Countries involved in their research are Korea, Japan. They found that there are cultural differences in these attitudes and significant negative attitudes toward cosmetic surgery. Gender difference are not involved in their study or any other study with sampling from Asia. Based on the research with sample group of American college students, Bazner (2002) stated men were significant more likely to accept cosmetic surgery and women were more likely to consider getting surgery. However the gender difference in attitudes toward cosmetic surgery in China, if any, is not studied, which was found through a literature search. The aim of the present study is find out men and women's attitudes about cosmetic surgery in China.
The addressed hypothesis is: There are great gender differences in attitudes toward cosmetic surgery in China.
Findings of this study would provide more insight into the topic of cosmetic surgery and increase the source of knowledge in this aspect.
Methodology
Nature of the research
Regarding nature of the research, there are primary research and secondary research. Primary research could generate the latest and more applicable data. Secondary research uses the data collected already in public sources. This study aims at investigating and finding out if there are gender differences in attitudes toward cosmetic surgery in China. Data on this aspect is lacking. Thus primary research approach was taken.
Sample group
This research focuses on the perspectives of gender, while the perspective of age is not covered. The participants were undergraduates. The data intended to collect was their attitudes toward cosmetic surgery. And the planned sample size was 60 men and 60 women.
The location
The country of China was addressed. China surgery industry has been impacted greatly by Korea that is one of a world center of cosmetic surgery (Stevenson, 2014). The university of Wuhan that is a famous one domestically was set as sample frame.
The instrument
The instrument was a Cosmetic Surgery Survey questionnaire with 6 concise and essential questions (see Appendix A). The first 3 questions were about the information of participants' age, gender, and nationality; other three questions were set to measuring participants' attitudes toward cosmetic surgery and are all single-choice questions. The Question 4, 5 and 6 are in the sequence of importance. Question 4 is expected to examine the attitudes generally by asking the reasons for not having surgery; following it question 5 specifically asks opinion on people's look after surgery; finally the question 6 at a narrowed perspective tests the respondents' attitudes toward their friends or family members who got surgery. The maximized simplification in survey questions was anticipated to save the time for answering them and thus improve participating rate.
The procedure of investigation
a). Disseminating the 6-questions survey through the website of SurveyMonkey. The questionnaire was placed on SurveyMonkey together with a brief explanation of the study and the contact information. The survey was opened for one week from December 8 - 15, 2015. It was placed on SurveyMonkey because in this way participants can choose any time during the opened days to answer the questionnaire, and without worrying about possibility in their personal information (name, contact etc.) leaking out. Thus using an electronic questionnaire was expected to increase participation. Besides, the operation cost of disseminating survey is lower than paper-based surveys. Finally, the URL address of the web page of SurveyMonkey containing our survey content was short, easily understood and kept in mind.
b). Contacting a member of the student union of WuHan Universities and asked him to send the survey link (URL address) to 120 students (60 men and 60 women) in the university, and have the questions answered(see Appendix B). Questionnaire responses were requested from the students arranged, but not from the member of the student union.
c) On the time closing the survey, 102 students participated in the survey and fully answered the 6 survey questions, 62 women and 40 men. Data were downloaded from SurveyMonkey and processed. The real participants were totally 102 undergraduates. The information is as following:
China (10 women, 7 men, Mage = 22.56 years),
Thailand (8 women, 4 men, Mage = 22.21 years),
Vietnam (6 women, 4 men, Mage = 22.78 years),
Singapore (8 women, 6 men, Mage = 20.21 years),
Indonesia (7 women, 4 men, Mage = 21.81 years),
Malaysia (6 women, 5 men, Mage = 21.95 years),
Japan (8 women, 5 men, Mage = 20.11 years) and
Korea (9 women, 5 men, Mage = 20.26 years).
Total: 62 women, 40 men, Mage = 21.48625 years
Method and data analysis
Each of the questions 4, 5 and 6 on the survey questionnaire is followed by 4 different answers (marked A, B, C, D). All their choices of the answers to each of the three questions (4, 5 and 6) were counted in times. These numbers were converted to percentage. The data was shown in Appendix C: total women/men to whom the answer item applies.
Results
Based on statistics in Appendix C, figures are generated as follows.
Figure 1 The reasons why not have cosmetic surgery
Figure 1 illustrates the result of survey question 4 - Why will you not have cosmetic surgery in the future? It describes the percentage of men/women agreeing with one of the four reasons why they do not expect to have surgery. The four reasons are presented at the horizontal axis of figure 1.
Figure 1 shows feeling satisfied about the appearance is the reason for most men, and the risks involved are the reasons for most women. Very a few of the people do not expect to undergo cosmetic surgery for the reason of expensiveness of performing it.
Over a half (60%) of men agree on the primary reason - they are happy with their appearance, versus 24% of women. Other main reasons for not undergoing cosmetic surgery in the future include:
Against it in principle (25% of men versus 20% of women)
Risks (10% of men versus 48% of women)
Too expensive (5% of men versus 8% of women)
Figure 2 The opinion of how people look after cosmetic surgery
Figure 2 demonstrates the result of survey question 5 - How do you think people look after cosmetic surgery, which is a specific question. This figure also describes the percentage of men/women agreeing with one of the four answers to the question.
Figure 2 shows that in most cases, people who accept cosmetic surgery need not worry it will cause worse appearance, as around half of men and women perceive the better look of the people had surgery, and most of the rest people choose the answer of No Difference or No Idea.
More specifically, 48% of men think getting better looking versus 56% of women who have same opinion; 13% of men thinks causing worse appearance versus 4% of women; 17% of men find no difference versus 28% of women; 22% of men show no idea versus 12% of women.
Figure 3 Attitudes toward family or friend got cosmetic surgery
Figure 3 shows the result of the final survey question - What would you think if a family member or a friend got cosmetic surgery? This figure illustrates the percentage of men/women agreeing with one of the three answers to the question.
Figure 3 also shows there is significant gender difference in attitudes toward the topic of cosmetic surgery.
Over a half (56%) of women agree that there is nothing wrong with getting cosmetic surgery, versus 36% of women. 46% of men agree that people should be satisfied with their appearance thus surgery is not needed, versus 11% if women. The result may reflect women are more likely to accept the people who had surgery in China.
Discussion
The hypothesis of this study is list here: There are great gender differences in attitudes toward cosmetic surgery in China. This hypothesis was not rejected. The gender differences are significant in these attitudes discussed as follows.
Most importantly women in China have more supportive attitudes toward cosmetic surgery. To a great extent, this finding is consistent with the finding of Bazner (2002): women were more likely to consider getting surgery. In present study, less women are satisfied with their present appearance and oppose it in principle than men. More women think people who got surgery look better than men and much more women have supportive attitudes toward their friend or family member who got cosmetic surgery.
Another finding from the results is that men in China are more likely to oppose getting cosmetic surgery for themselves in principle than women. This is the major reason why men mostly have not had it or expect to. The main reason why women will not undergo surgery is the risks and fearing that something would go wrong, which may caused by failed cases and mixed cosmetic surgery technological levels in southeast Asian countries (Clark & Lee, 2014).
Finally, Most Chinese men accept other people especially women's appearance after cosmetic surgery. This is also similar to the view of Bazner (2002) that men were significant more likely to accept cosmetic surgery. In current study, half of the men consider that people who got surgery look better and much less of them think surgery causes worse look than women. Over one in three men support their family member or friend to have surgery. Men's supportive attitudes would encourage people, especially women, to improve social relationship by improving their appearance through surgery. This finding is in contrary with the finding of Tam et al. (2002) who thought there were significant negative attitudes toward cosmetic surgery.
Conclusion, limitation and recommendation
This study is one of a first attempt to find out and systematically illustrate attitudes toward cosmetic surgery in China. There have been significant gender differences in these attitudes.
It should be noted this study was implemented based on the sample group of undergraduates. If the findings based on undergraduates are valid across older younger people is yet to be examined. Future study could test the attitudes toward surgery in older adults. Future research also could focus on investigating the reasons why there are these gender differences in attitudes toward cosmetic surgery.
References:
Bazner, J., (2002). Attitudes About Cosmetic Surgery: Gender and
Body Experience. McNair Scholars Journal. 6(1). 32-51.
Clark, N. & Lee, S.Y., (2014). The Normalization of Cosmetic Surgery. Journal of Magazine & New Media Research. (15)1, 23-39.
Stevenson, A. (December 24, 2014). Plastic Surgery Tourism Brings Chinese to South Korea. International Business. B1.
Tam et al. (2012) . Attitudes Toward Cosmetic Surgery Patients:
The Role of Culture and Social Contact. The Journal of Social Psychology, 2012, 152(4), 458-479.
Wiley, 2015. Reasons behind an increase in female genital cosmetic surgery. Retrieved from: medicalxpress.com/pdf348244509.pdf
Cullen, L. T., (2005). Changing faces. Time. Retrieved from:
time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020805/story.html
Mcmah, L. (2015). South Korea's cosmetic surgery craze is still booming. Retrieved from: news.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/cosmetic-surgery/south-koreas-cosmetic-surgery-craze-is-still-booming/news-story/2183fc1b0c4a90193104ea9031e36f1e
Appendix A: Cosmetic Surgery Survey Questionnaire
1. How old are you? ______
2. What is your gender?
A. Male
B. Female
3. What is your nationality? _________
4. Why will you not have cosmetic surgery in the future?
A. Feel satisfied about your appearance
B. Against it in principle
C. Risks
D. Too expensive
5. How do you think people look after cosmetic surgery?
A. They look better
B. They look worse
C. No difference
D. Don't know
6. What would you think if a family member or a friend got cosmetic surgery?
A. If they are unhappy with their appearance, there is nothing wrong with getting cosmetic surgery
B. They should be happy with their appearance and should not have cosmetic surgery
C. Don't know
Appendix B: Mail to Student Union of Wuhan University
Dear friend,
Greetings. This is _____ from the University of ____ , Australia. First of all I want to express my gratitude to you. I appreciate it so much that you replied my call and help me again.
I am implementing an investigation to figure out the gender difference in attitudes toward cosmetic surgery. You are kindly requested to forward below survey link to 60+ male students and 60+ female students in the university and have them finish the questionnaire.
Thank you so much again.
Best regards,
_________
University of _____
Appendix C: Total women/men to whom the answer item applies
Gender Total
Men Women
Why will you not have cosmetic surgery in the future?
A. Feel satisfied about your appearance 24 (60%) 15 (24%) 39 (38%)
B. Against it in principle 10 (25%) 12 (20%) 22 (22%)
C. Risks 4 (10%) 30 (48%) 34 (33%)
D. Too expensive 2 (5%) 5 (8%) 7 (7%)
How do you think people look after cosmetic surgery?
A. They look better 19(48%) 35 (56%) 54 (52%)
B. They look worse 6 (13%) 3 (4%) 9 (10%)
C. No difference 7 (17%) 15 (28%) 22 (20%)
D. Don't know 9 (22%) 9 (12%) 18 (18%)
What would you think if a family member of friend got cosmetic surgery?
A. If they are unhappy with their appearance, there is nothing wrong with getting cosmetic surgery 14(36%) 35(56%) 49(46%)
B. They should be happy with their appearance and should not have cosmetic surgery 17(46%) 9(11%) 26(27%)
C. Don't know 9 (18%) 18 (33%) 27 (28%)
