Body Modification: the Effect of Piercings on Percieved Aggression

Abstract

Stereotypical views regarding piercings have been an issue for decades, potentially being negatively criticised in major personality traits such as association with aggression. This between-group study aimed to investigate how university students (N=43) perceive other university students with/without facial piercings in terms of being more/less aggressive. One group, both males and females were presented with 10 pictures of people with facial piercings, and the other group had the same pictures but without facial piercings. They were asked to rate aggression along with 2 other traits on a rating scale. Despite the expectation that people with facial piercings would be perceived as more aggressive, as previous literature has illustrated that piercings negatively impact the perception of certain personality traits, the independent t-test result indicated that there is no significant difference between the perception for aggression in either condition. Although, the results being unforeseen, they are still supported by recent studies discussing that the popularity of piercings along with other factors have impacted how they are perceived. The implications and contradictions of these results are discussed.

Introduction

Over the past centuries, body modification, in particular body piercing, has been used as a form of self-expression (of individualism), to illustrate a fashion statement, and to construct an identity of oneself in association with a certain group, culture and/or cultural aberration. Piercings have become extremely mainstream in the last few decades across a range of cultures, especially western culture. Within modern society, pervasiveness is most visible amongst young adults, particularly college students. Anderson found that 20-60% of the college population have some form of facial piercing besides the regular ear piercing. Hein implied that girls aged 17-25 are most likely to have more than one piercing. They are now considered trendy and “Not just for bikers anymore”. Despite the increase in popularity in modern society, specifically the middle class, pierced individuals are still judged more negatively compared to non-pierced individuals (especially from older generations). These negative, stereotypical judgments result in stigmatization, as they are considered to have an attribute that is discredited by society.

A study aimed to establish a link between the effect of facial piercings and the perception of job applicants, illustrated that individuals with piercings are considered “less suitable due to the possession of more negative characteristics”, when comparing them to individuals without piercings; there was also no association between the responses given and the sex of the applicant or their job type, suggesting that the negative perceptions are generalized amongst both genders and regardless of the job role. However, the same study used a sample with the age range of 35-50, and so perhaps the age gap may affect the perception of younger adults. Chen, conducted a survey that suggested that 42% of managers aged 29-46 have an inferior opinion of a person with visible piercings and 82% said they would not hire anyone with visible piercings as “have the potential to display unacceptable behavior”. Similarly, credibility ratings of job applicants with stretches and/or nose rings were lower compared to those with a normal ear piercing or without any at all as they “may come off as unprofessional”. Furthermore, according to non-pierced individuals, those with piercings are more neurotic and more likely to display tough behavior due to sensation seeking and one of the explanations regarding this deviance in rating was due to previous negative stereotypes, that have influenced the feelings and behaviors towards that person.

Supporting the hypothesis that older adults are more likely to have more negative ratings than younger adults, is a survey conducted by McElroy, Summers, and Moore, exemplifying that those with multiple facial piercings have a more questionable character and are incapable of trust, due to their lack of emotional stability that makes their responses unpredictable and more likely to display behaviors such as anger outbursts, which is considered “unsuitable and inappropriate” in workplaces. Additionally, a study examining how patients aged 46 or older will view care providers with visible facial piercings, suggested that females are viewed as less reliable, professional, and approachable.

Aggression, defined as “an act intended to cause harm, pain or injury in another”, is a trait that has been previously associated with various stereotypes related to piercings and as mentioned above, affects the individual's life on a day-to-day basis. In 2006, an in-school survey conducted amongst middle-school-aged students in Canada, reported the association between facial piercings and gang affiliation, gambling, and career criminality norms. Previous medical literature conducted on piercings has demonstrated an increase in violent behavior, however, most of these studies have been conducted within prison populations and with patients in a psychiatric facility, bringing into question the nature/nurture debate as to how perhaps the environment may have led to the display of that particular trait. The same study also implied that those with multiple piercings are more likely to be viewed as hard-core drug (e.g. cocaine and ectacy) abusers. On that note, associations have extended to being a psychopath, pervert, psycho, having anger-management issues, and exhibiting risk-taking behavior. The work done by Wessel and Kasten infers that the tendency to self-harm/mutilate is more common in those with piercings and that they use it to “temporarily alleviate intense negative emotions…. a substitute for auto-aggressive acts”, a way of expressing anger; as well as symbolism for self-destruction. Nonetheless, similar studies conducted amongst high school students and professional young adults have not found any of those associations, supporting the theory that age differences may affect perception.

Nonetheless, this phenomenon can be seen up to a certain extent. Through self-reports and interviews, it was illustrated that those aged 65 and above never had a body piercing and were more likely to rate those with piercings more negatively regardless of their age, whilst younger people were more likely to perceive piercings in a positive manner.

Most studies examined reasons why individuals obtain piercings, associating them with certain emotional/personality traits but only a handful have focused on how the perception of these traits varies from one generation to another. This study aims to expand upon existing literature to see the development/change in perception of piercing in the modern time, particularly focusing on the association between piercings and aggression, despite the expansion of literature regarding the societal perceptions and motives towards piercings in western civilizations, there still seems to be a lack of understanding on the perceptual changes of these body modifications in other parts of the world. Since the prevalence for piercings is most common in adolescents, the sample used in this study involved students aged 18-25, increasing the internal validity of the procedure. Most of the studies mentioned previously used participants with older age and most of them have been conducted in Europe and the United States, affecting the degree of the generalisability.

Unfortunately, only a handful of studies have examined the role that personality traits, specifical aggression, contribute to this form of body modification, especially the stereotypical views of piercings and the association with gangs/criminals in movies, making it unclear as to whether those perceptions are influenced by movies or real-life situations. Sadly, the stigmatization and prejudice faced by individuals with piercings in certain work areas, including association with danger, concealability, and disruption, results in treatment difficulties in workplaces such as biases in performance evaluation, difficulty finding jobs, and low pay and benefits, and self-esteem issues. Also as most of the marketing-related activities in miscellaneous industries (retail, legal, medical etc..) involve direct interaction with consumers and use young/middle-aged people as their representatives, it is crucial to have a good understanding on how individuals with piercings are perceived, as well as the extent to which they are accepted, hence the importance for examining the attitudes of adolescents towards the practice of these body modifications and remove these stereotypes to equalize opportunities in regular and professional settings. Taken together, research has shown, as mentioned above, that although piercings have been allied with negative personality traits over the previous decades, perception varies from one generation to another. Thus, the hypothesis for the present study was that there would be a difference in the perception of aggression between pierced and non-pierced individuals in modern society.

Method

Design

A between-groups design and a two-tailed hypothesis is used to investigate the effect of facial piercings on perceived aggression. The presence of facial piercings was the independent variable. There were 2 conditions: condition 1 was the presence of facial piercings, and in condition 2, there were no facial piercings. The same faces were used in both conditions, with the exception of the presence of piercings on one of them. Perceived aggression, rated by both males and females, was the dependent variable.

Participants

Opportunity sampling was used to recruit 43 university students from Nottingham Trent University/ Nottingham City Centre (M age= 18.81, SD=1.35 , age range 18-25). The sample consisted of 23 females and 20 males. Pictures used on the PowerPoint slides were all university students, within the same age range, as other age groups may have been perceived differently, reducing the internal validity of the experiment. Also, all the participants doing the survey did not have any piercings, reduceing demand characteristics.

Materials

Two PowerPoint Presentations were used. The first PowerPoint consisted of 10 pictures of both genders with piercings and the second PowerPoint consisted of the exact same pictures but without piercings. Each picture was a size of (15.47x15.47cm macbook screen size) and so when presented in a slideshow format, it takes up the whole screen, ensuring the participants gets a good view of the facial features. Pictures of participants were recruited from a database called FigShare and the software used to edit the piercings on and off is called PhotoShop. Each slide was set, so that it only appears for 10 seconds before switching to a blank slide. A 1-5 rating scale was used to measure perceived aggression, with 1 being not aggressive at all and 5 being very aggressive. In order to reduce the impact of demand characteristics, participants were also asked to rate the degree of confidence and intelligence on the same scale.

Procedure

At the start, participants were given an information sheet and told to ask any questions they may have. They then entered a quiet room individually and were asked to sign a consent form. Participants were then allocated randomly to either condition (23 piercings and 20 non-piercings). Participants had 10 seconds to view each picture and then had to rate each of the 3 traits. They had a maximum of 15 seconds to rate all 3 traits before they moved on to the next picture. Participants did not have to press any buttons as the timer was automatically added to the PowerPoint. At the end, after data collection, participants were thanked and debriefed about the true aim of the study.

Results

An independent t-test illustrated that there was no significant difference in perceived aggression between the piercings condition (M=2.90, SD=0.62), and the non-piercings condition (M=2.62, SD=0.62) , t(0.99), p=0.0523. The figure below shows the results in a graphical form.

Discussion

This study aimed to test the hypothesis that there would be a difference in the perception of aggression between faces with and without piercings. However, the hypothesis was not supported by the data, as the use of the inferential statistic (t-test) to analyze the data, revealed that there was no significant difference between the two conditions. Despite the startling results, the results correlate with multiple investigations in the last decade. Older people aged 65 and above, are more likely to rate certain personality traits more negatively as they are unable to relate, whereas younger individuals are more likely to rate those with piercings the same way they would rate a non-pierced individual, suggesting that they do not differentiate and that these practices are being more adopted more by adolescents. Derick found that those without piercings are 30% more likely to be accepting of piercings compared to a study conducted in 2004. Likewise, through questionnaires and interviews conducted on undergraduate and postgraduate students, it was advocated that the majority of our current society, particularly in Europe and North America, accept piercings as a typical sensation. On top of that, the same study acknowledged that participants realize that attitudes towards piercings and the existence of certain forms of prejudice have significantly changed over the last few decades. Most middle-aged respondents consider piercings as a fashion statement or a representation of art rather than a symbol for group/racial identity and that is due to the increase in their prevalence, they are being adopted even more by adolescents from various social classes in the Asian culture. As a result, using 496 college respondents from a diverse range of colleges around the USA results from the survey proposed that the majority of the students do not have any negative attitudes or stereotypes towards an individual with piercings but that the society in general, especially people from previous generations continue to stereotype people with piercings. Also, 70% of the younger participants disagreed that people with piercings are necessarily “Promiscuous, likely to engage in substance abuse, tough, have a bad image or are more likely to be short-tempered”; supporting the theory that the acceptance rate is increasing, especially within younger generations.

Several limitations in the current study should be highlighted. Firstly, the sample population was quite restricted as the population was not sufficiently diverse to capture racial or ethnical differences in these practices and so future studies should take into account how different ethnic backgrounds may vary in judgment e.g. an Asian rating a dark-skinned individual with piercings; since prior research has implied that ethnic differences may have a significant impact. Also, future investigations should take into account how in this time, older people would view those with piercings, whether they are at a similar age or younger. Furthermore, the use of self-reports in the form of a rating scale may be bias and because it is unclear why participants have given those ratings, it could be implied that certain participants may give negative ratings to other people in general, affecting internal reliability.

In summary, results from this investigation evidence that individuals with facial piercings are not perceived differently in terms of aggression to those without piercings. This could be as a result of rock stars, popular sportsmen, and other icons of youth culture being very open about their piercings hence eliminating the majority of the negative stereotypes relating to aggressive behavior. Moreover, other reasons besides prevalence may affect perceptual judgments, therefore, future studies should take a more qualitative approach by examining the reasons behind those perceptual differences, specifically relating to aggression and aggressive traits, by gathering in-depth data during interviews to shed some insights regarding the extent to which those stereotypes still apply.