Tattoos and Ratings of Personal Characteristics Nicole Deann Price Vanguard University

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Tattoos and Ratings of Personal
CharacteristicsNicole Deann PriceVanguard
University
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Purpose The purpose of the present study was to
examine systematically the effects of the
presence of a visible tattoo on the upper arm of
a woman in a color photograph on ratings of
personal characteristics of the woman in the
photograph.
Tattoos and Ratings of Personal Characteristics
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Literature

• attitudes toward tattooed individuals are
  generally more negative than attitudes toward
  nontattooed individuals
• negative attitudes are often accompanied by
  negative overt behavior (persons with tattoos are
  less likely to obtain employment)
• most of the studies that have examined attitudes
  toward those with tattoos have been descriptive
  or correlational studies, making it difficult to
  state clearly that tattoos cause negative
  attitudes

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Independent Variable

• Tattoo Condition
• Photo of woman with visible tattoo
• Photo of woman with no visible tattoo

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Dependent Variable

• Ratings of Personal Characteristics
• athletic
• attractive
• honest
• religious
• intelligent
• artistic

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Hypothesis
The woman with visible tattoo will be rated lower
(more negatively) on all personal
characteristics, compared to ratings of the woman
with no visible tattoo.
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Participants
112 Orange County public high school students (39
boys, 73 girls) 50 traditional undergraduates
from private, Christian university (19 men, 31
women) 34 School for Professional Studies
undergraduates from private, Christian university
(6 men, 28 women)
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Participants
High School Students Mean age 16.6
yrs Traditional Undergraduates Mean age 19.2
yrs SPS Undergraduates Mean age 36.2 yrs
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Participants
14.3 (n 28) of participants had one or more
permanent tattoos 16.1 of high school
participants 12 of traditional
undergraduates 11.8 of SPS undergraduates
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Materials
Photos Ratings Scale
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Materials
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Materials
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Materials
DIRECTIONS For each of the following items, how
would you rate the woman pictured on the
preceding page? Please circle one number. You may
look back at the picture as often as you
like. 1. Very Unathletic 1 2 3 4 5 Very
Athletic 2. Very Unattractive 1 2 3 4 5 Very
Attractive 3. Very Unreligious 1 2 3 4 5 Very
Religious 4. Very Unintelligent 1 2 3 4 5 Very
Intelligent 5. Very Unartistic 1 2 3 4 5 Very
Artistic
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Testing Setting
Participants were tested in intact classes (four
at Edison High School, two at Costa Mesa High
School, one at Vanguard University in the
traditional undergraduate program, and three at
Vanguard University in the SPS program).
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Procedure
Participants first provided written informed
consent and were told that the study was designed
to investigate the ways in which people make
judgments about other people.
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Procedure
Participants were told that they would first be
filling out a survey, indicating how much they
agreed or disagreed with each of a series of
statements. Participants were also told that
following the completion of the survey, they
would be looking at a photograph and then rating
the person in the photograph on a number of
characteristics. After completing the ratings
of the person in the photograph, participants
completed a demographic checksheet.
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Results
Dependent Variable Ratings of attractiveness
(higher ratings reflect judgments of greater
attractiveness)
Model with Tattoo M 2.67, SD 1.01 Model
without Tattoo M 3.02, SD 0.98 t(194)
2.432, p .016
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Results
Additional Dependent Variables The following
table presents the results for additional
dependent variables. Variables marked with an
asterisk () were statistically significantly
different between tattoo and no tattoo conditions.
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Results (Incomplete)
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Conclusions
Major finding The model without the tattoo was
rated significantly more attractive, intelligent,
artistic, athletic, motivated, generous,
mysterious, artistic, and honest than the model
with the tattoo.
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Conclusions
Relation to earlier studies Although Durkin and
Houghton (2000) reported effects of tattoos on
judged attributes using line drawings, we believe
that our study is the first to demonstrate an
effect of visible tattoos on ratings using actual
photographs of an individual with or without a
visible tattoo.
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Conclusions
Limitations Because we used one female model and
one specific tattoo on one body location, our
results cannot be generalized to male models or
even to all female models. Suggestions for
future research Research must be done to explore
whether, and under what conditions, a models
pose, clothing, facial expression, or other
characteristics may moderate the effects of a
visible tattoo.