Dr. Furnham

"We were interested to what extent all these things predicted whether they were likely to use or go for cosmetic surgery," study coauthor Adrian Furnham, DSc. D.Phil., professor of psychology, University College London, tells Cosmetic Surgery Times.

SELF-PERCEPTION & MOTIVATION Using a structural equation model and looking for patterns in the data, Dr. Furnham and colleagues found the first predictor of cosmetic surgery acceptance was self-rated attractiveness, with subjects being more likely to consider cosmetic surgery if they rated themselves lower in physical attractiveness. And, like others, these researchers found that women were more likely than men to consider having cosmetic surgery.

The authors also reported that students who were emotionally stable were more likely to consider cosmetic surgery. According to the research, it may be the case that more neurotic people are anxious about the consequences of cosmetic surgery and focus on potential negative effects, such as pain.

'AVANT GUARDED' "We found that people who are more creative, curious and imaginative are less likely to consider cosmetic surgery, possibly because they are not so conformist," he relates. "We also found that more disagreeable people are more likely to consider plastic surgery."

According to the study published by Swami et al (2009), "Extrapolating from this evidence, it might be suggested that closed individuals have a more negative appearance evaluation (possibly as a function of their lower likelihood of accepting unconventional societal norms of attractiveness...)." There was not a strong finding for introversion and extroversion.

"What this literature says is that the sort of person who comes to plastic surgery is rather a conformist, rather conservative, not very creative — not necessarily very likeable — but...is rather accepting of society's values," Dr. Furnham says.

These findings might be more dramatic in the same study done on older people because college students are less likely than their older counterparts to be interested in or want cosmetic surgery, according to Dr. Furnham. This study does underscore, he says, the degree to which young people are very physically conscious of themselves and others.

References

Henderson-King D, Henderson-King E. Acceptance of cosmetic surgery: Scale development and validation. Body Image. 2005;2:137-149.

Swami V, Chamorro-Premuzic T, Bridges S, Furnham A. Acceptance of cosmetic surgery: personality and individual difference predictors. Body Image. 2009;6:7-13. Epub 2008 Nov 28.