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Is “What Has Been Cared For” Necessarily Good? Further Evidence for the Negative Impact of Cosmetics Use on Impression Formation 1
Author(s) -
Huguet Pascal,
Croizet JeanClaude,
Richetin Juliette
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02796.x
Subject(s) - impression formation , psychology , physical attractiveness , attribution , attractiveness , social psychology , stereotype (uml) , perspective (graphical) , human physical appearance , personality , impression management , impression , cosmetics , big five personality traits , precedent , social perception , perception , advertising , medicine , business , public law , pathology , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , computer science , psychoanalysis , law , political science
The effects of cosmetics on impression formation were tested with students from either psychology or business and aesthetic schools. They were presented photographs of young and older female targets wearing or not wearing facial makeup and rated them for both physical attractiveness and a number of personality traits. In contrast with Graham and Jouhar's (1981) idea of a positive cosmetic stereotype, makeup had a negative impact on impression formation, especially for the young targets. More consistent with these authors' perspective, this impact was not mediated by attribution of physical attractiveness (PA), suggesting the existence of a separate cosmetic stereotype (relative to the PA stereotype). The influence of makeup was also stronger on the psychology undergraduates than on the other participants, suggesting that the way cosmetic users are perceived also depends on perceivers' group membership.