"I'm getting too old for this stuff"

The conceptual structure of tattoo aesthetics
Publication date
2021-08-12
Document type
Forschungsartikel
Author
Organisational unit
DOI
URI
Publisher
Elsevier
Series or journal
Acta Psychologica
ISSN
Periodical volume
219
Article ID
103390
Is part of
Peer-reviewed
✅
Part of the university bibliography
✅
Language
English
Keyword
Aesthetic appeal
Conceptual structure
Aesthetics
Beauty
Tattoo
Abstract
While body modifications have increasingly gained acceptance and popularity, how different subpopulations aesthetically appreciate tattoos remains unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the conceptual structure underlying tattoo aesthetics, focusing on the effects of internalized social norms and expertise. Using a timed free-listing task, three groups (≤49 years, ≥50 years, and experts) comprising 497 participants were asked to write down adjectives that could describe tattoo aesthetics. Statistical analyses of frequency, cognitive salience indices, co-occurrence dimensions, semantic dimensions, similarity measures, and valences were applied and, to directly compare the three groups, a generalized Procrustes analysis was applied. The variance and complexity with which individuals verbally expressed their perceived aesthetic appeal of tattoos were highlighted. However, the results do not reveal a unified concept of beauty, nor do they present a clear bipolar dimension of beautiful/ugly for two of the three groups. Nevertheless, the concept of beauty was found to be prominent in tattoo aesthetics, and aesthetic and descriptive–evaluative dimensions were identified, with terms such as beautiful, ugly, multicolored, and interesting being the most notable adjectives, although not with the highest valence. Possible factors explaining the intracultural differences between the three groups are also discussed.
Version
Published version
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