Factors that influence attitudes toward women with tattoos

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3463-5704

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Sex Roles

Publication Date

1-1-2004

Volume

50

Issue

9-10

First Page

593

Last Page

604

Keywords

Attitudes toward women, Sexism, Tattoo

DOI

10.1023/b:sers.0000027564.83353.06

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to examine undergraduate students' attitudes toward women with tattoos. A basic scenario was written to act as the base description and the control stimulus. The independent variables "size of tattoo" and "visibility of tattoo" were manipulated. Attitudes were measured using the Semantic Differential (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1958), which was presented after the scenario. The Neosexism Scale (Tougas, Brown, Beaton, & Joly, 1995) and the Feminism and the Women's Movement Scale (FWM; Fassinger, 1994) followed. In our sample, 23% of women but only 12% of men were tattooed, which supports recent claims that women may be more than 50% of the individuals currently obtaining tattoos. Men and women both had more negative attitudes toward a woman with a visible tattoo than toward the other women in the descriptions. The size of the tattoo was a predictor of evaluation only for men and women who did not have tattoos themselves. Finally, participants with more conservative gender attitudes evaluated all women more negatively, beyond the effects already accounted for by gender differences. Future research directions are offered.

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