APPEARANCE PERFECTIONISM, SATISFACTION AND CONCERN WITH APPEARANCE AS FACTORS OF LOOKISM ACCESSIBILITY IN EVERYDAY INTERACTION

ABSTRACT

Background. One of the prominent tasks of the psychology of physical appearance is to investigate the factors influencing the growth of lookism accessibility during communication. The researchers stress various cultural, social-psychological, and personality factors that impact lookism [4]. In spite of the central role of physical appearance in lookism development little research was conducted scrutinizing the interplay of appearance perfectionism, satisfaction and concern with own appearance in these processes. Named socio-psychological and personality aspects reflect the importance and functional value of physical appearance as well as an individual’s attitude towards own appearance. In the frameworks of developed approach [6] a complex structure of physical appearance as well as connections between its different components are considered. Further on, we suggest that in contrast to the concept of bodily perfectionism [3], [13]. the concept of appearance perfectionism is more suitable due to wider range of appearance components incorporated [12], for example, direction of perfectionism tendencies, attitude towards appearance including satisfaction and concern with own appearance. Therefore, we define lookism accessibility as tendency to physical appearance change. Hypothesis. Interplay between appearance perfectionism and satisfaction and concern with appearance impact the tendency to appearance change as indicator of lookism accessibility growth. Participants. The participants were 41 males and 82 females aged from 20 to 35. Methods. The questionnaire “Attitudes towards Own Appearance: Satisfaction and Concern“ consisted of three scales: 1) “Concern with Appearance”; 2) “Satisfaction with Appearance”; 3) “Tendency to Appearance Change” [5] and the Appearance Perfectionism Scale (APPS) [12] were administered. Results. The correlation between appearance perfectionism, satisfaction and concern with appearance is significant. Appearance perfectionism and satisfaction with appearance are associated with tendency to appearance change. Conclusions. The growth of lookism accessibility during everyday interaction defined as tendency to appearance change is dependent on interrelations between appearance perfectionism and satisfaction with appearance.

Keywords: appearance, concern and satisfaction with appearance, appearance perfectionism, tendency to appearance change, lookism