The psychology of cosmetic procedures: Why people get them + the effects

hi everybody welcome or welcome back

again happy new year is actually

december 31st as i am filming this today

as you probably know we're talking about

the psychology of cosmetic procedures

specifically what scientific studies

have to say about the types of people

that get cosmetic procedures and the

psychological effects if you're

unfamiliar with me i'm anna i am a

clinical psychology doctoral candidate

and so i will only be looking at

peer-reviewed journal articles

references will all be in this

description box below so check that out

if you want to read them on your own and

after i walk you through the studies

that i looked at i'll tell you about how

i personally make sense of these

findings and so stick around for that

either way you know before we get

started no judgment here if you are or

aren't someone that does cosmetic

procedures i honestly do not care i'm

just looking at the scientific

literature on this to help you make the

most empowered choice for yourself so

first let's talk about the people who

get cosmetic procedures why do people

say that they get cosmetic procedures

typically it's because they desire an

improved appearance and the benefits of

an improved appearance there's something

called the halo effect which is where

people who are perceived as more

attractive have more advantages such as

being perceived as more intelligent

competent kind funny you think of it and

of course i do think there's a limit to

this i think after a certain point of

attractiveness

most people tend to veer more into envy

than into actually liking the person but

that's another story but people with

distorted self-image want to fix

problems that others do not perceive

and bdd is actually estimated to be a

play in about seven to fifteen percent

of those who seek cosmetic procedures

some correlated variables with people

who undergo cosmetic procedures one is

of course body dissatisfaction it stands

to reason that if you're dissatisfied

with your body you're going to try to do

things to fix it body dissatisfaction is

essentially the feeling of discrepancy

between your actual body and the ideal

body as you see fit young women who are

satisfied with their bodies are the

least likely to desire bodily change and

that certainly makes sense if you feel

good about yourself or if you know the

things that you don't like about

yourself don't really have that much of

an impact on your life of course you're

probably not going to go to the extreme

cost and length of getting your body

significantly changed lower self-esteem

is also correlated with people who get

cosmetic procedures as well as higher

rates of mental health issues

prospective cosmetic surgery patients

tend to have higher rates of mental

health problems depression anxiety

self-harm si substance abuse and eating

problems on average they have more of

these mental health problems than

non-patients weight is also correlated

with who tends to get cosmetic

procedures both heavier and lower

weights are correlated with trying to

get cosmetic procedures so it's kind of

a u-shaped bell curve between your

desire for a cosmetic procedure and your

weight it kind of makes sense if you are

at a very large weight that's obviously

something that is very stigmatized and

shamed in our society so of course those

people are going to feel very distressed

and want to change their body and if you

are at a very low rate there is a higher

possibility that maybe you have a

restrictive ed and that that could be

part of the reason why you are seeking

to further change your body bullying and

teasing are also associated with wanting

to get cosmetic procedures because they

are correlated with worse body image and

depression

and there are some personality variables

at play a study by takatsuji and

colleagues found that people who have a

facial deformity and seek cosmetic

solutions start off with higher levels

of hysteria on the mmpi scale that's

basically just attention seeking

behaviors is pretty correlated with

having physical complaints about your

body cycasthenia which is just the

tendency towards distress the tendency

towards mental health issues and social

introversion as well as depression

although arguably some of these are more

symptoms than personality traits i

didn't find as much on personality as i

would have liked to another really

important predictor is social media

exposure in a study by walker and

colleagues in a study of 118 young women

aged 18 to 29 years old they wanted to

see whether

exposure to social media images where

the people involved had facial cosmetic

enhancements would increase the desire

for cosmetic surgery among the

participants and the results showed that

yes viewing images of women who have

undergone cosmetic enhancements did

cause the women who saw that to also be

more prone to seeking cosmetic

enhancements and this was especially

true if they spent a significant amount

of time on social media

if they followed a lot of accounts and

if they were less satisfied with their

appearance in conclusion how can we make

sense of this women who are unsatisfied

with their appearance and spend a lot of

time on social media especially looking

at images of surgerized women have a

higher chance of seeking cosmetic

procedures themselves it kind of makes

sense if you have a daughter or you know

a young woman that you care about it's

probably wise to talk about the risks of

surrounding yourself with

unnatural beauty standards i say

unnatural because some people say

unrealistic is a stigmatizing word

because a body can't be unrealistic if

someone has it but certainly it can be

unnatural in the sense that it has been

modified by man and if you find yourself

having a poor body image it's probably a

good idea to limit the amount of time

that you spend on social media and the

types of images that you surround

yourself not surrounding yourself with

very triggering images again this is

kind of common sense and gender is also

obviously very correlated with people

who want to get cosmetic procedures

women are overwhelmingly the ones that

seek out cosmetic enhancements many

studies don't even explain why it is

that they're primarily speaking about

and exploring women specifically some

mentioned that they were trying to look

more globally regardless of gender but

they just didn't have enough male

participants but the bottom line is this

women get it worse when it comes to

beauty standards and other general

social stress such as having to worry

about safety in public spaces

experiencing sexism and so on but

although men who undergo cosmetic

procedures are a minority they basically

have the same predictors as women lower

ratings of body image satisfaction

increased amount of time watching media

increased amount of time on social media

higher degrees of masculine gender role

stress so anytime someone is very

preoccupied with being either very

feminine or very masculine that is

usually sometimes a warning flag that

something's gonna go wrong because in

these very rigid gender roles if you

deviate even slightly from what's

accepted of you there's a lot of shame

associated with that so in general i

think it's pretty healthy for people to

not super super strongly identify with

the gender role so that was all about

the types of people that go into

cosmetic enhancements and now let's talk

a little bit about the effects of these

procedures do they make things worse or

better people who get these procedures