Beauty is in the mind of the beholder- A study of expressions and impressions of tattoos

Sammanfattning: This study focuses on what people with tattoos want to convey to others, and how the message is perceived by the surroundings. It also explore if people perceive the personality of the tattooed people as themselves describe, and if the tattooed people perceive others' reactions to their own tattoos. A group of 20 people watched photos of tattooed people and stated how they perceived these by using the markings on a Likert- scale. Similar questions had previously been given to the Models in the pictures so that the answers could later be compared. Viewers 'mean were compared against the models' response, correlations and Mann Whitney Test was done on different groups within the viewers. The comparisons showed that in general there did not exist big differences between the models answer and viewers' understanding about the message of the tattoo or on personal characteristics. The models' perceptions of others' reactions to their tattoos agreed a lot with the viewers' response. There are significant differences between women's and men's perceptions and between younger and older people's perception. There are also significant relationships between perceived negativity and repudiation, between perceived stubbornness and that the tattoo reflects the model's personality and between wanting to express a feeling and personal value with the tattoo.