The Rising Tide of Individuality: Facial Piercings

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Recommended: Individuality and group conformity

Individuality is becoming a rising tide and it is changing everything about life as we know it. People are starting to care less about conformity and the rules of society. They are starting to focus more on what it means to be free and also what it means to be an individual. Standing out and being different is a major part of individualism. Some people chose to stand out by being creative and doing creative things such as getting facial piercings, which are also known as body modifications.

Body modification has been around for centuries, most people get either piercings or tattoos as a form of art expression. Piercings’ have evolved greatly, with new techniques such as the spectrum piercing which is a piercing of the cartilage between nostrils. The lip piercing is a piercing that penetrates the lips or the area surrounding the lips. A micro dermal implant which is a surface piercing that usually only has one exit point, and looks like a single stud.

Since body modification is on the rise we wanted to know whether or not facial piercings would affect chance of employment. We also wanted to know if individuals with facial piercings are seen as less professionally competent and less friendly.

In result to a similar study on piercings and hireability conducted by John Seiter and Andrea Sandry (2003), when an individual is wearing a nose ring the hireability rate decreased when wearing a nose ring. Their results also indicated that the job seekers credibility ratings decreased as well when wearing facial jewelry.

Attractiveness and intelligence are important factors of hireability; recent studies show that facial piercings can affect these traits. A team of researchers focused on how observers perceived indiv...

... middle of paper ...

... for the participants to understand who they were rating.

In conclusion from this study I learned that wanting to be an individual has many repercussions’. Society does not respect self expression; it is surprising how a simple but yet removable piercing can affect many futures.

Works Cited

Seiter, J. S., & Sandry, A. (n.d). Pierced for Success?: The Effects of Ear and Nose Piercing on Perceptions of Job Candidates' Credibility, Attractiveness, and Hireability. Communication Research Reports, 20(4), 287-298.

Newman AW, Wright SW, Wrenn KD, Bernard A. Should physicians have facial piercings? J Gen Intern Med. 2005;20(3):213–8.

Swami V, Stieger S, Pietschnig J, Voracek M, Furnham A, Tovée MJ, The influence of facial piercings and observer personality on perceptions of physical attractiveness and intelligence

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