Chapter 7 Flashcards
Voluntarily adopted aspects of physical appearance:
Hairstyles, clothing makeup, and body art.
Involuntary aspects of physical appearance:
Height, size of one’s nose, shape of one’s eyes, or visual disabilities.
What is a blend of both voluntary and involuntary aspects of physical appearance?
Body weight.
Why is body weight both voluntary and involuntary?
People can choose how much physical activity they participate in, but physiological, social, and biological factors can also influence outcomes.
Body Projects
The ways each of us adapts, changes, or controls characteristics of our bodies and whether those characteristics are voluntary or involuntary.
What are the four categories of body projects?
- Camouflaging projects.
- Extending projects.
- Adapting projects.
- Redesigning projects.
Camouflaging Projects
Body projects that reflect normative processes learned through socialization. Makeup, clothing, hairstyle.
Extending Projects
Body projects that attempt to overcome physical limitations. Contact lenses or cane.
Adapting Projects
Body projects that involve removing or repairing aspects of one’s body. Weight loss, muscle building, and laser hair removal.
Redesigning Projects
Body projects that involve fundamental, lasting reconstructions of bodies. Plastic surgery, tattoos, and body piercing.
What does appearance tell us objectively?
Characteristics of individuals involved in particular body projects, such as their age, sex, socioeconomic status, family structure and functioning, academic performance, personality, and psychopathy.
What does appearance tell us subjectively?
Self, identity formation, and how people come to understand themselves and attribute meaning to their physical appearance.
What are the two noteworthy types of body projects that affect physical appearance?
- Redesigning projects, usually body art or body modification.
- Adapting projects related to body size or body weight.
Master Status
A category we immediately place people in upon first seeing them, which subsequently defines who the person is.
What makes master status significant?
The auxiliary traits we attach to them. For example, assuming that handicapped people are a strain on society, or assuming that obese people are lazy.
Why was body modification frowned upon by Europeans?
They were part of the “primitive” nature of other cultures.
What did body modification serve as in different cultures?
Rites of passage, ritual initiations, or symbols of sexuality.
Where was body modification prominent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?
At carnival side shows.
Why did tattoos leave the carnival community and enter the society at large?
Changes in attitudes towards tattooing.
How were tattoos viewed in the 1950’s?
Established means of symbolizing masculinity and brotherhood in working-class communities and the military.
How were tattoos viewed in the 1960’s?
Criminal communities adopted tattooing, with male convicts, motorcycle gangs, and street gangs using tattoos to symbolize membership and allegiances.
How were tattoos viewed in the countercultural eras of the 1960’s and 70’s?
Youth subcultures used tattoos and other types of body modification as “collective representation” of their subcultures and political/social ideologies.
Commodification of body modification:
Range of tattoo-related products targeted at children. Can obtain a tattoo in a shopping mall.
Among youth, which gender is more likely to have tattoos and piercings?
Females.
What two central issues are emphasized in the objective view of body modification?
Risk and motivation.
How is body modification viewed in terms of risk?
The presence of tattoos and piercings is associated with a broader range of risk. Those with tattoos are perceived as riskier.
In the past, studies have shown that tattoos are correlated with the following risk factors:
- History of physical, sexual, and mental abuse. Emotional abandonment.
- Single-parent homes, low income, low education of parents, peers who use substances.
- Poorer attitudes toward school, lower educational aspirations, weapons possession, substance use, delinquency, and poor self esteem.
What is calling into question the research that shows that tattoos are associated with specific risk factors?
The fact that there is a growing prevalence of body modification in university and university populations.
Is it conclusive that there is a link between body modification, low self-esteem, and subclinical psychopathy?
No.
Those with tattoos have lower self-esteem. True or false?
False, they typically have higher self-esteem.
What are some possible harms with body modification?
Bacterial infections, Hep B and C, cracked teeth, and problems with X-Rays.
Name some motivations for body modification:
- Aesthetics.
- Pursuit of identity (social or individual).
Why do people get tattoos for aesthetic purposes?
They think that body modification is attractive to the opposite sex, referring to their modifications as beauty, fashion, or art.
How would body modification further a social identity?
May symbolize affiliations with particular groups and contribute to the development of social identities. Can serve as indicators of group affiliations, especially in prison, in motorcycle and street gangs, among elite collectors of tattoos, the straightedge youth subculture, modern primitives, and cyberpunks.
How would body modification further a personal identity?
People wish to express themselves or feel unique. Particularly prevalent among youth.
How would a subjectivist view body modification?
Bodies are not perceived as telling us about the characteristics of individuals who have tattoos or piercings (objectivist), but rather telling us about the development of understanding and meaning, processes of social interaction, and structures of power.
The ___ viewpoint examines identity as the cause of body modification, while the ___ viewpoint examines identity in terms of understanding the self.
Objectivist, subjectivist.
Which type of researcher would investigate the role of body modification in understanding and developing meanings of the self in relation to others and within a broader societal and cultural framework?
Subjectivist.
Body projects are integral in constructing and and representing identity over the life course. What does this mean?
The physical body reflects the individual’s understanding of self and society.
Even though body projects are integral and constructing individual identities, how are they social?
The self is not purely individual in nature, but emerges through processes of social interaction. Those we interact with influence how we understand ourselves and our places in the world.
How is body modification related to our “front-stage” and “back-stage” selves?
We choose the image we want to project, and whether we want body art to be part of that image.
If parents disapprove of body art, what are two reactions?
- To place them in discrete areas with more acceptable symbols.
- To use body modification as a form of protests against the parents.
How do interactions with peers affect those who get body art?
The make them feel better about their decisions and provide validation of self.
How is body art treated in the workplace?
It is kept hidden because of sanctions or because people are concerned about threats to their professional image.