Association between sexual orientations of individuals and perceptions of tattooed men

Effects of gender, self-rated attractiveness, and mate value on perceptions tattoos

“…Our study aimed to investigate the extent to which tattoos alter social perceptions of both the self and others, taking into consideration individual differences, and expanding on previous research by Ziomkiewicz (2017), andGalbarczyk et al (2019). This previous research neglected to take into consideration individual variation in tattoo ownership of the participants, nor their self-rated attractiveness and mate value, factors that could influence the judgment of traits important in a mating context.…”

“…This difference may have been because of the nature of our tattoo manipulation. In our study, we used a rather large tattoo as the modification, and included three levels of tattoo, rather than the one small tattoo as in Ziomkiewicz (2017), andGalbarczyk et al (2019). It may be that there is an upper limit to the size of tattoo that is perceived as most masculine on a male.…”

“…We excluded from analysis individuals who identified as 'other' gender as it was not possible to make meaningful comparisons with the sample size. Since we were specifically interested in heterosexual individual's attitudes towards tattoo ornamentation (and Galbarczyk et al's, 2019, finding that sexuality has an effect on tattoo perceptions), we also excluded nonheterosexual participants.…”

“…Future research should determine whether women's tattoos also serve a signal of immunocompetence, and what social signalling value women's tattoos possess, given tattoos appear to be associated with various masculine traits. With that said, this research was able to expand on the research ofGalbarczyk and Ziomkiewicz, and Galbarczyk et al (2019), demonstrating that women's individual differences affect their judgements of men with tattoos.Acknowledgements: none.…”

“…Hence, individual variation in the observers is likely to affect perceptions of others with tattoos. While Galbarczyk et al (2019) have expanded on their research and demonstrated that gender and sexual orientation also have an effect on perceptions of tattooed men, there is a dearth of research exploring the effects of individual differences in observers on perceptions of men with tattoos. This is of particular importance, given that men with tattoos may be seen to possess both positive (health, mate value) and negative (aggressiveness, dominance) characteristics, depending on the context of the judgement.…”