Abstract
Despite the voluminous literature on the physical attractiveness variable, little research has considered the psychosocial processes involved in self alterations of appearance (i.e., grooming behavior). The present study examined individual differences in a largely sex-specific facet of grooming, facial cosmetics use among women. Seventy-five female college students completed the Cash Cosmetics Use Inventory, which assesses the quantity and the situational-dispositional pattern of cosmetics use. Subjects completed personality measures of sex-role identity, sex-role attitudes, social self-esteem, and locus of control. Higher-quantity users were found to be more sex-typed on bipolar but not unipolar sex-role identity, somewhat more profeminist in attitudes, and less external in locus of control for achievement success. Women who were more situationally variable in their pattern of use did not differ in sex-role identity but were more liberal in sex-role attitudes and more internal vis-a-vis affiliative outcomes. These results are discussed in the context of sex-role theory, impression management, and new directions for a psychology of physical appearance.
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