Abstract
Our aim in the present study was to identify key components of physical appearance among young Thai women. Free listings, focus groups and pile sorting were used. One-hundred twenty young women generated 78 unique physical appearance characteristics. Ninety-four nursing students validated these characteristics in focus groups and then sorted them into piles that reflected separate domains of physical appearance and labeled them. Salience analysis revealed that facial appearance (e.g., bright facial skin, high nose bridge, big eyes) was the most important domain, followed by body weight and shape, skin color and texture, hair (color, texture, length), and ‘other’ physical appearance (e.g., slender neck, slim fingers). This is the first study to identify aspects of physical appearance that are most salient to young Thai women and that may differ from women in other cultural contexts. These findings could be used to develop culturally grounded measures of physical appearance in Thai women.
Highlights
Salience of Physical Appearance Characteristics among Young Women in Thailand Physical appearance concerns are prevalent among women in most countries (Cash & Henry, 1995; Demarest & Allen, 2000; Hayashi, Takimoto, Yoshita, & Yoshiike, 2006; Jaeger et al, 2002; Polivy & Herman, 2004; Wardle, Haase, & Steptoe, 2006) including Thailand (Thianthai, 2006, 2008)
In Western cultures, physical appearance concerns in young women are tied predominantly to body weight and shape (Annis, Cash, & Hrabosky, 2004; Brown & Dittmar, 2005; Markus, Hamill, & Sentis, 1987) with some young women developing a core identity related to body weight and shape that contributes to negative affect (Corte & Stein, 2005) and disordered eating behaviors (Stein & Corte, 2007, 2008)
We found that women in the North placed the most importance on facial skin; women in the Central region placed the most importance on body weight and shape; women in the Northeast placed the most importance on facial features; and women in the South placed the most importance on body skin color
Summary
Salience of Physical Appearance Characteristics among Young Women in Thailand Physical appearance concerns are prevalent among women in most countries (Cash & Henry, 1995; Demarest & Allen, 2000; Hayashi, Takimoto, Yoshita, & Yoshiike, 2006; Jaeger et al, 2002; Polivy & Herman, 2004; Wardle, Haase, & Steptoe, 2006) including Thailand (Thianthai, 2006, 2008). We found that women in the North placed the most importance on facial skin (bright face skin); women in the Central region placed the most importance on body weight and shape; women in the Northeast placed the most importance on facial features (oval face, big eyes, and high nose bridge); and women in the South placed the most importance on body skin color (white or white pink [body] skin) Those findings provided evidence that young women from different regions of Thailand place different emphasis on aspects of physical appearance, which supports the need for culturally grounded measures of physical appearance that take into account these regional differences
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