Self Concept, Objective Appearance and Profile Self Perception1

Abstract

The role of the self concept as a moderator of a person's perception of and satisfaction with her physical appearance was investigated. One hundred fortyeight mothers of orthodontic patients chose ideal male and female facial profiles from a group of drawings ranging from severely concave to severely convex. In addition, they completed a self concept questionnaire (Bills Index of Adjustment) and picked from the drawings the profile they felt most closely resembled their own. A silhouette photograph of each subject provided an objective profile. The inclusion of physical appearance as a variable demonstrated that there was no direct relationship between physical appearance and self concept. However, since profile perception was significantly related to both self concept and objective appearance, an indirect link through self perception may exist. In addition, the inclusion of physical appearance allowed the assessment of the accuracy of the subject's self perception. Fifty‐seven percent of the subjects were able to identify their profiles correctly. While self concept was not related to accuracy of self perception, it did relate to the direction of distortion in self perception for that subsample of subjects who had inaccurate perceptions of their profiles.