The role of beauty as currency belief in acceptance of cosmetic surgery and career aspirations among Chinese young women

ABSTRACT

The current study tested the “beauty as currency” hypothesis in the framework of Objectification theory with a sample of Chinese young women. Four hundred and four college women completed a pencil-and-paper questionnaire. We hypothesized that beauty as currency would be associated with acceptance of cosmetic surgery and career aspirations through the serial meditation of self-objectification and body surveillance. The results indicated that self-objectification and body surveillance mediated the relation between women’s belief in beauty as currency and acceptance of cosmetic surgery. Body surveillance mediated the relationship between beauty as currency and career aspirations. These findings provide further evidence for the “beauty as currency” hypothesis, suggesting the feminine beauty ideology may lead to women’s higher acceptance of cosmetic surgery and lower career aspirations via the self-objectifying process. Our study provides some implications for understanding the effect of women’s ideologies on gender system change.

KEYWORDS:

• Acceptance of cosmetic surgery
• body surveillance
• beauty as currency
• career aspirations
• Chinese women
• self-objectification

Compliance with ethical standards

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/mha9b/.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge for Open Materials. The materials are openly accessible athttps://osf.io/mha9b/.

Notes

1. The materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/2gequ

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wenjing Wang

Wenjing Wang is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology at Wuhan University and the City University of Hong Kong, China. She has research interests in the areas of gender issues, feminism, and body image.

Xiaobing Zheng

Xiaobing Zheng is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology at Wuhan University and the City University of Hong Kong, China. She has research interests in the areas of time perspective, happiness study, and body image.

Xiaodong Yue

Xiaodong Yue is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the City University of Hong Kong. He has published extensively in the areas of cross-cultural study and positive psychology. He also has research interests in the area of body image.

Nian Zhong

Nian Zhongis a professor in the Department of Psychology at Wuhan University and City, China. He has published widely in the areas of cultural psychology, and marriage study. He also has research interests in the area of gender study.