Hi Linzie,
?Hair also has social implications. It helps us determine age,
economic, intellectual, and marital status, as well as religious
affiliations. Hairstyles can signify conformity, for example, to army
regulations, monastic celibacy, or any group-determined aesthetic.
Hairstyles can also signify rebellion.?
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3687/is_199601/ai_n8755982
?Cultural definitions of feminine beauty vary with regard to body
size, skin complexion, hair length and color, and the use of
adornments. Although intrasocietal standards change over time, there
is usually a consensus as to what is in vogue. Observers' ratings of
attractiveness are quite reliable (Cross & Cross, 1971; Hatfield &
Sprecher, 1986). Concluding that Western ideals for female body shape
have fluctuated between full and slender figures, Mazur (1986) also
points to the rise of mass media as producing more homogeneous
standards of beauty.?
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_n1-2_v29/ai_14526341
?So, according to Hollywood, all blondes are dumb, shallow, and
intimidating. But when it comes down to it, blondes do not fit this
stereotype any more than anyone else. Perhaps we could say that
everyone else is shallow, to make such a judgment of someone?s
character based solely on the color of their hair. Only because they
are blonde must blondes disprove the unbecoming stereotypes put upon
them by society in order to be viewed by others not as mindless sex
objects, but as thinking, feeling, people. (You need to add a
paragraph about what blondes really are, using positive aspects. It
seems to me you focused soley on what blondes are not and I'm not sure
that was your initial intention)?
http://calper.la.psu.edu/cmc/wikis/englishcomp/ingestion/AnotherDumbBlonde
?This study was a replication of a previous study, ?First Impressions
and Hair Impressions: An Investigation of Impact of Hairstyle on First
Impressions? conducted by Dr. Marianne LaFrance (2000) of Yale
University. This replication was designed to gain substantial
information to see if professors tend to stereotype students with
specific hairstyles in the classroom.?
http://www.anselm.edu/internet/psych/theses/seniors2002/donadio/
?On the other hand, is the blonde preference cross-racial? Is it part
of a "peacock" effect where humans have no natural speed limit but
gorge their eyes on golden hair if possible? I am not so sure about
this. I would like to see data on whether isolated tribal people
prefer blondes to non-blondes. I read in
Journal of Ethnic Studies years ago that though Asian people admired
the light skin of Europeans, they were less impressed by blonde hair
and blue eyes [1]. In fact, the people of east Asia often portrayed
people with red hair and green eyes as witches and trolls (European
hair is as red as Chinese skin is yellow remember).?
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000246.html
??Is graying ever not premature to its victims?? (Hill 102) Gray hair
has become more than just a sign of aging these days but by 1984,
people with gray hair
were seen as victims assaulted unwittingly by terrible signs of aging.
How then would a woman who read Susan Brownmiller?s book entitled
Femininity feel that she
should retaliate against aging?by fighting back with a hair care product??
http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~cherie_rice/haircolorads&aging.html
? A trial is a onetime, costly experience for a client, and every
factor that jurors will notice, from the color of the attorneys ties
to the hairstyles of potential witnesses must be considered as
contributing to the overall perception jurors will have of a case. A
question we hear frequently is, Will involving women or minority
counsel in a trial be an advantage or a disadvantage for my case?
There is really no easy way to assess the potential impact of
these extralegal factors, such as the race or gender of the attorney,
on the jury. It may appear simple at first glance: we assume that
having a legal team that reflects the diversity of a community will
likely be an asset in a case, or that matching case type and lawyer
characteristics would be wise (for example, having an African-American
lawyer defend a race discrimination case, or a female attorney defend
a sex-discrimination case). As we will discuss, a juror?s
identification with counsel, or projection that counsel will have a
special understanding or sensitivity to a type of case, can be a
powerful factor in persuading that juror to hear your side of the
case. However, it is not a simple process to understand how an
African-American lawyer will be perceived by a predominantly
African-American jury panel as he or she defends a large corporation
in a sexual harassment case, or to predict how a female attorney
representing a small company will be viewed in a race discrimination
case. The key in evaluating potential jury perceptions is to evaluate
the context in which these factors are considered, in particular, the
interaction between jury make-up and expectations, case type and trial
team make-up and behavior.?
http://www.decisionquest.com/site/dqlib13.htm
?Do you prefer Farrah Fawcett's feathered hair? Or Jennifer Aniston's
do? According to a new study, most of us carry a torch for images that
were popular when we were in our early 20s, no matter how old we are.
Morris Holbrook, a professor of marketing at Columbia University in
New York, and Robert Schindler, a business professor at Rutgers
University in New Jersey, examined consumer nostalgia--defined as a
preference for products and images that were popular in the past but
can no longer be easily obtained.?
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_5_37/ai_n6213969
?Agents. The agents (see Figure 1) were designed and previously
validated to represent 4 different factors (gender: male, female; age:
older (~45 years), younger (~25 years); attractiveness: attractive,
unattractive; and ?coolness:? cool, uncool). Attractiveness was
operationalized to include only the agent?s facial features, whereas
?coolness? included the agent?s type of clothing and hairstyle. For
example, both of the young attractive female agents have identical
faces, but differ in ?coolness? by their dress and hairstyle. The
agents were
created in Poser3D. One male and one female voice were recorded for
all the agents using the same script. The audio files were
synchronized with the agents using Mimic2Pro. A single series of
gestures was added to the agents to complete the agent animation
process. A fully integrated environment was created using Flash MX
Professional 2004, which allowed for a web browser presentation.?
Pages 3-5
http://ritl.fsu.edu/papers/weng_aied_final.pdf
?Hairstyles and Attitudes - As interesting as this news might seem, it
pales in comparison to research conducted by the Gender Communications
Laboratory at Yale University on the subject of hairstyles and first
impressions.
Commissioned by Proctor & Gamble, the 2003 Yale study used women and
men of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds to test the cause and
effect relationship between "bad hair" and negative psychological
consequences.
Yale's findings:
1) Men who wear their hair short and flipped up in front, a la Matt
LeBlanc, are perceived by others as confident, sexy, and
self-centered.
2) Men with medium-length hair parted on the side are thought of as
intelligent, affluent, and narrow-minded. Great for the job interview,
bad if you're a civil liberties activist.
3) Long-haired Fabio types are received as least intelligent but most
good-natured. Bears of very little brain, as Winnie the Pooh might
say.?http://www.menessentials.com/oxid.php/sid/x/shp/oxbaseshop/cl/info/tpl/metrosexual_science.tpl
?Can women have it all? ? It appears that this is not the case, as the
study showed that any hairstyle (relative to base) increases a woman?s
perceived sexiness, but decreases a woman?s perceived intelligence. We
wonder how stereotypes start.
Short tresses = successes ? Women wearing short, tousled hairstyles
(think Meg Ryan and Charlize Theron) are seen as the most confident
and outgoing, an asset when meeting new people or starting a career.
Does length matter? ? It is no surprise that women with long,
straight, blonde hairstyles, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Christina
Aguilera, are perceived as the sexiest and most affluent. By contrast,
women with medium-length, casual-looking hairstyles, like Liv Tyler or
Sandra Bullock, are viewed as more intelligent and good-natured.?
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:INaDKtV4gNgJ:www.visual-makeover.com/hairstyle-advice/2005/09/06/a-new-hairstyle-will-change-more-than-your-looks/+hairstyles+%2B+psychology&hl=en
Race and Hair
==============
?The style of hair has also shown to be exceedingly important. In an
article merely labeled ?Last but not least? and appearing in
Perception in 2003, one face was duplicated so that there were three
identical copies and then different hairstyles, indicating three
distinct racial identities, were added to each copy. Surprisingly,
these different racially identifiable hairstyles were enough to sway
subjects? identification of the race to which each (identical) face
belonged. The presence of this racial marker is further evidence that
facial features alone do not determine identification of race.?
http://dscholarship.lib.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=undergrad
?That is, in the same way that we associate skin color, eye
color, or nose shape with particular races or ethnic groups, we also
maintain beliefs about the dialects, aesthetics, and mannerisms that
signal one?s race or ethnic status. For example, many people associate
a certain accent with Italian Americans and, based on this voluntary
marker,84 can identify the race or ethnicity of the speaker without
difficulty. Similarly, many people recognize that all-braided
hairstyles and dreadlocks are part of the cultural legacy of blacks
and may assume that a person wearing one of these hairstyles is
African American or of West Indian ancestry. These generalizations
extend to clothing as well. Saris, bindis and pashminas are associated
with Southeast Asian women, despite the fact that these items have
been remarketed by the American fashion industry for the women
generally.?
http://www.law.nyu.edu/journals/lawreview/issues/vol79/no4/NYU402.pdf
http://www.perceptionweb.com/perc0203/p5046.pdf
http://www.jsonline.com/bym/career/apr05/319828.asp
http://www.berkeleyrep.org/HTML/Season0304/YM_programnotes.html
A red head?s opinion:
http://www.whizkidtech.redprince.net/redheads/
Additional Articles
====================
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/courses/beauty/web4/amartin.html
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/154/12/1636
http://www.bookrags.com/history/popculture/hairstyles-bbbb-01/
http://www.levity.com/markdery/ewen.html
http://barneygrant.tripod.com/p-erceptions.htm
http://www.mongoliatoday.com/issue/8/haircut.html
http://www.seniorwomen.com/hfs/hf_beauty.html
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/hairstyl.htm
http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v5p652y1981-82.pdf
http://www.acidlogic.com/uber_blondes.htm
http://www2.uiah.fi/projects/metodi/155.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,56219,00.html
http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/nsfall99/labpacketArticles/DraftII.Societysdefinitio.html
http://www.jyi.org/volumes/volume6/issue6/features/feng.html
http://www.tribalarts.com/feature/lawal/
A book that may interest you:
http://www.holtzbrinckpublishers.com/academic/book/BookDisplay.asp?BookKey=1879996
?A large body of research has found that we perceive faces that are
closer to the average as more beautiful than distinctive faces. We?ve
written about one such study here, but even more surprisingly other
experiments have found that the pictures rated most beautiful are
computer composites of several different faces, a true ?average? face.
But an average face in Bangkok is different from one in Nairobi, which
is again different from the average face in Kansas City. There is no
one ?average? face ? it depends on what faces you?re averaging
together. Perhaps we actually arrive at a conception of beauty simply
by averaging together the faces we see around us ? maybe we don?t have
an innate sense of beauty, but instead learn it from our environment.?
http://cognitivedaily.com/?p=86
You MAY be able to access these articles from a library:
========================================================
Powell, Margaret K. (Margaret Ketchum), 1947-
Roach, Joseph R., 1947-
· Big Hair
Subjects:
· Hairstyles -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.
· Hair -- Social aspects -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century.
· Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 18th century.
Abstract:
With regard to hair in the fashionable performance of everyday life
during much of the eighteenth century, size mattered. Looking
particularly at the Augustan theatrical periwig and the rage for
"making a head" in the 1760s and 70s, as documented by Horace Walpole
and his contemporaries in words and images, we examine the dialectic
of conformity and novelty that produced some of the most extravagant
uses of human hair and its falsifying substitutes in history, quoted
but not surpassed by the bouffant craze of the 1950s and 60s. What
anthropologists call "social hair," as the part of the body that can
be most readily and flexibly shaped, vividly signifies performance in
publicly defined roles, at no time more informatively than when it is
at its biggest.
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/eighteenth-century_studies/v038/38.1powell.pdf&session=50121231
?A person's gender plays a role in the emotion children attribute to
that person, even given unambiguous cues to a basic emotion. Eighty
preschoolers (4 or 5 years of age) were asked to name the emotion of
either a boy (Judd) or a girl (Suzy) in otherwise identical stories
about prototypical emotional events and, separately, as shown with
identical prototypical facial expressions. Boys more often labeled
Judd than Suzy as disgusted, both in the disgust story and with the
disgust face. There was also a trend for girls to label Suzy as afraid
more often than Judd, both in the fear story and with the fear face.?
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/merrill-palmer_quarterly/v048/48.3widen.html&session=50121231
?Abstract The present archival study examined the depiction of
women's beauty in our society with respect to hair color, especially
blondeness. Raters reliably categorized the hair color of cover models
for two women's magazines (Ladies Home Journal and Vogue) and for
Playboy magazine centerfolds from the 1950s through the 1980s. These
media images from 750 observations were compared among magazines,
among decades, and in relation to the proportion of blondes in a
normative sample of adult White women. Results revealed that the
percentage of blondes in each magazine exceeded the base rate of
blondes in the norm group. Blondes were more prevalent in Playboy
centerfolds than in the women's magazines. Although temporal patterns
varied from magazine to magazine, the average proportion of blondes
was lowest in the 1960s and highest in the 1970s. The study's findings
have numerous implications for social issues and research regarding
the psychology of physical appearance.
The authors wish to thank Jill Grant for her assistance in conducting
this research.?
http://www.springerlink.com/(5jtd2t45y4415tuwnbhygfyq)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,7,9;journal,42,225;linkingpublicationresults,1:401600,1
I hope this has helped you. I will be happy to clarify anything in
this answer, before you rate. Simpy request an Answer Clarification,
and I will respond as soon as possible.
Regards, Crabcakes
Search Terms
=============
social implications + hairstyles
perception + blonde + brunette + hairstyles
blondes perceived + society
perception of beauty |
