Predictors of Tendency Toward Cosmetic Surgery: Media Influences, Appearance Perfectionism and Investment

objective: this study aimed to examine factors influencing attitudes toward cosmetic surgeryamong university students. sociocultural attitudes toward appearance, physical appearanceperfectionism, and appearance investment were considered as predictors of tendency towardcosmetic surgery.methods: this study was a descriptive-correlative research. one stage cluster sampling wasutilized to collect data of 631 students (male and female), aged between 18 and 49 years (21.83± 4.09 y) of islamic azad university (from north, south, east, west, medical sciences anddentistry branches) with different degrees and majors during the first semester of 2013-14academic year. a 77-item questionnaire was utilized to measure sociocultural attitudes towardappearance, appearance perfectionism, appearance investment, attitudes toward cosmeticsurgery, and demographic data. first a pilot study was conducted on 30 students with similarability and background to the survey target population to obtain an assessment of the validityand reliability of the translated questionnaires in persian. a stepwise regression analysis wasutilized to address the prediction power of tendency toward cosmetic surgery.results: media influences as sociocultural attitudes toward appearance, appearance investment,appearance perfectionism through two ways; worry about imperfection and hope for perfection,which were significantly correlated to attitude toward cosmetic surgery. variables were notidentical for men and women apart from worry about imperfection subscale. furthermore,media influences, appearance investment, and worry about imperfection accounted for 27%of variance of positive attitude toward cosmetic surgery. hope for perfection as the secondsubscale of appearance perfectionism has no effect on predicting tendency toward cosmeticsurgery.conclusion: these findings suggest that a greater perfectionist tendency and psychologicalinvestment in physical appearance (among sociocultural attitudes toward appearance) predictmore favorable attitudes toward cosmetic surgery.