本人在悉尼留学，奇怪问什么澳洲人大部分都会纹身而中国人却对纹身的态度不甚好。本着对社会现象的好奇，以真实调查写出如下报告。字字出自本人笔下，绝无抄袭，忘大家对观点及语言问题多多提出意见。
Abstract
This research aims to prove the hypothesis that the attitudes of eastern people toward tattoos and the reason for getting or not getting a tattoo are different from western people. The study was conducted with 50 Asian overseas students who were learning English in Navitas Australia. A questionnaire was used to investigate their attitudes towards tattoos. The results of this study showed that there is some difference between the eastern and western people’s attitudes toward tattoos. A possible reason of these results could be that there are some differences between the eastern and western culture, and these differences could influence the opinions of people.
Introduction
It is acknowledged that tattoos and body piercings are creating a special culture. It helps people to show their personal style and ideas. In many western countries, getting a tattoo has became a very popular behavior. Tattoos can be seen frequently on young people’s body in these countries. Even though some holds the opinion that some kinds of tattoo look violent and scary, others believe that many kinds of tattoos are representations of fashion and character. Therefore, the attitudes of western people towards tattoos are not always negative. However, getting a tattoo would bring problems to individuals health, so there are some who do not support getting a tattoo. Previous research looked at the attitudes of western people toward tattoos.
Several pieces of research have investigated people’s attitudes towards tattoo and body piercings. According to (Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, & Koch, 2002), the majority of people with a tattoo obtain it because they want to express themselves and most people believe that getting a tattoo will acquire negative comments from family. Braverman (2012) found that most of people treat the individuals with a tattoo normaly. Also, Braverman believes that with the increasing number of adults report having tattoos, this permanent body art is becoming more accepted. According to Totten, Lipscomb, & Jones (2009), being more attractive could be the main reason for getting a tattoo.
以中文概括我研究的结果就是，跟我一开始预想的完全不同，中国人对纹身的接受程度早已随着社会的发展而逐步与西方接近了。也就是说，纹身在中国已经不会遭到discrimination了，而是同样被视为一种展示个性的代表。
However, on the other side of the world, tattoos cannot be accepted easily. In some eastern countries, such as china most people keep a distance from the people with tattoo. Also, in some other countries, such as Thailand, even though tattoos are treated as good wishes which mean living forever or a kind of protection, they still cannot be seen everywhere. The reason of this phenomenon could be complex. None of the previous research looked at this question.
This study aims to determine whether eastern people’s attitudes towards tattoos and body piercings are different from western people’s attitudes and find he reasons of these differences. The hypothesis of this research is that eastern people will have different attitudes towards tattoos and body piercings compared to western people in terms of their reasons for getting a tattoo or not and their perception of people with body adornment.
The finding of this research should be useful to Comparative Cultural Historian for understanding the difference of culture between eastern and western world and make people to treat the individuals with tattoo and body piercings more objectively.
Methodology
This research aimed to find the differences of attitudes toward tattoos and body piercings between western and eastern people.
On 23rd November 2012, 50 Asian overseas students were interviewed by a questionnaire. This sample group includes 25 male and 25 female students who come from Asian countries, such as China, Thai and Korea.
The questionnaire was answered in Navitas English School. There were 12 questions o n it including 3 personal information questions and 9 closed-ended questions. The personal information questions included gender, nationality and age. The 9 closed selection question involved the perception and reasons for either getting or not getting a tattoos with two or more selections. For ensuring the accuracy of the results, every interviewee was required answering every question and choosing only one selection.
After that, the results was collected and rebuilt in 3 graphs. Then, this information will be anglicized and compared in the following research.
Results
The pie chart shows the students’ perceptions of likelihood of deviant behaviour among people with tattoos.
The results indicated that most students believe that people with tattoos would be less likely to be deviant than others. And, the gap between the students with three opinions is not big.
According to the graph while the minority of students (28%) believe that people with tattoos would be more likely to be deviant than others. The total number of students with this opinion is very close the number of students (30%) who hold the opinion that tattoos would not influence the feeling from others toward tattoos’ owner. Also, there are 42% of students believe that people with tattoos would be deviant more likely.
The reason for getting a tattoo Male Female
Rebellious 2% 1 0
Sexy 6% 2 1
Strong 12% 5 1
Attractive 52% 9 17
Healthy 0% 0 0
No special reason 28% 8 6
This bar chart shows the students’ percentage of reasons for getting a tattoo. There were six reasons considered in this research.
It is clear that most interviewees believe that getting a tattoo would make them looks more attractive. By contrast, there was none who think that tattoo is a sign of good health.
Students who would get a tattoo to make them appear more attractive account for 52% of the total number. There are 28% students who believe that getting a tattoo does not need any special reason. There are a few students who think that having a more rebellious style would be the reason for getting a tattoo, which is the second least group of the total samples. Also, 12% of students think getting a tattoo would make them look strong, and 6% of students hold the opinion that they would get a tattoo because they want to become more sexier. In addition, the number of ‘strong’ group is twice the size of the number of ‘sexy’ group.
The graph 3 shows the reasons of hesitation about getting a tattoo. It describe the percentages of students with different ideas about why they do not getting a tattoo.
The researcher gave the interviewees four selections to choose, which are ‘Tattoo would be permanent mark’, ‘The cost of getting a tattoo’, ‘Negative comments from family’ and ‘Possible health problems’. The mainly finding of the results is most students would not get a tattoo because tattoo would be commented negatively be family.
According to the graph, there are 46% students would never get a tattoo as the family factors who organize the biggest sample group in this question. The costs of getting a tattoo also make 6% of students to give up the idea about getting a tattoo. But these students are only a minority part of total number. Also, there are 28% of students afraid of getting a tattoo because tattoo would become a permanent mark. And, the health problems which would be produced by getting a tattoo lead 20% of students escape from tattoo.
Discussion
The hypothesis is that eastern overseas students will have different attitudes towards tattoos and body piercings compared to western people in terms of their reasons for getting a tattoo or not and their perception of people with body adornment. The findings of this survey support in part the hypothesis that the attitudes of eastern and western people toward tattoos are not completely same. Most people can treat the behaviour that getting a tattoo normally. However, the reasons of eastern and western people for getting or nor getting a tattoo are not totally same. The result shows that they focus on different areas.
The first finding showed that most people do not think people with tattoos are more likely to do something most people would consider deviant. The consequence from first finding was corroborated by Braverman’s (2012) study with a little different details. He found that 74% of samples believe that tattoo would not influence the viewpoint of people towards the individuals with tattoos. It means that they belive that people with tattoos would not look more deviant than others. It is samiliar with the finding of this reasearch that 72% of overseas students do not think people are more deviant than others. Moreover, Totten, Lipscomb, & Jones (2009) found that only 11.6% inviewees believe that a person with a tattoo is aggressive. One possible reason of this result could be that with the development of Asian society, eastern cultural has mixed with the western cultural. It would lead to the aethestic standard of the young gerneration become more like western people. It could make the attitudes of eatern people toward people with tattoos become more positive than before because the attitudes of most western people toward tattoos are positive.
The second finding of this research is that most eastern overseas students believe that having a tattoo would make them attractive and look strong. Also most eastern overseas students hold the opinion that if they get a tattoo, there is no special reason for it and it is true according to the results of this research. In Braverman’s (2012) study, the result showed that the largest percentage of people say a tattoo makes them feel more sexy (30%). Schorzman and et. Al. (2007) found that the majority of the sample want to be more fashionable through getting a tattoo. According to a these resluts, ‘sexy’, ‘fashionable’ and ‘strong’ can be included in ‘attractive’. Therefore, the results of this study and previous research are similar. The possible reason of this phenomenon could be that there are a number of sexy and handsome moviestars or fashionable artist with a tattoo. Therefore, the public could think that having a tattoo could make them as attractive as these celebrities. Celebrities could be examples of beaty, handsomeness and attraction and the desire of people around the world toward becoming more beautiful or handsome is similar.
The last finding of this study is that negative comments from family could be the main barrier toward getting tattoos. In previous research, Armstrong, Owen, Roberts, & Koch (2002) found that the people who worry about that a tattoo would be permanent marking occupy 80% of the result. This difference between eastern and western people could be cultrual factors. Eastern people could pay more attention to the perspective from their family and western people attach great importance to their feel towards an item such as a tattoo. The possible reasons of it could be that most young people still live with their parents after marry in China. Therefore, they have to pay more attention to family factors. Compare to the eastern people, most western live independly after 18 years old, so they can make the dicission by theirselves and do not need to care about the perspectives form others.
This study discovered that the attitudes of eastern people towards tattoos are different form western people. Even though most eastern people could treat individuals with a tattoos normaly as western people, the reasons for getting a tattoo and the barrier to getting a tattoo are not competely same. It shows that cultural difference could inlfluence people’s selections and decissions.
As a limitation of the research, there was a small sample group that 50 Asian overseas students was utilized. Therefore, the data is limitated, and it can not completely represent the most eastern people’s opinions. The future research should find a larger sample group which should include more Asian countries’ people and it should be all age range group. Also, if the people with tattoos can occupy a half of a sample group, the results would more objective. And, the attitudes of eatern people toward body pericings should be considered in the future study.
Reference
Anne E. Laumann, M. M., & Amy J. Derick, M. (2006). Tattoos and body piercings in the United States: A national data set.
Armstrong, M. L., Owen, D. C., Roberts, A. E., & Koch, J. R. (2002, 10). College Tattoos: More Than Skin Deep. Dermatology Nursing , pp. 317-323.
Braverman, S. (2012). One in Five U.S. Adults Now Has a Tttoo. Harris Interctive.
Cindy M. Schorzman, M., Melanle A. Gold, D., Julie S. Downs, P., & Pamela J. Murray, M. M. (2007, 10). Body Art: Attitudes and Practices Regarding Body Piercing Among Urban Undergraduates. JAOA , pp. 432-438.
Totten, J. W., Lipscomb, T. J., & Jones, M. A. (2009, 7). Attitudes toward and strereotypes persons with body art: implications for marketing management. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal .
QUESTIONNAIRE ON ATTITUDES TOWARDS TATTOOS
Gender: □ Male □ Female
Nationality: ____________________
Age: □ under 18 □ 19-24 □ 25-30 □ Over 30
1. Have you ever gotten a tattoo?
□ Yes (Go to Q2) □ No (Go to Q3)
2. How many tattoos do you have?
□ Once □ 2-3 □ 4-5 □ more than 5
And, do you ever regret getting tattoos?
□ Yes □ No
3. Do you think people with tattoos are likely to be deviant (not usual and unacceptable behavior)?
□ More likely □ Less likely □ No difference
4. Would you like to have tattoos to decorate yourself in the future?
□ Yes □ No
5. Do you think people with tattoos are :
□ More likely to commit crime
□ Might be not polite and lack of public etiquette.
□ too self-decorated
□ Offensive (just perceived negatively)
□ do not have negative perceptions
7. What factors could be a reason for getting a tattoo?
□Rebellious □Sexy □Strong □Attractive □Healthy □No special reason
Go to backside of this paper.
8. What factors would make you hesitate about getting (or obtaining another) a tattoo?
□ Tattoo would be permanent mark
□ Negative comments from family
□ The cost of getting a tattoo
□ Possible health problems
□ None of the above.
9. What is the purpose for getting (or obtaining another) a tattoo?
□ Express myself
□ Feel Unique
□ No important reasons
□ Be Myself, I don’t need to impress anyone.
Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey
[ 本帖最后由 252353 于 2012-12-31 23:19 编辑 ]
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