Be Beautiful! Social Representations of Beauty and Aesthetic Surgery In Young People From Three European Countries, Brazil and China

We present key results from a wider research program on the interrelated social representations of beauty and aesthetic surgery in 948 university students in Arts, Information Technology and Sports from EU countries (Italy, Spain, Romania), Brazil and China. The data - explored through multi-step cross-analyses - are based on a multi-method research plan, inspired by the “modeling approach” to S.R. (de Rosa, 2013), including: a) “Associative Network”, using “Female/Male Beauty “ and “aesthetic surgery” as inductive words; b) Involvement Level scale; c) Self –Attractiveness Scale; d) Self Identification Conceptual Network. The results highlight cultural sharing and differences in the interrelated social representations of beauty and aesthetic surgery in terms of values systems, contents, attitudinal, emotional and experiential dimensions in geo-cultural contexts, where body culture and the diffusion of the aesthetic surgery shape various meanings and social practices.