If you want to know how a woman thinks, just examine her cosmetics bag, according a group of psychologists from Russia who tried to identify how a women's choice of cosmetic products offer insights into her personality.
This unusual investigation carried out by researchers from the Institute of Psychology (Russian Academy of Sciences) under the guidance of Tatiana Rebeko reveals that a women's preference to beauty creams with certain properties is connected with her personality strains.
The psychologists determined from the study involving 28 womenaged between 22 and 65 that properties of these creams tell something about how their owner copes with stresses, finds a way out of conflict situations and also about the person’s self-appraisal.
The researchers call it the “structure of feminine identity” or the "realization of oneself as a woman".
The psychologists studied websites and catalogues of the leading cosmetic companies to single out basic useful properties of creams produced by them and 39 such properties were united into six groups: protection, purification, treatment, nourishment, antistress and ageing prevention.
To avoid getting wrong answers on such a delicate subject the women were required to represent “a unique cosmetic cream” by describing its properties “on behalf of a well-known cosmetician” in a game situation.
The researchers wanted to understand what merits, in their opinion, “an ideal cream” should possess.
Then the outcomes of this “presentation” was matched with results of psychological tests, which had been offered to the women under investigation.
The tests were intended to assess ways of getting out of a conflict situation, means of coping with fear and the self-appraisal.
The results showed that preference to the category of “protection” properties is the evidence of psychological vulnerability and internal proneness to conflict, emotional response to arising problems and impossibility to apply for help to other people.
The women who prefer the “purification” category are disposed to move their personal problems outside as if “purifying” from them while the ones who believe that “antistress” properties are important, would get particular pleasure from relaxation after fatigue.
The “treatment” category is particularly important for women of advanced age while the women who consider “nutrition” to be the most important are rational and successfully cope with resolving problems in a stressful situation.
The researchers acknowledge that results interpretation has some limitations, but still, the method allows to consider the attitude towards the skin to be a self-definition feature and reflection of relations with the outer world.
The skin (being the border of our body) is the boundary between our “self” and “non-self”, the researchers explained.
As for a woman, the attitude towards her skin reflects the attitude towards herself and other people, Rebenko concludes.
Post new comment