THE INFLUENCING FACTORS PRESSURING THAI WOMEN ON DECISION MAKING ON BEAUTY AND APPEARANCE TRANSFORMATION

Abstract

Modern society has set a high competitive standard for what is considered beautiful. Women in Thai society today are being exposed to many more alternative ways to look more attractive through beauty products and beauty technologies. They have a change in perception favoring the western aesthetic values because they believe that western facial features have no flaws. The objectives of the research on the influencing factors pressuring Thai women toward beauty and appearance are 1) to understand Thai women’s perception about physical appearance in the modern Thai society, 2) to identify whether the internal and external factors surrounding their lives influence their attitude toward beauty, 3) to measure the extent of women’s behavioral change in modifying their images. Thus, this study tested whether the internal variables: culture, self-esteem, personal achievement as well as the external variables: social pressure, media, and attraction to the opposite sex make women desire to look more attractive. The method for this study is a quantitative approach using a questionnaire survey with a random sample of 400 people aged 22-35 living in Bangkok. The analysis of the study shows that the media, budget and aesthetics are the most influencing external environmental factors for women to have the desire to look more attractive (R2= 0.118). The correlation is the most positive between media, aesthetic, budgeting, and makeover (the level of desire women want to become more beautiful).

The findings imply that the external environmental influence is more related to women’s attitude toward beauty and appearance in comparison to the psychological factors. The level of behavioral change that women would go through is not as extreme as to go through beauty cosmetic plastic surgery. This indicates that women in the modern day give a lot of concern on their appearance resulted from the external or environmental influence especially from the media.