A new research has found that women would keep on trying different creams, supplements and plastic surgery to look younger, even when the treatment does not work.
Professor Brett Martin and Dr Rana Sobh are the two researchers who found that the women, who used these treatments to look younger, were trying to hide a ‘feared self’. They have an image of themselves as being old and wrinkled.The study was carried out on 297 women aged from 27 to 65 years. It was found that they were more motivated to persist with special diets, vitamins, creams, Botox or plastic surgery if they believed these had so far failed to make them look significantly younger.
In order to avoid the feared self, the women would keep on trying especially when they feel that they are failing, but once they succeeded their anxiety lessened and they stopped trying.
Professor Martin, of the University of Bath, UK, and Dr Sobh, of Qatar University, found that of those women who felt that the treatments they were taking were not working, 73 per cent wanted to continue using them. Among those women who felt the treatments were working, only 45 per cent wanted to continue.
“This study is more evidence for the belief that when someone is thinking negatively about themselves, and they try and fail to improve their situation, they will be motivated to try again,” said Dr Sobh, of Qatar University’s College of Business.
“How women imagine themselves in the future has a strong effect on how motivated they are to keep using a product or service such as creams or other treatments for ageing.
“When people dwell on a negative future, they are motivated by fear, yet as they move away from this feared state – say a wrinkled skin – they become less motivated to carry on using a product or service,” he added.
Professor Martin, carried out a study on men and women using gyms, and found that both had similar ideas.
“This doesn’t just apply to women – men have a similar psychology about using a gym to get fit and look good,” he said.
Professor Martin said that as people became happier with their bodies, so they entered a more positive frame of mind. In this state, they became more strongly motivated by success and not by failure, as before, something the researchers believe marketers should bear in mind when selling their products.
Of the 297 women in the study, in the previous year:
37 pct had used a special diet
61 pct had used vitamins
48 pct had taken a sauna
96 pct had used moisturising cream
75 pct had used anti-ageing skin care products such as lotions or gels
70 pct had used a mini-facial such as an exfoliant or peeling cream
48 pct had used in-salon treatments such as facials or light therapy
3 pct had used treatments by doctors such as lasers, Botox, chemical peeling
0.25 pct (1 person) had had a face-lift.
Source-ANI
LIN/P
