Girls Tolerate Girls, men condemn men: Gender differences in the impact of beautification strategies on trustworthiness and morality evaluation

It's not just women who aspire to enhance their appearance; it's a universal human desire. An increasing number of men are gradually embracing beautification strategies as well. The impact of gender on perceptions of strategies users remains uncertain. This study focuses on the role of gender in beautification strategies and their influence on trustworthiness and morality evaluations. It aims to analyze the role played by both the gender of evaluators and the gender of targets, while also comparing the differences between the two most popular beautification strategies, makeup and cosmetic surgery, in shaping trustworthiness and morality evaluations. The results revealed male participants demonstrated a stronger negative bias towards these users, particularly male users. On the other hand, the research revealed that females exhibited greater tolerance when evaluating same-sex makeup users. Conversely, males gave more negative evaluations to same-sex strategies users. Furthermore, the results showed morality and trustworthiness evaluation for beautification targets was predicted by evaluators' acceptance of cosmetic surgery. This study not only contributes to the existing literature on gender differences in beautification strategies but also offers a gender-based perspective to help reduce the stigma associated with these strategies.