Real versus ideal: How selfies drive young women’s endorsement of beauty ideals to enhance cosmetic surgery intentions

With the prevalence of photo-editing apps, young women nowadays often present ideal but unnatural beauty images in their selfies posted on social networking sites. In view of the possible impact that exposure to the enhanced selfies might have on women’s beauty image concerns, there are campaigns like #Filterdrop and #Nomakeup advocating presenting natural appearance in selfies and promoting acceptance of natural beauty. This study aims to investigate the impact of viewing enhanced (i.e. idealized) selfies, natural (i.e. unaltered, makeup-free, and enhancement-free) selfies, and a mixed set of both (i.e. idealized selfies and natural selfies appear alternately) on young women’s beauty standards and their intentions to alter their appearance. The research involved a between-subjects experiment conducted among 428 young women in the United States. The findings indicate that the more enhanced selfies young women saw, the more they believed others endorsed the cultural beauty ideals. The perceived beauty standards were associated with the young women’s personal beauty standards and their intention to take cosmetic surgery in real life.