Shifting (un)concerns in considering appearance important among Finnish adolescents and young adults

Abstract

<p><span>Due to hyper-visual culture, the importance of physical appearance has allegedly grown among young </span><span>people. Given the role of appearance in socialization and identity formation, understanding how appearance-</span><span>related values vary by gender, age, and socio-economic status is crucial for exploring their impact on social </span><span>inequalities and cultural norms. Using Finnish youth survey data from 2005 and 2019 (</span><span>N</span><span> = 3343) and </span><span>ordinal logistic regression, we examine whether there is a change in self-reported importance of one’s own </span><span>appearance according to survey year, gender and age, and whether parental socio-economic status plays </span><span>a role in appearance-related values among 15- to 29-year-old Finns. Our findings reveal that indifference </span><span>towards the importance of appearance has in fact increased. Overall appearance importance has not risen, </span><span>but rather become more pronounced among certain social categories, such as young men whose parents </span><span>have vocational or university education. The alleged significance of appearance regimes may manifest </span><span>more in forms of self-expression and social belonging among youth, rather than being strictly tied to the </span><span>perceived importance of physical appearance, thereby hindering the reported importance of appearance. </span><span>We conclude by discussing the differences between appearance pressures and appearance importance.</span><br></p>