CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

We all know that physical and emotional consciousness is one of the dilemma of

teenagers nowadays, limited to boys but more primarily to the girls. They feel insecurities

that can lead to this consciousness. That is why most of the girls put make-ups to hide

their flaws. The conscious professes can be operationally defined and it has been proved

that consciousness can be researched as a variable (Baars, Banks, Newman, 2003;

Brazdau & Mihai, 2011)

Physical Consciousness is what a human being is conscious of sensing with its

physical senses while awake in the physical world. It refers to the ability of being

conscious of the body and organism, and of the physical elements of the environment. In

human frame, the spirit-force resides in the innermost core and thus covered by subtle

mind and gross matter. The consciousness of the outermost layer-the body and that of the

external world-the world as evidenced by the senses is physical consciousness. An

individual conscious on the plane of outermost layer of the soul identifies itself with the

physical body, and is conscious of thoughts of that body and the outside world. Mental

Consciousness is the ability of being conscious of one’s own ideas, thoughts and mental

processes. It refers to the cognitive consciousness. Emotional Consciousness describes

the ability of being conscious of one’s own emotions and feelings, and generally, to be

conscious of any emotional feeling. It is consciousness of one’s emotional state. Social –

Relational Consciousness refers to the ability of being conscious about human

relationships and the connections with the people you interact with (Brazdau et.al 2011).

1
 Putting or wearing makeup doesn’t make you less of a woman. Stop stereotyping

women, like “Women should be proud of their bare face.”, “Women should not wear

makeup because simplicity is beauty”. We wear makeup to express ourselves, we wear

makeup to show off our creativity, we wear makeup to highlight our features that aren’t

visible, we wear makeup because it makes us comfortable with our own skin, and we

wear makeup because it gives us more confidence. We don’t wear makeups to impress

guys, we don’t wear makeup to hide our natural look, and we don’t wear makeup to hide

our imperfections (Sunpongco, 2018).

According to Bading, (2007) most of the girls use baby powder on their face.

Only a handful or girls wear lip balm/lip gloss. But then again our school was strict

(Catholic) we weren't allowed to wear makeup.

Flores (2018) said the Junior High School students who use makeups or trendy

personal necessities such as lip and cheek tints that they must lessen the use of these

products because it will not help them in their studies. She added that they can still use

those products if there are school activities but for her “it can damage their face since

they are still young”.

The researchers want to conduct this study because they want to collect more

information about physical and emotional consciousness of Grade 10 students in Iligan

National High School in year 2018. Besides, researchers also want to hear the Grade 10

students’ point of view regarding to the use of trendy personal necessities such as lip and

cheek tints in everyday life.

2
 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This study aims to determine the physical and emotional consciousness of Grade 10

students of Iligan National High School Batch 2018-2019 and the reasons why they use

trendy personal necessities. The researchers want to satisfy the following:

1. What is the demographic profile of students in terms of:

a. Age

b. Gender

c. Grade level

2. Do personal necessities help Grade 10 students of Iligan National High School in:

a. Physical consciousness

b. Emotional consciousness

3. What are the personal necessities of Grade 10 students of Iligan National High

use before going outside?

4. What are the different insights of student regarding;

a. Physical consciousness

b. Emotional consciousness

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

Stated below are the objectives of the study:

1. To determine the demographic profile of students in terms of: a) age, b) gender

and c) grade level.

3
 2. To determine if personal necessities help Grade 10 students of Iligan National

High School in a) physical consciousness and b) emotional consciousness.

3. To determine the personal necessities of Grade 10 students of Iligan National

High use before going outside.

4. To determine the different insights of student regarding;

a. Physical consciousness

b. Emotional consciousness

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study is important because the researchers will able to determine the physical

and emotional consciousness towards trendy personal necessities of Grade 10 students in

Iligan National High School in S/Y 2018-2019. Stated below are the beneficiaries of this

study:

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH (DOH). The DOH will benefited because this study will

determine the reason/s how trendy personal necessities improve the self-esteem of

teenagers.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION (DepEd). This study would benefit the department of

education in a way that it will give them an awareness, especially to the new trends

consumed by the students and teachers. Through this study, they could create

memorandums that is anchored in the needs of people, and somehow would be beneficial

to both parties.

4
BRGY. POBLACION, LUPI, CAMARINES SUR. The Brgy. Poblacion, Lupi,

Camarines Sur will be benefited because most of the teenagers in this community buy

trendy personal necessities which can result to higher gross domestic product.

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS. The junior high school teachers will be

benefited because this study will determine the reason/s why most of their students,

always look at the mirror after the subject and put powders, lip tints, and other personal

necessities before going out the classroom. Not only that, senior high school department

will also be affected because this study will identify how powders, lip tints, and other

personal necessities change the students’ level of self-esteem and perception.

PARENTS. The parents will be benefited because this study will determine the reason/s

why their child/children always request for money to buy new trendy personal

necessities.

JUNIOR HIGH STUDENTS. The students will be benefited because this study will give

information about the pros and cons of using trendy personal necessities.

RESEARCHERS. The researchers will be benefited because this study will give

knowledge not only for them but also for everyone about using trendy personal

necessities. Also, they will be benefited because this study will determine the cause and

effects why most of the teenagers are conscious physically and mentally. By this, other

researchers can make better solutions and make possible ways how to improve the self-

esteem of teenagers suffering from this consciousness.

FUTURE RESEARCHES. This study will become the future reference of other students

who are undertaking similar research work.

5
 SCOPE AND DELIMITATION

This study was connected to determine the physical and emotional consciousness

of Grade 10 students towards trendy personal necessities in Iligan National High School

in year 2018. The main focus is to prove that Grade 10 students in Ilagan National High

School located at Poblacion, Lupi, Camarines Sur has a physical and emotional

consciousness towards trendy personal necessities. Grade 10 students will be the

respondents of the study. There are 30 respondents in the study, and the researchers

properly distributed the samples: 15 male students and 15 female students.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

This study will focus only on Grade 10 students of Iligan National High School

S/Y 2018-2019 located at Poblacion, Lupi, Camarines Sur. Aside from it, there would be

some cases where the exact perception of the students will not be recorded due to the

impact of time to them and fine judgments.

ASSUMPTIONS

This research study is anchored on the assumption;

1. The demographic profile of students varies.

2. The different perceptions of students towards global necessities varies.

3. The personal considerations in terms of physical and emotional awareness of

students varies.

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 CHAPTER II

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Consciousness- awareness of the person around him/her.

Dilemma- problem which teenagers face.

Insecurities- self-doubt of a person.

Subtle- profound mind covering the spirit-force.

Makeup- tools used by most of the girls to make themselves look more presentable.

Imperfection- flaws of a person.

Insight- opinion of respondents in physical and emotional consciousness.

Inescapable- refers to inevitable face about consciousness.

Rapprochement- harmonization between consciousness and physical.

Dysfunction- socially impaired

Cognizant- refers to a knowledgeable mind if human beings develop self-awareness.

Femvertising- women purchasing products such as makeups that gives bigger

opportunity to marketers.

Snags- difficulty which everyone creates for themselves.

Self-esteem- confidence that a person feel.

7
 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter introduces and gives review of related literature and related studies

that touch upon the today’s reading of learnings. The fine insight and ideas gained from

this review provided the researchers appropriate and satisfying observation that advocate

and assist the presents study.

According to Max Velmans (2009), consciousness is personal. Indeed it is so close

to the core of our being that it has puzzled thinkers from the beginnings of recorded

history. What is it? What does it do? How does it relate to the physical world and to the

workings of our bodies and brains? At the dawn of the new millennium answers to these

questions are beginning to emerge. However there is not one mind/body problem, but

many. Some of the problems are empirical, some are conceptual, and some are both. This

book deals with some of the deepest puzzles and paradoxes.

Also according to him, our conscious lives are the sea in which we swim. So it is

not surprising that consciousness is difficult to understand. We consciously experience

many different things, and we can think about the things that we experience. But it is not

so easy to experience or think about consciousness itself. Given this, it is common within

philosophy and science to identify consciousness with something smaller than itself, for

example with something that we can observe, such as a state of the brain, or with some

aspect of what we experience, such as ‘thought’ or ‘language’. Being conscious is central

to being human – and an understanding of consciousness has to be reflexive.

Traditionally, the puzzles surrounding consciousness have been known as the ‘mind–

body’ problem. However, it is now clear that ‘mind’ is not quite the same thing as

8
‘consciousness’, and that the aspect of body most closely involved with consciousness is

the brain.

This is related to the researchers’ study because it stated that consciousness is

personal therefore, it is not surprising that it is difficult to understand.

EMichel6888 (2017) said that everything we know or experience is through

consciousness. Without consciousness there is no reality. Every argument that could

possibly make, will be made from a perspective of conscious observation. It is the most

basic inescapable fact. The irrefutable truth stands before yet refuse to see it.

If the facts make uncomfortable, can choose to live in denial, but that does not change

this most basic empirical fact. That also does not mean that nothing is real, or that we

should ignore cause and effect. On the contrary, all it does is provide insightful

perspective on the nature of reality, and how consciousness must be fundamental.

Consciousness is the fundamental nature of reality, any theory that denies this fact is utter

nonsense. It is almost as if we believe that we are somehow separate from the universe,

some alien consciousness placed here at some finite point. But the truth is we are literally

the universe contemplating its own existence. It may appear that we just got here recently

into a cold empty void. However the fact that we are here at all should tell us something

about the ultimate nature of reality. Think about that for a moment, the truly self-refuting

none sense is to deny our very existence in some cold silent objective universe. Consider

this: Most things in the world are never conscious. Indeed, they are neither conscious nor

unconscious. For example, it makes no sense to ask if a rock, or a water droplet, or a

particle is conscious. They cannot, after all, be rendered unconscious. They are just not

the sorts of things for which this sort of description makes any sense. It would be like

9
asking if a tree is blind. After all, it does not see anything. But, really, it's neither sighted

NOR blind. It is just the wrong sort of thing to ascribe such predicates to. And most of

the world is like that when it comes to either asking "is it conscious" (for example "is it

awake") or "is it conscious of..." (for example "does anything capture and hold its

attention"). So, since most of the world is like that, and has been like that for billions of

years before living creatures ever showed up, why think that fundamental reality has

anything to do with consciousness?

This is related to the researchers’ study because it stated that everything we know

or experience is through consciousness. Without consciousness there is no reality. Most

things in the world are never conscious. Indeed, they are neither conscious nor

unconscious.

According to neuroscntist_ca (2011), it is interesting to consider consciousness,

in relation to physicalism. Consciousness, or phenomenal consciousness, the ‘felt’ or

‘qualitative’ character of perceptual states, is highly recalcitrant to definition in a non-

circular way. Some philosophers, like Kriegel have suggested that we ought to adopt a

‘flexible characterization’ of phenomenal consciousness like ‘the property of mental

states that constitutes or generates the mystery surrounding consciousness. This makes

sense because consciousness is widely recognized in the philosophical literature as

ambiguous. So talking about a property that generates a mystery surrounding

consciousness makes reference to other concepts or aspects of consciousness that are not,

typically, considered particularly vexing or mysterious. At any rate, the point in bringing

all this up here is that given the vagueness of both physicalism and consciousness,

perhaps we should consider the possibility of a rapprochement between consciousness

10
and the physical, as neutral monism suggests. Neutral monism is the view that reality

consists of one neutral kind of stuff (which is neither mental nor physical). But, while we

might have trouble understanding what is meant by ‘physical’ at some deep level, we

seem to have less difficulty coming up with candidates for the constitution of

consciousness in terms of some fairly well-behaved phenomenon (example of this is

certain patterns of neural activity in the pre-frontal cortex). Though, this is not

necessarily to say that we understand how consciousness could be physical in this sense.

It also leaves open the question as to why we should count neural activity in the brain as

physical, or how understanding neural activity as physical is best understood.

This is related to the researchers’ study because it stated that consciousness is

widely recognized in the philosophical literature as ambiguous. So talking about a

property that generates a mystery surrounding consciousness makes reference to other

concepts or aspects of consciousness that are not, typically, considered particularly

vexing or mysterious.

Scientists have struggled for millennia to understand human consciousness - the

awareness of one's existence. Despite advances in neuroscience, we still don't really

know where it comes from, and how it arises. But researchers think they might be closer

to identifying its physical origins, after a study pinpointing a network of three specific

regions in the brain that appear to be crucial to consciousness. Michael Fox said that for

the first time, we have found a connection between the brainstem region involved in

arousal and regions involved in awareness, two prerequisites for consciousness.

Consciousness is generally thought of as being comprised of two critical components -

arousal and awareness. Researchers had already shown that arousal is likely regulated by

11
the brainstem - the portion of the brain that links up with the spinal cord - seeing as it

regulates when we sleep and wake, and our heart rate and breathing. Awareness has been

more elusive. Researchers have long thought that it resides somewhere in the cortex - the

outer layer of the brain - but no one has been able to pinpoint where. The Harvard team

identified not only the specific brainstem region linked to arousal, but also two cortex

regions, that all appear to work together to form consciousness. To figure this out, the

team analysed 36 patients in hospital with brainstem lesions - 12 of them were in a coma

(unconscious) and 24 were defined as being conscious. The researchers then mapped

their brainstems to figure out if there was one particular region that could explain why

some patients had maintained consciousness despite their injuries, while others had

become comatose. What they found was one small area of the brainstem - known as the

rostral dorsolateral pontine tegmentum - that was significantly associated with coma. Ten

out of the 12 unconscious patients had damage in this area, while just one out of the 24

conscious patients did. That suggests that this tiny region of the brainstem is important

for consciousness, but it's not the full story. To figure out which other parts of the brain

were fully connected to this region, the team looked at a brain map - or connectome - of a

healthy human brain, which shows all the different connections that we know of so far in

our brains (you can see a connectome in the image at the top of this story). They

identified two areas in the cortex that were linked up to the rostral dorsolateral pontine

tegmentum, and were most likely to play a role in regulating consciousness. One was in

the left, ventral, anterior insula (AI), and the other was in the pregenual anterior cingulate

cortex (pACC). Both of these regions have been linked by previous studies to arousal

and awareness, but this is the first time they've been connected to the brainstem. The

12
team double-checked their work by looking at fMRI scans of 45 patients in comas or

vegetative states, and showed that all of them had the network between these three

regions disrupted. It's a pretty exciting first step, but the researchers acknowledged that

they need to verify their find across a larger group of patients. Independent teams will

also need to confirm their results before we can say for sure that these three regions are

the physical source of consciousness in our brains. In the meantime, the research will

hopefully lead to new treatment options for patients in comas and vegetative states, who

might have otherwise healthy brains but simply can't regain consciousness (MacDonald,

2018).

This study is related to researchers’ study because it stated that consciousness is

generally thought of as being comprised of two critical components - arousal and

awareness.

According to Michael W. Wiederman (2010), in Western cultures, women's

bodies are objectified more so than men's, and other writers have noted the multiple ways

that such objectification may negatively impact women's lives. As women's sexual

desirability is often equated with physical attractiveness and thinness, it is surprising that

previous investigations have not included women's body image self‐consciousness during

physical intimacy with a partner. In the current set of studies, a 15‐item measure of the

construct was developed and shown to have excellent psychometric properties.

Approximately one third of college student women indicated experiencing body image

self‐consciousness during physical intimacy with a heterosexual partner at least some of

the time. Even after statistically controlling for actual body size, measures of general

body image, general sexual anxiety, and general well‐being, scores on the new measure

13
were predictive of heterosexual experience, sexual esteem, sexual assertive‐ness, and

avoidance of sexual activity. Results are discussed with regard to implications and

directions for future research.

This is related to researchers’ study because it stated that as women's sexual

desirability is often equated with physical attractiveness and thinness, it is surprising that

previous investigations have not included women's body image self‐consciousness during

physical intimacy with a partner.

According to James Tartaglia (2013), theories that combine physicalism with

phenomenal concepts abandon the phenomenal irrealism characteristic of 1950s

physicalism, thereby leaving physicalists trying to reconcile themselves to concepts

appropriate only to dualism. Physicalists should instead abandon phenomenal concepts

and try to develop our concepts of conscious states. Employing an account of concepts as

structured mental representations, and motivating a model of conceptual development

with semantic externalist considerations, he suggests that phenomenal concepts

misrepresent their referents, such that if our conception of consciousness incorporates

them, it needs development. Then argue that the “phenomenal concept strategy” (PCS) of

a purely cognitive account of the distinction between phenomenal and physical concepts

combines physicalism with phenomenal concepts only by misrepresenting physical

properties. This is because phenomenal concepts carry ontological commitment, and he

present an argument to show the tension between this commitment and granting

ontological authority to physical concepts only. In the final section, he show why

phenomenal concepts are more ontologically committed than PCS theorists can allow,

revive U.T. Place's notion of a “phenomenological fallacy” to explain their enduring

14
appeal, and then suggest some advantages of functional analyses of concepts of conscious

states over the phenomenal alternative.

This is related to researchers’ study because it stated that the “phenomenal

concept strategy” (PCS) of a purely cognitive account of the distinction between

phenomenal and physical concepts combines physicalism with phenomenal concepts only

by misrepresenting physical properties. This is because phenomenal concepts carry

ontological commitment, and he present an argument to show the tension between this

commitment and granting ontological authority to physical concepts only.

According to Dorothée Legrand (2013), consciousness of oneself-as-object is, in

the sense that the subject is there taken as its own object of intentional consciousness.

Contrastively, it has been argued that consciousness of oneself-as-subject is not

intentional, precisely in that it does not involve taking oneself as an intentional object.

Here, it is rather proposed that consciousness of oneself-as-subject is tied to intentionality

in that it involves being conscious of oneself as an intentional subject, example as a

subject directed at intentional objects transcending oneself-as-subject. This form of self-

consciousness is neither reflective, in the sense that it does not involve to take oneself as

an object of reflection, nor reflexive, in the sense that it does not involve to be related to

oneself but to what-one-is-not, example to the transcending intentional object. It is further

argued that consciousness of oneself-as-subject involves two dynamics, as the subject

would be indicated to himself by the objects towards which he directs himself. These

considerations are here unfolded to consider in particular bodily self-consciousness.

This is related to researchers’ study because it stated that consciousness of

oneself-as-object is, in the sense that the subject is there taken as its own object of
15
intentional consciousness. Contrastively, it has been argued that consciousness of

oneself-as-subject is not intentional, precisely in that it does not involve taking oneself as

an intentional object.

According to Roberts, T. (2015), recent work on extended mind theory has

considered whether the material realizers of phenomenally conscious states might be

distributed across both body and world. A popular framework for understanding

perceptual consciousness in world-involving terms is sensorimotor enactivism, which

holds that subjects make direct sensory contact with objects by means of their active,

exploratory skills. In this paper, he consider the case of emotional experience, and argue

that although the enactivist view does not transfer neatly to this domain, there are

elements of emotional consciousness whose physical underpinnings include parts of the

extra-bodily environment.

This is related to researchers’ study because it stated that there are elements of

emotional consciousness whose physical underpinnings include parts of the extra-bodily

environment.

According to Johansen, et.al (2013), knowledge of emotional dysfunction in

patients with avoidant personality disorder (APD) is much needed. The present study

examined affect consciousness (AC) in patients with avoidant personality disorder (APD)

compared to borderline personality disorder (BPD). Affect consciousness (AC), defined

as capacity to perceive, reflect on, tolerate, and express emotional experiences, is

assumed to be central to structure‐building in personality. Emotional dysfunction is an

important feature of avoidant personality disorder (APD) and the findings indicate that

psychotherapies for avoidant personality disorder (APD) patients should focus on

16
emotional experiences, aiming to improve emotional awareness, tolerance, and

expressivity. The notion of a general avoidance of positive emotions in avoidant

personality disorder (APD) needs further exploration, including a possible dysfunction in

the evolutionary based neuro‐affective seeking system.

This is related to researchers’ study because it stated that emotional dysfunction is

an important feature of avoidant personality disorder (APD) and the findings indicate that

psychotherapies for avoidant personality disorder (APD) patients should focus on

emotional experiences, aiming to improve emotional awareness, tolerance, and

expressivity.

According to Dennis Sumara, et.al (2013), human consciousness as an embodied

experience that emerges from a complex relationship of the biological and the

phenomenological. They argue that one primary way that human beings develop

self‐awareness of their own minds is by becoming aware of other minds. These

mind‐reading abilities become fundamental to the continual adaptations that human

beings must make in their daily lives. The authors offer descriptions of two literary texts

to illustrate how these texts participate with other forms of culture and with human

biology to produce experiences of self‐conscious awareness. They argue that if

consciousness is understood as an emergent property of biology and culture, and if

human beings develop self‐awareness of their own minds by becoming cognizant of other

minds, then it follows that literary experiences create productive mind‐reading practices

that contribute to the ongoing development and emergence of consciousness and, as such,

are important for education. They conclude that extended opportunities to critically

17
inquire into readers’ imagined identifications with characters and their situations can

support the development of empathic understanding of others.

This is related to researchers’ study because it stated the argue that one primary

way that human beings develop self‐awareness of their own minds is by becoming aware

of other minds and if human beings develop self‐awareness of their own minds by

becoming cognizant of other minds, then it follows that literary experiences create

productive mind‐reading practices that contribute to the ongoing development and

emergence of consciousness and, as such, are important for education.

According to Michael Lewis (2015) stated that consciousness, conceived as

self‐reflection, and its development is the central feature of human emotional

development. While human self‐reflection is a materialistic feature of our brains, its

mentalistic feature is part of a large system called the self. Part of the self‐system in

humans has the ability to turn inward and be an object of its reflection. This

self‐reflection along with action patterns in response to environmental events, made up of

facial, vocal, motor, and physiological responses, organized patterns of responses to

specific environmental events, is what is meant by emotions. The development of this

aspect of the self‐system develops over the first year and a half of life and is influenced

by the nature of the environmental events (called socialization) as well as the

temperament of the child.

This is related to the researchers’ study because it stated that self-reflection is also

a consciousness because it develops the central feature of human emotional development.

18
 REVIEW OF RELATED STUDY

Kristoff Koch (2018) stated that consciousness is everything you experience. It is

the tune stuck in your head, the sweetness of chocolate mousse, the throbbing pain of a

toothache, the fierce love for your child and the bitter knowledge that eventually all

feelings will end.

According to the study of Self-consciousness and emotions driving femvertising:

A path analysis of women’s attitude towards femvertising, forwarding intention and

purchase intention by Kapoor and Munjal (2017) stated that femvertising is making huge

waves as large numbers of brands are launching campaigns marketing feminism. While

promoting products brands are selling empowerment to women through marketing

campaigns. As women purchasing power is increasing they provide bigger opportunity to

marketers, this is the reason femvertising is the hottest trend used by advertisers to attract

women customers. This study investigates the influence of self-consciousness and Need

for Emotion on Attitude towards femvertising. It further sheds light on the effect of

Attitude towards femvertising on forwarding intention of ad and purchase intention of the

advertised brand. Anova was conducted to analyze the relationship between demographic

profile of women respondents with their attitude towards femvertising, forwarding

intention and purchase intention. Results show that individual’s private & public self-

consciousness and need for emotion influence their attitude towards femvertising.

Positive attitude towards femvertising influence their forwarding intention of ad but does

to lead to purchase intent. The findings revealed that intention to forward and purchase

intention varies across different age groups.

19
 According to Brazdau & Mihai (2011), Physical Consciousness is what a human

being is conscious of sensing with its physical senses while awake in the physical world.

It refers to the ability of being conscious of the body and organism, and of the physical

elements of the environment. In human frame, the spirit-force resides in the innermost

core and is thus covered by subtle mind and gross matter. The consciousness of the

outermost layer example the body and that of the external world, the world as evidenced

by the senses is physical consciousness. An individual conscious on the plane of

outermost layer of the soul identifies itself with the physical body, and is conscious of

thoughts of that body and the outside world. Mental Consciousness is the ability of being

conscious of one’s own ideas, thoughts and mental processes. It refers to the cognitive

consciousness. Emotional Consciousness describes the ability of being conscious of one’s

own emotions and feelings, and generally, to be conscious of any emotional feeling. It is

consciousness of one’s emotional state. Social – Relational Consciousness refers to the

ability of being conscious about human relationships and the connections with the people

you interact with.

Michelle King (2013) said that makeup can be a form of self-expression and

character. What's especially interesting about makeup is that it's one of the only forms of

expressions primarily for women. Even fashion is becoming a more prominent way for

men to express themselves, but, for the most part, makeup has remained just for women.

It's this idea that has paved the way for many of the sexist assumptions that get made

about a woman wearing makeup — that's she's only doing it for male attention, that the

only thing she's interested in is looking hot, that without makeup she feels worthless and

unattractive. The reason most women are adverse to speaking candidly about their

20
reasons for wearing makeup is because most people would digest such a statement as a

tacit admission of vanity. The assumption is that, if you wear makeup and you admit it's

not just for yourself, then you are shallow and vain. But this is not necessarily true. The

issue isn't whether or not women are applying makeup for other people, but rather their

impetus for doing so.

Anna Kim (2018) said that, lip tints have become all the rage in beauty, not just in

Korea and the rest of Asia, but in Western countries as well. Do a search on YouTube for

“lip tint” and you get over 91,000 videos. Sephora has a whole category dedicated to lip

tints (also called lip stains), and you’d be hard pressed to find a K-beauty makeup brand

that didn’t offer their own lip tints. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “tint” as “a

usually slight or pale coloration,” and that’s exactly the effect of the original lip tints.

According to Sharma (2017), she consider makeup no less than an art. Face is

essentially a blank canvas and have all the control in the entire world to make it look

however you want. It is totally at your own disposal. You can be anything or anyone you

want. It gives you so much power. You can use it to look younger and even older, if you

want. People often assume that make up is all about looking good and attractive but is so

much more. It’s also about feeling good. There is this level of confidence attached to how

presentable you look on a day. You do not worry about people forming notions and

having judgments about your sparse eyebrows or your bloodshot eyes fueled by a night of

backbreaking work or acne scars on your forehead or even just anything. They can judge

you by how you are presenting yourself and you have the power to actually influence

that. People often assume that girls take all the time in the world to mask themselves to

attract the opposite gender. She’s not saying that none of girls are like that but most of the

21
times, we do it for ourselves. We are not all born perfect. All of us have some snags

which are clearly created by ourselves which keep us unhappy in our own skin. Your

eyes might be too small. Your lips might be too thin. Your skin might not be as clear as

you’d like. Make up also helps people to blend in. A sober professional look helps you

blend in your workforce. Or, a loud and flashy look helps to blend in clubs and parties. It

makes your social life so much easier. There is also this pressure from the side of our

very own society which expects people to look a certain way. Since her childhood, she os

made to believe that our natural beauty has some flaws. For instance, one of the biggest

physical trait which the society of our country looks down at, dark skin. Since our

childhood, we are told to shield ourselves from the cruel sun. You grow up with all these

complexes and insecurities and then, invest in hideous beauty products.

New research has found that wearing makeup can not only give women a

confidence boost but can also make them feel smarter. The "lipstick effect" is a known

psychological phenomenon in which wearing makeup can give individuals a confidence

boost by making them feel more physically attractive, increasing feelings of self-esteem,

attitude, and personality. However, a less well-known effect is that a boost in self-esteem

can also boost cognitive abilities. As previous research has already shown that positive

emotions can improve academic performance, the new study set out to see if the positive

boost in self-esteem from wearing makeup could have the same effect. Female

undergraduates were placed into different groups and given a series of tests to complete,

which consisted of answering multiple choice questions about a chapter from a general

psychology textbook. Before taking the test, members of one group were asked to apply

makeup, another group listened to "a positive music excerpt," and a third colored a

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drawing of a human face. The team believed that those wearing makeup would

experience the greatest boost in positive feelings, and therefore would perform better in

the tests than the other two groups. The results showed that although there was a

significant increase in cognitive performance from the group who listened to positive

music, as predicted it was those in the makeup group who performed significantly better

than females in the other two groups. The team pointed out that although makeup wasn't

the only way of boosting test results, the findings do offer new understanding into the

ways in which boosting physical self-esteem through using makeup may interact with

cognition (AFP Relaxnews, 2017).

According to Katarina Stevenson, Ph. D. (2017), the cosmetics industry plays a part in

the discussion in society of self-esteem. By helping people make the best of themselves,

it helps them feel good, too. The contributory factors to self-esteem are complex and far-

reaching. In 2004, the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association (CTPA)

commissioned research into the significance of self-esteem and its relevance to our

working lives. From this, an independent report, “The Self-Esteem Society,” was

released. This highlighted self-esteem as the lifeline for modern living that lies at the

heart of success in modern societies.The report also argues that self-esteem is more

important today than ever before. By analyzing a range of influences including family,

financial status and appearance, the report showed that we as a society lead increasingly

open-ended lives with fewer universal values. People are responsible for creating their

own individuality; however, our society has high aspirations and our self-confidence is

regularly tested as we struggle to meet the standards we create for ourselves. To advance

research in this area, interdisciplinary teams can bring new, different and thought-

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provoking perspectives. Take skin, for example, which is essential to determining body

image. Indeed, a unique symposium was organized this year by the Community

Dermatology Task Force of the International Society of Dermatology and hosted by the

Well-being Research Hub at London College of Fashion. This aimed to foster new

interdisciplinary collaborations between science, art and the humanities. The Western

world needs to consider the positive and negative impact of skin appearance, health and

adornment on daily life. Scientific approaches often do not warrant emphasis on the

emotional importance of therapy and skin care but skin is in the “ultimate interface” of

many disciplines: dermatology, psychology, cosmetic science, cosmetic surgery,

photography, fashion, etc. Put another way, skin is “the membrane of all membranes,”

and can protect us physically, emotionally and even spiritually.

Psychologists distinguish between trait and state self-esteem, a stable sense of

confidence versus a transient boost. Grooming rituals can be temporary confidence

boosters, and studies suggest that the confidence they inspire is itself attractive. In one

study, men who had just sprayed themselves with a scented versus unscented product

were judged more attractive by women who could not smell them. The men with scented

body spray simply acted more confidently and thus appeared more visually attractive. But

makeup or any other grooming product will not be balms for all. Women who feel that

makeup use is obligatory but unwanted, that it requires a forced confrontation with the

mirror when they'd rather put their attention elsewhere, do not feel more confident after

using it. Research suggests that women can feel objectified by makeup, and for such

women, any potential advantage may be offset by the emotional labor of wearing it. In

other words, makeup is what you make it of it. It is a choice. Market trends suggest that

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males are now surging in self-adornment, and using not only skin products but some

color cosmetics. If so, we’ll need a new set of studies (Nancy Etcoff, 2013).

The study, titled “Cosmetics as a Feature of the Extended Human Phenotype:

Modulation of the Perception of Biologically Important Facial Signals,” asked

participants to judge a variety of women’s photographs based on a number of

characteristics including attractiveness, competence, likeability, and trustworthiness.

Researchers were particularly interested to see how makeup affected judgments both

automatically and after longer deliberation, they said.

“I’m interested in bringing science to the study of adornment,” said Etcoff, a psychology

professor who has studied this topic for over 20 years. “The study aimed to address

exactly what we look at when we judge a person, and what these tools do.”

The study, which involved researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital, Dana-

Farber Cancer Institute, Procter & Gamble Cosmetics, Boston University, and HMS, was

first released in the online publication PLoS ONE on Monday.

In the study, two groups, each with over one hundred participants, were asked to

rate photographs of female faces with varying levels of “color cosmetics” applied by a

professional makeup artist. Participants in the first group only saw the photographs for

250 milliseconds, while those in the second group had an unlimited amount of time to

examine them. Judging a number of qualities, participants then used a sliding scale to

input their ratings directly into a computer. The responses were sent to a statistician at

Dana-Farber. Findings revealed that cosmetics have a significant and automatic effect on

judgments of attractiveness. Even more importantly, makeup provides additional facial

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stimuli that influence more long-term, deliberative judgments on social factors such as

trustworthiness. Sarah A. Vickery, co-researcher for the study and principal scientist at

Procter & Gamble Beauty and Grooming, summarized these findings in an interview.

Sarah said that makeup really can be seen as a tool in a woman’s arsenal that allows her

to actually control the way the world sees her. But despite the physically-oriented

implications of these findings, the study also revealed that positive perception decreases

as women apply heavier makeup.

Women’s cosmetic use generally affects the perception of her ability in a

professional setting. Cox and Glick’s research discovered several other correlations

besides the positive correlation between increased makeup usage and perceived

attractiveness, femininity, and sexiness. To reiterate, the purpose of their experiment was

to uncover the correlation between the review of a woman’s job application and her

degree of cosmetic usage. The results found revealed that increased makeup usage

negatively correlates with the insinuated performance of women applying for women-

dominated jobs. Also, increased makeup usage does not correlate with the insinuated

performance of women applying for non-gender typed jobs. Increased makeup usage can

have detrimental effects on the perception of a woman’s prowess in the workplace. Kyle

and Mahler conducted research to determine if women’s hair color and cosmetics

affected other people’s perception of their credentials and abilities in a professional

setting. They found that female applicants wearing more or glamorous makeup were

deemed not as capable as female applicants wearing little or no makeup. Also, females

wearing no makeup were assigned a higher starting salary than those females wearing

light to moderate amounts of makeup. Stereotypes still play a key role in the workforce

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today. From this study, one can deduce that women should not apply makeup to job

interviews or work meetings to be taken more seriously. A potential source of error in

this experiment is that all the participants were college students. This homogeneity in

terms of age and phase of life could have caused skewed results. In addition, participants

were told that their results would be compared to a reputed standard, thus possibly

influencing participants to change their perceptions to match the standard. There are

specific psychological traits that generally correlate to increased and decreased cosmetic

usage. Fieldman, Hussey, and Robertson, conducted an experiment that determined

which personality traits were associated with different levels of makeup usage: low,

medium, and high and why. They found that people who are extrovert generally use less

makeup than introverted people because they are more confident. Conformists are likely

to wear more makeup because they want to fit into the crowd, not stand out. People who

wear copious amounts of makeup could be trying to compensate for their internal flaws.

From this study, one can conclude that makeup is not a way to receive attention but a way

to “fix” insecurities or internal flaws. Makeup can almost be seen as a mask; people want

others to perceive them as they look, not as they feel. Specific internal traits typically

induce increased and decreased makeup usage. Scott researched the relationship between

makeup usage and explicit situations, and the resulting anxiety levels. Scott found that

anxiety causes increased cosmetic usage. She also found that insecurity and low

confidence women feel anxious with lesser amounts of makeup. (Devina Narang, 2013)

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 SYNTHESIS OF THE STUDY

Overall, attractiveness, femininity, and sexiness positively correlate with

increased makeup usage, and internal traits affiliated with social warmth and cooperation,

likeability, morality, emotionality, and decisiveness either negatively or do not correlate

with increased makeup usage. In the workplace, increased makeup usage can have

detrimental effects. Increased cosmetic usage negatively correlates with women’s ability

in women-dominated jobs and either negatively or does not correlate with women’s

ability in non-gendered jobs. The internal psychological factors that induce increased

cosmetic usage include anxiety, self-consciousness, introversion, conformity, and self-

presentation. This knowledge may be used in a multitude of ways, especially in the field

psychiatry and marketing. To elaborate further, these results could be incorporated into

standard mental health tests administered by large companies. These tests may uncover

information: personality traits, sensitivities, signs of mental illness, about current and

potential employees that could allow company owners to make more informed decisions.

To be more specific, maybe the lack of makeup or the excessive amount of makeup could

indicate signs of a particular illness or sensitivity. Advertisement companies could use

this information by attempting to appeal to individuals with particular mindsets,

personality traits, or symptoms to increase the likelihood of this targeted group to buy a

certain product.

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