Character and Personality Perception and Social Trait Judgment After Facial Surgical and Medical Aesthetic Interventions

Abstract

Background: The outcome of aesthetic surgical or medical interventions is typically reported from the patient's or surgeon's perspective. However, facial cosmetic interventions have the potential to influence perceived personality traits. How these interventions affect personality perception remains largely underappreciated. Facial inferences are a third perspective still missing from the plastic surgery literature.

Methods: A PICO (patient, population or problem; intervention; comparison, outcome) literature search was conducted across MEDLINE, PubMed, and Embase databases.

Results: Facial rejuvenation procedures in women confer a large societal benefit. Patients experience enhanced perceived femininity, attractiveness, social skills, and likeability. In men, the procedures are not as gender-enhancing, but some may experience improvements in perceived attractiveness, likeability, social skills, and trustworthiness. Clear improvement in sociability, capability, trustworthiness, attractiveness, and health is observed after blepharoplasty and brow lift in both sexes. In female patients, rhinoplasty has favorable changes in femininity and in both the warmth and competence domains. It does not, however, significantly change the perception of masculinity in male patients.

Conclusions: Insight into how aesthetic interventions change observers' perception provides an additional dimension to our understanding about their true benefits as perceived by society. Patients must be made aware that as much as it is essential for them to be satisfied with their appearance, how they are judged and perceived by others is just as important.

Fig. 1.

PRISMA flow chart of literature search. PRISMA, preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses.