Baby face makeup awareness andsubjective wellbeing of Korean

women:The moderating effect ofappearance management behavior

Yeoun Kyoung Hwang1 and Chang Seek Lee2∗

1Department of Lifelong Education,Hanseo University, 31962 Korea

01020707980@hanmail.net2∗Department of Child and Adolescent Welfare,

Hanseo University, 31962 Korealee1246@hanmail.net

Abstract

Background/Objectives: This study was conductedto examine the moderating effect of appearance manage-ment behavior in relation to baby face makeup awarenessand subjective wellbeing of 404 Korean women in their 20sand 30s.

Methods/Statistical Analysis: For analyses, the SPSSWin. 21.0 and SPSS MACRO programs were used. Reli-ability analysis, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis,mean comparison analysis, path analysis between variables,and bias correction bootstrap were performed.

Findings: The results of the study are as follows. First,there was a positive correlation between baby face makeupawareness and subjective wellbeing and appearance man-agement behavior. Second, macro PROCESS analysis showedthat baby face makeup awareness had a positive effect onsubjective wellbeing. Third, bootstrap results indicatedthat the path from baby face makeup awareness to subjec-

International Journal of Pure and Applied MathematicsVolume 118 No. 24 2018ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)url: http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/Special Issue http://www.acadpubl.eu/hub/

tive wellbeing was controlled by appearance managementbehavior.

Improvements/Applications: The results of this studycan be applied to baby face makeup and appearance man-agement behavior as a strategy to enhance the subjectivewellbeing of Korean women.

Key Words : Baby Face Makeup Awareness, Subjec-tive Wellbeing, Appearance Management Behavior, Moder-ating Effect, SPSS macro PROCESS

1 Introduction

Arguably, the greatest concerns for most human beings are to livea ’happy life’ and a ’good life.’ As interest in these points is in-creasing, studies on subjective wellbeing are actively being carriedout. Subjective wellbeing is defined as a positive cognitive andemotional evaluation of one’s life, not a mere emotion or mood, buta continuous state of well-being 1.

In addition, subjective wellbeing is defined as the degree towhich individuals positively judge the quality of their lives 2 andthe degree of satisfaction and happiness in their lives. Adulthood,in particular, is the longest period of human life, and the subjec-tive wellbeing of an adult can be said to represent the life of anindividual.

However, existing studies on subjective wellbeing are mainlyfocused on children, adolescents 3,4,5 and older adults 6,7,8.

It is worth noting that there are many studies on the subjectivewellbeing of adolescents that deal with appearance-related vari-ables. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the relationship be-tween subjective wellbeing in adulthood and appearance, which isan important subject in Korean society.

Recently, as the life span of human beings has increased withimprovements in living standards and medical developments, aes-thetic trends that encourage the pursuit of ”baby faces” based onthe desire to maintain youth for a long time have emerged 9.

A baby face is the face of an adult with the characteristics of amuch younger face; pursuit of a baby face relies on the psychologicalwish to be younger than one’s actual age. This psychology can also

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be related to the findings of previous studies, in which adults withyounger-looking faces are relatively more reliable, honest, and warmcompared to adults with older-looking faces in legal, business, andpolitical contexts. Thus, the wish for a baby face can be perceivedas an established ideal 10,11,12.

A study by Chang & Chen 13 that examined the impact of doc-tors’ baby like-facial appearance on patients’ perception and judg-ment before and after the occurrence of medical fraud found thatbaby-faced doctors scored higher in expectation, satisfaction, andintended fulfillment than did doctors with more adult faces. Sincea baby face can have a positive effect on others, there is interestin makeup that makes women look younger. This trend emergedbecause appearance is thought to be an important source of in-formation and an indicator of competence as well as a means ofexpressing oneself in a superficial society.

Makeup improves women’s quality of life as well as their self-confidence and self-satisfaction 14. Improved appearance has a sta-tistically significant effect on psychological well-being 15 and re-peated experiences of positive emotions through changes involvingmakeup also change an individuals quality of life 16. Given the re-sults of this study, it is likely that subjective well-being is closelyrelated to the use of makeup that making women appear younger.

In contemporary society, appearance is increasingly important;this is in contrast with the past, in which personality was empha-sized 17.

This social interest is manifested in appearance managementbehavior, which refers to the act of managing clothing, makeup, andbody shape so that one can control how one appears to others 18.Appearance management behaviors include choices related to diet,exercise, cosmetics, and clothing 17; such behaviors are a means ofexpressing oneself to others in the social realm 19.

In previous studies, appearance management behavior was foundto be a causal variable related to psychological well-being 20, butit is more often considered a result variable 21,22,23,24. In addition,there have been few studies on the mediating and moderating ef-fects of appearance management behaviors; the exception is one 25

that reported that appearance satisfaction and appearance man-agement behavior mediate the interactions between socioculturalattitudes and quality of life.

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Based on these previous studies, it is possible to predict themoderating effect that baby face makeup has on subjective wellbe-ing, which will of course depend on the magnitude of the appearancemanagement behavior. Various studies on subjective wellbeing havebeen done, but there has been no study on the relationship betweensubjective wellbeing and baby face makeup awareness; thus, thereis a need for such a study.

Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate whether ap-pearance management behavior moderates the relationship betweensubjective wellbeing and baby face makeup awareness. To achievethis goal, we set up the following research questions.

First, what is the correlation between baby face makeup aware-ness and subjective wellbeing and appearance management behav-ior?

Second, what is the correlation coefficient between each vari-able?

Third, does appearance management behavior moderate therelationship between baby face makeup awareness and subjectivewellbeing?

2 Methods

2.1 Research Model

The main analytical method of this study is model 1 analysis of theMACRO process. The conceptual model and the final study modelare shown in [Figure 1].

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2.2 Subjects and data collection

A total of 404 women in their 20s and 30s were selected by using thepurposive sampling method, and data collection was conducted forabout 3 weeks beginning in September 2015. The general character-istics of the survey subjects were as follows: 67.2% were unmarried,32% were married, and 0.2% were in other romantic arrangements.An analysis of educational level revealed that 68.3% of participantsgraduated from four-year colleges or above, 16.6% graduated fromjunior colleges, and 15.1% were high school graduates. Analysis byage showed that 27.0% of the subjects were 30 - 34 years of age,26.7% were 20 - 24 years of age, 23.5% were 25 - 29 years of age,and 22.8% were 35 years of age.

2.3 Research tools

2.3.1 Baby face makeup awareness

In this study, baby face makeup awareness was measured with amodified and complemented scale devised by Kim 26, which consistsof a 5-point Likert scale ranging from ’not at all agree’ (a scoreof 1) to ’highly agree’ (a score of 5). The higher the score, thehigher one’s interest in and preference baby face makeup, and thereliability of awareness of baby face makeup is Cronbach’s α = .858.

2.3.2 Appearance management behavior

Behaviors regarding appearance management were measured by 16questions taken from questionnaires used by Kim et al. 27. Thescale consisted of contents of makeup and clothes, hair care, skincare, body care, and cosmetic molding, and the scores ranged from1 point for not at all’ to 5 points for ’very much agree’. A higherscore indicates a high level of behavior that expresses one’s ownappearance to others, i.e., an intentional presentation of such be-haviors. The reliability of the appearance management behaviorwas Cronbach’s α = .882.

2.3.3 Subjective wellbeing

Subjective wellbeing was measured using the Subjective HappinessScale (SHS) developed by Lyubomirsky and Lepper 28 and used by

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Kim 29.This scale represents an overall cognitive appraisal of subjective

wellbeing and was modified to a 5-point Likert scale ranging from’not at all’ to ’highly agree.’ The higher the score, the higher thepositive evaluation of an individual’s life. The reliability of thisstudy was Cronbach’s α = .749.

2.4 Data Analysis

In this study, SPSS Windows 21.0 and the SPSS macro PROCESSproposed by Hayes 30 (http://www.afhayes.com) were used. SPSSWindows 21.0 was used for reliability analysis, descriptive statis-tics, and correlation analysis. The mediated moderating effect wasanalyzed using the SPSS macro PROCESS, and the model wasverified by applying bootstrap analysis.

3 Results

3.1 Correlation and Descriptive Statistics

[Table 1] shows the results of Pearson’s correlation analysis to iden-tify correlations among variables.

There was a statistically significant relationship between babyface makeup awareness, subjective wellbeing, and appearance man-agement behavior. In detail, the correlation coefficient betweenbaby face makeup awareness and appearance management behaviorwas the highest at 0.663, and the correlation coefficient between ap-pearance management behavior and subjective wellbeing was0.237,while that of baby face makeup awareness and subjective wellbeingwas 0.108.

That is, the greater the extent of baby face makeup awarenessand appearance management behavior, the higher the degree ofsubjective wellbeing. The mean of each variable was above themiddle point (3 points).

These results are similar to the results of a study that reportedthat skin care management by middle-aged women was positivelycorrelated with self-efficacy, self-esteem, and happiness 31, and thatthere is a positive correlation between the well-being of the skin and

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make-up and satisfaction with appearance and the lives of middle-aged people 32.

Also, the results of Holder & Coleman 33 support that olderelementary school students are more likely to feel happier than arestudents who think they only have a charming appearance.

3.2 Model Verification

As shown in table 2, the independent variable, baby face makeupawareness, had a significant positive effect on subjective wellbeing(β = -0.600, p < 0.01), whereas appearance management behaviordid not affect subjective wellbeing, but exhibited a moderating ef-fect (β = 0.1651, p < 0.01) in relation to baby face makeup aware-ness and well-being, which was statistically significant. In otherwords, the effect of makeup awareness on subjective well-being isthat the moderating effect increases as the size of management ofthe behavior increases.

The R2 change by interaction was statistically significant at0.0164 (p < 0.01). As a result of analyzing the conditional effect ofindependent variables on the dependent variable at a specific valueof the moderating variable, the simple slope of baby face makeupawareness on subjective wellbeing was significant only at the levelof appearance management behavior 2.48 (M-1SD). In other words,the effect of baby face makeup awareness on subjective well-being issignificant only when the level of appearance management behavioris below average (M-1SD).

No previous research has suggested that baby face makeup aware-ness has an effect on subjective wellbeing, but research shows thatbeauty care programs including makeup have a positive effect on

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life satisfaction and happiness 34 and that the management of skincare has a positive effect on happiness in middle-aged and olderwomen 31.

In line with research by Cho14 that showed that makeup con-tributes to self-esteem and self-satisfaction as well as improving thequality of life of women, and that by Lim 16 demonstrating thatrepeated experiences of positive emotions through various forms ofmakeup change the quality of life and quality of life.

In other words, the positive recognition of baby face makeup,which has become a trend in Korean society, is one cause of positiveself-evaluation.

3.3 Verification of Moderation Effect

This study analyzed whether appearance management behavior ismoderated by the relationship between baby face makeup awarenessand the subjective feeling of well-being using SPSS macro PRO-CESS proposed by Preacher et al. (2007)35. [Table 3] presentssignificant areas arrived at by the Johnson-Neyman method over afull range of moderating variables. The effect of baby face makeupawareness on subjective wellbeing was increased when appearancemanagement behavior was increased. The increased effect of baby

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face makeup awareness on subjective wellbeing was no longer sig-nificant when the value of appearance management behavior waslarger than 2.7424. The significant proportion of these effects was73.3% amongst all respondents and 26.7% among women.

This suggests that baby face makeup awareness causes a signifi-cant increase in subjective wellbeing among adult women, and thatthis positive effect is no longer present in adult women with veryhigh values for appearance management behaviors.

Because the moderating effect of appearance management be-havior was statistically significant, the moderating effect was ex-amined to confirm its shape, as shown in [Figure 2].

In order to confirm the pattern of significant interactions, ap-pearance management behaviors were classified into low and highgroups, and the difference between the means was examined.

Even though baby face makeup awareness was low among thestudy subjects, subjective wellbeing was higher when the level ofappearance management was high and, on the contrary, the groupwith a low level of appearance management behavior had lowersubjective wellbeing when compared with the group with a highlevel of appearance management behavior.

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Figure 2. Moderating effect of appearance management behaviorin relation to baby face makeup awareness and subjective wellbeing

4 Conclusion

This study was conducted to examine the moderating effect of ap-pearance management behavior in relation to baby face makeupawareness and subjective wellbeing of 404 Korean women in their20s and 30s.

First, there was a positive correlation between baby face makeupawareness, subjective wellbeing, and appearance management be-havior. In other words, in individuals with greater awareness ofthe nature of baby face makeup, more actions are taken to preserveoneself in an ideal aesthetic state, and the feeling of being happybrings about a greater emotional reward.

Second, macro PROCESS analysis showed that baby face makeupawareness had a positive effect on subjective wellbeing. The posi-tive perception of makeup which makes an individual seem youngerthan her true age, affects the degree to which she feels herself to behappy, thus changing the level of well-being.

Third, as a result of bootstrap analysis, the moderating effect ofappearance management behavior on the relationship between babyface makeup awareness and subjective wellbeing was significant inthe group with a low level of appearance management behavior. Inother words, when the level of appearance management behavioris low, appearance management behavior moderates the path from

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baby face makeup awareness to subjective wellbeing. This impliesthat baby face makeup awareness can act as a factor that enhancessubjective wellbeing or reduces its influence depending on the levelof behavior that an adult woman wants to direct towards her idealappearance. This analysis of the moderating effect of appearancemanagement behavior suggests that even a woman with low babyface makeup awareness may promote her subjective wellbeing if herappearance management behavior increases.

Although not discussed in this study, suggestions for future re-search are as follows.

First, efforts should be made to generalize this type of researchthrough selection of various research subjects. If we expand thescope of region, age, and occupation, we can easily improve theusefulness of the study.

Second, the subjective wellbeing of women was found to be re-lated to the perception of baby face makeup. This suggests thatinterest in presenting a baby face should be perceived as a cul-tural phenomenon that reflects the human desire to appear youth-ful rather than a simple fashion statement, and research on relatedvariables should be conducted in depth.

Third, appearance management behavior was identified as amoderating variable between baby face makeup awareness and sub-jective wellbeing. Women’s appearance management behavior isa process to improve self-confidence and social and interpersonalabilities, which can increase feelings of happiness. In short, womenrequire customized educational programs for their intended ’idealappearance,’ and educational and welfare institutions, includinglifelong educational facilities, should actively pursue and implementsuch programs.

Despite these limitations, in this study, we found that subjectivewellbeing in adulthood, which is the longest period of life, affectsbaby face makeup awareness. It is quite meaningful that we haveidentified the moderating effect of appearance management behav-ior in this relationship.

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