14 DAY TRIAL // Anil Mathur of Hofstra University in New York and colleagues there and at the City University of New York have tested a physical vanity scale across China, India and USA in order to determine if it can be used across different countries with different cultures.
This research started from the Western obsession for beauty and perfection, when scientists realized that beauty and physical vanity could be found in every culture.
Beauty is perceived differently, depending on the country and culture, and also on the individuals, and this perception impacts on the fashion, cosmetics, weight control industries and esthetic surgery trends lately.
This is why understanding the way that the perception of beauty is influenced by culture and region has an anthropological and social interest, and because beauty is a very lucrative market, industries worldwide must know all this data.
For a product to be commercialized overseas, the marketer must first understand and even adapt this product to the consumer characteristics and preferences of each culture.
After Mathur and colleagues have tested the physical vanity scale across China, India and USA they concluded that it could be used across culturally diverse countries.
“Given that modern consumer research and theory building have been largely conducted in the West, a recurring concern is the need to verify if the same theories and findings are applicable to other non-Western cultures,” the researchers explain.
There are though some details linked to beauty perception that are different, depending on the culture but the notion of physical vanity has no frontiers.
The team says that “while the research found that not all measurement properties of the physical vanity scale match exactly across the three countries studied in this research, we have demonstrated the value of physical vanity scales in terms of reliability and validity.
“Data collected from three culturally diverse countries (China, India and USA) were used to assess this and verify if physical vanity is a universal trait.
“The results from a series of confirmatory factor analysis indicate that the physical vanity scale is indeed applicable to culturally diverse countries.”
Physical vanity is linked to someone's excessive concern for their appearance, Mathur says and this study tried to see whether the scale developed in the West could be an effective consumer measure in other cultures.