Not long ago, tattoos were not as accepted as they are today. It was very striking, 20 years ago, to see someone on the street with a completely tattooed body. It was exceptional. Over the years, tattoos became widely accepted, a situation that caught the attention of researchers who wanted to find out if there are measurable differences between people with tattoos and those without; Their findings suggest that characteristics such as impulsivity and short-term focus predispose people to getting tattoos (Ruffle, BJ & Anne E. Wilson, AE, 2019).
Methodology
For the study, 1,104 people were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. These participants were given the option of receiving ten individual $1 payments over 18 hours or ten increasing payments over 3 weeks. Those who wanted the money quickly could receive a total of $10 in 18 hours, while those willing to wait could earn up to $15.35.
Additionally, participants indicated how frequently they engaged in various short-term focused financial, health, and social decisions, such as overeating and posting personal information online.
Finally, they answered four cognitive reflection task questions that tend to generate intuitive but incorrect answers. Correct answers require further analysis of the question.
Results
According to their findings, people with tattoos and people who reported that they planned to get a tattoo tended to score higher on measures focused on the short term and on impulsivity.
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Tattooed people, especially those with clearly visible tattoos (for example, on the face or neck) were more impulsive and made more decisions focused on the short term, that is, they put relatively more emphasis on the present than on the future, in compared to non-tattooed people, the authors noted.
These results held regardless of the reason for getting a tattoo, the number of tattoos, the amount of time spent before getting the first tattoo, and the time since the most recent tattoo. The only exception was women with hidden tattoos: they were no more impulsive or made more short-term decisions than women without tattoos.
After surveying participants about their perceptions of tattoos. They found evidence that people with tattoos tended to overestimate how common tattoos are while underestimating the potentially detrimental effects of a tattoo on being hired for a job.
This does not mean that impulsivity is a negative trait. There are many areas in which speed in decision-making is valuable, such as in sports and in certain professions.
Other lines of research could investigate the content of tattoos, for example. Could bolder tattoos predict more impulsivity and short-term decision-making than more thoughtful tattoos? It would also be interesting to explore whether the rise in tattoos reflects greater short-term decision making among the younger generation or a reduction in social stigma and greater acceptance of tattoos.
Bibliographic reference: Ruffle, BJ and Anne E. Wilson, AE, 2019. Tat will tell: Tattoos and time preferences. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 166, Pages 566-585.
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