Search results

There has been significant growth in the number of people getting tattoos over recent decades. While there might be a myriad of reasons for getting a tattoo, there remains a deficit of knowledge in relation to the potential relationship between tattoos and mental health. This paper aims to explore this potential relationship, from the perspective of those with tattoos, and considers the relevance of this potential relationship for those working in mental health services.

Data was collected through an online qualitative survey which asked participants to share their experiences in relation to their tattoos and mental health. The survey was shared through social media and distributed to tattoo shops within the UK. In total, 17 participants completed the survey; the survey data was then transferred to Nvivo and subjected to thematic analysis.

Three themes emerged from the data. First, tattoos as an expression of relationship with self; second, tattoos as an expression of relationship with others, and third, tattoos as a symbol of change. The three domains provide an insight into the complex relationship between identity and tattoos and suggest that tattoos may hold significant importance in supporting people to make meaning following trauma and to communicate elements of themselves to the world around them.

The findings provide an insight into the significance of tattoos which transcends the traditional discourses of tattoos as a marker of risk or deviance. Tattoos may be significant in the process of meaning making and narrating a sense of self and identity.

Policing agencies across the USA have cited difficulty recruiting qualified applicants, thus leaving many employment vacancies unfilled. One reason for this challenge may be that those who would make exceptional police officers are barred from employment because of their body art. Varying appearance policies exist concerning tattoos, yet little is known about these policies. The purpose of this paper is to survey the tattoo policies of policing agencies.

The tattoo policies of all 50 state-level policing agencies were reviewed to explore similarities and state-level correlates.

The majority, but not all, of state police have some type of appearance policy targeting tattoos. State policing agencies that have a “no visibility” policy regarding tattoos more often were in states with a low percentage of millennial residents, high percentage of young veterans, men and non-Hispanic white citizens, and low crime; t-tests indicate “no visibility” policy states significantly differed from other states in the percentage of non-Hispanic whites and crime. Further, state policing agencies with a “no visibility” policy tended to be in northeastern states, with southern states having the fewest state policing agencies with such policies, although the χ² test was non-significant.

Despite the ubiquity of tattoos in the American society, the literature is scant with studies of police appearance policies regarding tattoos. This study provides a partial summary of tattoo policies at the state policing level.

This study aims to explore the ethical and social issues of tattoo recognition technology (TRT) and tattoo similarity detection technology (TSDT), which are expected to be increasingly used by state and local police departments and law enforcement agencies.

The paper investigates the new ethical concerns raised by tattoo-based biometrics on a comparative basis with face-recognition biometrics.

TRT raises much more ethically sensitive issues than face recognition, because tattoos are meaningful biometric traits, and tattoo identification is tantamount to the identification of many more personal features that normally would have remained invisible. TSDT’s assumption that classifying people in virtue of their visible features is useful to foretell their attitudes and behaviours is dangerously similar to racist thought.

The findings hope to promote an active debate on the ethical and social aspects of tattoo-based biometrics before it is intensely implemented by law enforcement agencies.

Tattooed individuals – inasmuch as they are more controlled and monitored – are negatively discriminated in comparison to un-tattooed individuals. As tattooing is not uniformly distributed among population, many demographic groups like African–Americans will be overrepresented in tattoos databases used by TRT and TSDT, thus being affected by disproportionately higher risk to be found as a match for a given suspect.

TRT and TSDT represent one of the new frontiers of biometrics. The ethical and social issues raised by TRT and TSDT are currently unexplored.

This study draws on social stigma and prejudice to examine the perceptions and beliefs of managers and employees regarding visible tattoos and body piercings, as well as the impact they have on potential employment and human resource management in the global South, using Nigeria as the research context.

The study uses a qualitative research approach, drawing on data from 43 semi-structured interviews with employees and managers in Nigeria.

Contrary to the popular opinion that tattoos and body piercings are becoming more accepted and mainstream in society, this study finds that some Nigerian employers and employees may stigmatise and discriminate against people with visible tattoos and body piercings. The findings of this study suggest that beliefs about tattoos are predicated on ideologies as well as religious and sociocultural values, which then influence corporate values.

The extent to which the findings of this research can be generalised is constrained by the limited sample and scope of the research.

Religious and sociocultural preconceptions about people with visible tattoos and body piercings have negative implications for the recruitment and employment of such people and could prevent organisations from hiring and keeping talented employees. This implies that talented employees might experience prejudice at job interviews, preventing them from gaining employment. Furthermore, stigmatising and discriminating against people with visible tattoos and body piercings may lead to the termination of employment of talented employees, which could negatively affect organisational productivity and growth.

This study provides an insight into the employment relations regarding tattoos and body piercing in Nigeria. The study highlights the need for mild beliefs and positive perceptions about people with visible tattoos and unconventional body piercings. There should be a general tolerance of the individual preference for body art and physical appearance, and this tolerance should be incorporated in organisational policies, which are enactments of corporate culture.

As tattoos increase in popularity, questions persist regarding their impact on customer perceptions. To help shed light into this issue, this paper aims to explore the impact of tattooed restaurant servers in the context of service failures. Through the agency and communion theory, the authors propose that a female server with tattoos induces higher levels of negative word of mouth (WOM) intention than her male counterpart. Furthermore, the authors propose that perceived competence mediates this effect.

Through a 2 (tattoos status: yes, no) × 2 (server’s gender: male, female) experimental design, a panel of consumers were exposed to a restaurant service failure scenario with a photograph of a server. Depending on the condition, the server was either a male or female and had (or not) a tattoo on their left arm and neck. The same tattoo design was used for both genders.

The findings indicate that, in a service failure context, customers’ propensity to generate negative WOM does not differ across tattooed (vs non-tattooed) servers. However, contrary to the expectations of the authors, people tend to react more negatively to a male (vs female) server with tattoos.

Research on tattoos in the customer service context is scant, especially in hospitality. Furthermore, no previous study on tattoos has empirically tested a mediation process explaining differences in customer perceptions. Contrary to previous findings, this study demonstrates that an exposure to male (vs female) tattooed servers increases customers’ propensity to generate negative WOM. In other words, the type of profession coupled with the employees’ gender might influence customer perceptions. Furthermore, as customers’ propensity to generate negative WOM did not increase when served by a tattooed (vs non-tattooed) employee, managers in aesthetic labor industries, such as the foodservice business, can be more accepting of employees with tattoos.

It is proposed that visible tattoos on service personnel may be used as a clue by consumers in predicting service process and outcome. This paper aims to explore this general hypothesis by investigating consumer perceptions of tattooed service employees and whether they vary by type of service rendered, the age of the perceiver, and whether the perceiver has a tattoo or not.

A quota sample of age‐grouped subjects reported their perceptions of the appropriateness of visible tattoos on service personnel in nine different occupations as well as their inferences about tattooed people on five personal traits.

Overall, visible tattoos on white‐collar workers were deemed inappropriate while similar tattoos on blue‐collar workers were viewed as appropriate. Respondents (both young and old and tattooed versus non‐tattooed) believed financial services workers should not have visible tattoos. Older subjects held a more unfavorable view of tattooed people, in general, than younger subjects, believing tattooed people are less intelligent and less honest than non‐tattooed people.

The respondents did not evaluate actual tattoos, just the location of the tattoo on the arms, hands, or neck. Also, subjects evaluated hypothetical employees. Prior acquaintance with the employee might alter the perception of the tattoo.

This is apparently the first study to investigate consumer perceptions of visibly tattooed service personnel. Written explanations given by subjects for their responses suggest that judgment of the appropriateness of the tattoo is driven by expectations. That is, whether the presence of the tattoo is congruent with the mental image of people in that occupation in the mind of the perceiver. Interestingly, judgment of appropriateness was not affected by whether the perceiver had a tattoo or not, suggesting that perceived similarity of the object to the perceiver had little influence on evaluation.

As employers are purportedly becoming more receptive to tattoos, the question arises whether tattooed employees are nonetheless subject to unfavorable treatment. In this light, the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of different tattoo characteristics on four outcomes: annual earnings, fair interpersonal treatment from supervisors, perceived discrimination and perceived overqualification. The specific tattoo characteristics were tattoo number, visibility and content.

Survey data from a sample of 162 tattooed hospitality employees were obtained from a Qualtrics research panel and analyzed using regression.

The results demonstrated that employees with a greater degree of dark tattoo content (content of a more threatening and intimidating nature) received less favorable treatment, as demonstrated by significant relationships with fair interpersonal treatment, perceived discrimination and perceived overqualification. Tattoo number was related to increased perceived discrimination and perceived overqualification. At the same time, tattoo number was related to increased annual earnings, signaling a benefit.

Measures of tattoo characteristics and workplace outcomes were collected in a single survey. An analysis of data collected at different points would potentially provide a more definitive test of cause and effect.

On one front, organizations should establish grooming policies that specify what is acceptable with respect to tattoos. To help minimize personality-related tattoo stereotypes from influencing hiring decisions, organizations could use personality assessments to make the hiring process more objective. Moreover, diversity training could address tattoo-related stereotypes, bias and prejudice.

Even though prior studies have demonstrated that tattooed people are viewed as less suitable for employment, research focused on the relationship between tattoos and actual discrimination has been limited. The results from this study highlight that employees with tattoos may still be subject to maltreatment, despite the mainstreaming of tattoos.

The purpose of this paper is to gain better understanding of the attitudes toward those with tattoo(s) – by both those with and without tattoos – within the workplace. Specifically, this paper works to gain better understanding of attitudes toward those within specific employment and workplace groups.

This study utilized a self-administered Likert scaled original survey through a combined random and snowball sampling method. Results were analyzed using quantitative statistical analysis based on responses to attitudinal questions and demographic factors.

The results of this study indicate that negative attitudes toward tattoos are diminishing, and that there is an ever shrinking gap in negative attitudes between those with and those without tattoos.

While intended to be an exploratory exercise, this study may have been limited by the participant base. Even with a high number of responses, the random and snowball sampling of the participants may have resulted in clusters of data which may not be transferable across the population. Future studies should seek more closed collection of the data within specific organizations or controlled participant groups.

This study makes a new contribution to the literature as it is one of the first studies to specifically ask those with tattoos how they feel about others with tattoos. It is also one of the first academic articles, rather than journalistic, which explores attitudes toward tattoos within specific organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how consumers view sponsorship tattoos. This study specifically addresses three research questions: first, how consumers view the idea of sponsorship tattooing; second, how the brand of the tattoo alters acceptance of the tattoo; and third, how the placement on the body of the athlete affects acceptance of the tattoo.

To address these research questions, focus groups were conducted.

Findings highlighted three important themes related to tattoos, sponsorships and brand perceptions: meaning of the tattoo itself, meaning related to the brand and the tattoo and meaning related to the tattoo and athlete.

For practitioners, this research highlights the complexity between consumers’ interaction with brands through sponsorship tattoos, which is a complicated, multi-dimensional process during which meaning can be assigned to multiple facets of the sponsorship relationship.

For scholars, this research offers a glimpse into an emerging trend that ties together the multi-billion dollar sports and tattoo industries. In sum, this research identifies ways in which consumers interpret meaning related to the tattoo itself, the brand and the athlete based on placement, sport and brand perceptions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how tattoos can be considered documents of an individual’s identity, experiences, status and actions in a given context, relating to ideas stating that archival records/documents can be of many types and have different functions. The paper also wants to discuss how tattoos serve as a bank of memories and evidence on a living body; in this respect, the tattooed body can be viewed as an archive, which immortalises and symbolises the events and relationships an individual has experienced in his or her life, and this in relation to a specific social and cultural context.

To discuss these issues, the authors take the point of departure in the tattoo practice of Russian/Soviet prisoners. The tattoo material referred to is from the “Russian Criminal Tattoo Archive”. The archive is created by FUEL Design and Publishing that holds the meanings of the tattoos as explained in Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume I-III. The authors exemplify this practice with two photographs of Soviet/Russian prisoners and their tattoos. By using a semiotic analysis that contextualises these images primarily through literature studies, the authors try to say something about what meaning these tattoos might carry.

The paper argues that it is possible to view the tattoo as a document, bound to an individual, reflecting his/her life and a given social and cultural context. As documents, they provide the individual with the essential evidence of his or her endeavours in a criminal environment. They also function as an individual’s memory of events and relationships (hardships and comradeships). Subsequently, the tattoos help create and sustain an identity. Finally, the tattoo presents itself as a document that may represent a critique of a dominant society or simply the voice of the alienated.

By showing how tattoos can be seen as documents and memory records, this paper brings a new kind of item into information and archival studies. It also uses theories and concepts from information and archival studies to put new light on the functions of tattoos.