The impact of idealised facial images on satisfaction with facial appearance: Comparing ‘ideal’ and ‘average’ faces

Objectives Recent work has demonstrated that female orthognathic patients display more dissatisfaction with their facial appearance after viewing idealised images of facial photographs, than do controls. Patients may request orthognathic surgery because they hope to improve their appearance to conform with ideals portrayed in the mass media, and these hopes may not be realistic. Patients who demonstrate certain personality traits are more likely to hold such hopes. The current study sought to identify the role of dental status (orthognathic patient versus control), personality traits and media images in dissatisfaction with facial appearance. Methods Female patients and controls completed a bank of personality measures and then gave repeated measures of satisfaction with their facial appearance after viewing images of ‘ideal’ and ‘average’ women. Results Neither group showed any change in satisfaction with appearance after viewing either set of images. Patients showed lower satisfaction with facial appearance than controls, but did not differ on other personality measures. Conclusions Viewing ‘ideal’ images of other women has no significant impact on satisfaction with appearance compared to viewing images of ‘average’ women. These results may help inform the development of a psycho-educational intervention to protect women against the negative effects of viewing idealised images in the media.