Compare Cobras, Cobaias & Cosmetic Surgery

Concerned with the dangers posed by large numbers of cobras slithering around the countryside, British overlords in Colonial India said they’d pay a bounty for each cobra body submitted. The response from industrious Indians was to start raising the venomous reptiles to earn money. There were now more, not fewer, cobras. Realizing the program wasn’t working, the government discontinued it. The response of the entrepreneurs to this change was to release their stocks of snakes, since the animals were now worse than worthless. As the tale goes, the population of cobras ended up quite more abundant than it had been before the bounty offer.
     Unintended consequences. Among the component disciplines of consumer psychology is economics. When applying consumer psychology at the societal level, anticipate a full range of reactions, counterreactions, and tradeoffs arising from the dynamics of economics.
     Another example of the insights from such an analysis is seen when considering the use of cosmetic surgery in Brazil. Researchers at University of Macedonia and International University of Monaco report that most women in Brazil consider physical beauty as a requirement for successful life. This attitude is both a cause and an effect of the Brazilian government considering its citizens to have a “right to beauty.” Cosmetic surgery is low-cost or even free, thanks to government subsidies.
     But there have been some ugly outcomes. Because of the universal expectation of beauty and the removal of financial barriers, the surgery waiting list is long and many of the procedures are conducted by those still learning how. On the upside, new cosmetic surgery techniques are continually being developed in Brazil. Physicians worldwide travel there to learn. On the downside, the latest cosmetic surgery techniques might not be ready for prime-time exposure. A common term for the patients is “cobaias,” which translates to “guinea pigs.”
     Against this background of cosmetic surgery being expected, nay required, in Brazil, extensive beauty work is socially disapproved in certain other countries. Researchers at Murray State University and University of South Florida find evidence that the underlying reason is perceptions of compromised morality. This is another potential downside of cosmetic surgery, with economic implications if the perceptions affect employment prospects or effectiveness in persuading others. The researchers speculate that this disparagement of cosmetically-altered influencers is less likely if the influencers tell their targets of influence that the surgeries were done for self-expression, to reveal the influencer’s true identity.

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