In-depth Analysis of the Motivation of Tattooing Participants

Lee, Hae-young; Lee, Sang-rae; Kim, Hyun-jung; Kim, Gyu-rang

Journal of the Korean Society of Cosmetology 2020;26(6):1270-1277.
Published online December 31, 2020.

타투 경험자의 참여동기에 관한 심층적 분석

이해영, 이상례, 김현정, 김규랑

In-depth Analysis of the Motivation of Tattooing Participants

Hae-young Lee, Sang-rae Lee, Hyun-jung Kim, Gyu-rang Kim

Abstract

Tattoo is loved as one of the behaviors to express personality in the present age where a variety of thoughts and values co-exist. This study conducted an in-depth survey of motives and types of tattooing by means of an open-ended questionnaire with subjects with tattoos between 20s and 40s of ages in the metropolitan area of Seoul. The result of analysis by age, first of all, showed that the age group in the 20s was dominant with 3 or more tattoos showing a favor of designs with mixture of illustrations and letters. Second, the analysis on the motives to have tattoo revealed the categories such as beauty, assigning meaning to life, pursuit of personality, and functional motives. Third, subordinate motives of beauty were yearning for tattoo, expression of fashion, and sexual appeal, those of assigning meaning to life were resolution, archiving, and storage, those of pursuit of personality were identity, distinctiveness, overcoming image, and those of functional motives were aesthetic supplementation and function of beauty fashion item. In result, it was found that tattoo was expanding as a beauty item along with confirmation of its marketability. Therefore, it is necessary to achieve change of attitude along with the expansion of the market and promote researches and tattoo design development to ease the institutional limitations in the beauty industry.

Key Words: Motivation, Participation, Tattoo