International hellooo! :)

[Marlena Rozenberg]

This is an international hi!

So I've lived in London for nearly 3 years now but originally I'm from Poland. For a long time I'd been neutral about tattoos, found some of them beautiful, some of them ugly, never been critical or specially in favour of them either. Possibly because my parents tried to encourage me to get a tattoo (ironically, none of them has a tattoo up until this day!) when I was 16, so for me somehow the idea of getting a tattoo to be 'different' or to 'rebel' against my parents just wasn't there (don't get me wrong, now I don't think that tattoos are a sign of rebellion but as a 16 year old this is what I thought). I'm also scared of pain (hate pain and cold!), so that was another aspect of tattooing that was really putting me off it. However, around a year ago my perspective on tattoos started changing. I started travelling more, being more independent and experiencing new things. I went to Australia for an exchange from university and this is when I decided that I wanted to get a tattoo. I suddenly became fascinated by them, they started to have a completely different meaning to me and the pain didn't play much role any more.

My adventure with tattoos started when I went to Thailand last summer. I was quite tempted to get a tattoo done there because I knew it would be cheaper than anywhere in London. I spent a month in Thailand and it was the best time of my life. I had gone through so much before I got there and had experienced so many amazing things in Thailand so it made a perfect sense to me to get a tattoo done in a place that really opened my eyes and was a breaking point in my life. I did loads of research before choosing a tattoo parlour (in the end went to Max Tattoo in Bangkok), however, I spent a little bit less time on choosing the design. I had loads of ideas but ended up getting a pocket watch with a map of the world in the background on my forearm. The piece is beautiful and I'm really happy that I had it done! I've had it for just as long as 8 months and any time I feel upset or lose motivation, I look at it and remember what I felt at the time of getting it and how much it is to put effort into things you really want.

I have only one tattoo for now, but I'm thinking of getting more in the future. For now, however, my adventure with tattoos is continuing as my university project.

I'm a 3rd year Psychology student and I'm conducting a research on personality and attitudes towards tattoos.

I was wondering if I could post a link to my study on this forum, so I would be able to obtain data from a reliable source of people who are truly interested and passionate about tattoos?

The study is a short questionnaire which takes about 15 minutes to complete. I'd really appreciate your time if you complete it.

https://cityss.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eaO6FsmQ8VzCdJX

I would also appreciate if I got permission to post the link to the study in other threads in this forum. I am not going to do so without a permission from Admins of the forum out of respect to the community and I don't want to spam the forum.

[tatB]

you might want to search the forum for the other students that asked us to do a survey...

[graybones]

Hello and welcome!

Generally, asking the members here to do surveys isn't well received. Check out these other threads to read some perspectives on why that is:

http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/initiation/5124-tattoo-survey.html

http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/initiation/3468-apology-my-tattoo-study-thread.html

http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/initiation/3459-hi.html

With that out of the way, I'd be interested in seeing photos of your pocket watch tattoo!

[tatB]

I took the survey out of curiosity and does appear to be well thought out. Much better than previous surveys posted here.

[Graeme]

Welcome to LST and thank you for making a thoughtful and respectful introduction. However, I'm not going to participate in your survey because--and there are a few exceptions here--I don't see studying tattoos from an academic perspective to be especially interesting or worthwhile. Put another way, will tattoos and tattooing benefit from the kind of research you're trying to do? That said, I hope you stick around because you seem nice and thoughtful.

[Marlena Rozenberg]

I took the survey out of curiosity and does appear to be well thought out. Much better than previous surveys posted here.

Thank you very much for taking the survey, I really appreciate it!

With that out of the way, I'd be interested in seeing photos of your pocket watch tattoo!

Thank you for making your point. It's quite a shame that it's not very welcomed but I understand and respect that.

So here's my tattoo :)

What do you think?

However, I'm not going to participate in your survey because--and there are a few exceptions here--I don't see studying tattoos from an academic perspective to be especially interesting or worthwhile. Put another way, will tattoos and tattooing benefit from the kind of research you're trying to do?

My research is looking into tattoos and people's attitude towards them, however, my main focus is on tattoos and regret they cause. There's many people out there who decide to get a tattoo and then, suddenly, after some time they realize that that's not who they are and it has a negative impact on them. Sometimes it causes so much distress and anxiety that they decide to get their tattoos cover up or even to remove them. I think that how people perceive the permanency of tattoos is a very interesting side of tattoos. I'm trying to find how different personality aspects affect people's decision to get a tattoo as well as whether there is a relation between personality traits and tattoo regret and whether certain abilities are linked to such decisions. Some people decide to live with the regret, they accept it, other don't - and that is interesting. I understand the point about the benefits that tattooing would get from a research like mine. Probably none, because people do whatever they want to do even if you prove that they will regret their decisions in the future. However, maybe some people will find the research interesting and think twice before they get a tattoo. It is important for me to get data from people who love their tattoos as well as from people who regret them (also people who have no tattoos at all) to examine whether there are personality differences and similarities between them.

I personally find it very interesting. When I got my tattoo done I was thrilled. I had thought my decision through, but I was thinking whether it's too big or whether it will have an effect on my future. I still think about it sometimes but I know I'm happy with it and what it represents. I'm wondering, though, whether I might be one of those people, who in 10 years time realize that they didn't want to get a tattoo and that they had a wrong agenda when getting it. There's a very interesting TED talk by Kathry Schulz (Don’t regret regret: Kathryn Schulz on TED.com | TED Blog) on personality and tattoo regret. I wanted to explore that topic a little bit and go further than most of the research that have been done.

[Graeme]

@Marlena Rozenberg Fair enough, and for that I'll take your survey.

[CultExciter]

my main focus is on tattoos and regret they cause. There's many people out there who decide to get a tattoo and then, suddenly, after some time they realize that that's not who they are and it has a negative impact on them.

It's because they didn't get a panther.

[Shaun1105]

It's because they didn't get a panther.

I'll take the survey if I can be assured that this quote makes the final paper in some fashion.

[Marlena Rozenberg]

I'll take the survey if I can be assured that this quote makes the final paper in some fashion.

haha that comment really make me laugh! i'll do my best to sneak it into the paper somehow :D

[Shaun1105]

haha that comment really make me laugh! i'll do my best to sneak it into the paper somehow :D

Well that's good because I already took the survey! All the best in your studies.

[Marlena Rozenberg]

Well that's good because I already took the survey! All the best in your studies.

Thank you very much :)

[growltiger]

Done :)

Please give us a summary of your findings when you are done.

[bugxjuice]

What's the scale of this research, is it just an undergraduate project or is it a PhD dissertation? Seems like you probably won't learn anything useful or interesting.

[DJDeepFried]

I actually watched/listened to that whole TED talk and I think the main reason she regrets getting that tattoo is because it's pretty weak sauce. Yours is better anyway. I do think it's weird that she immediately regretted it and didn't get to enjoy it at all, which is pretty sad, but maybe not that uncommon. I think there was a thread about this awhile back but I'm too lazy to look for it.

Around here the conventional wisdom is that the solution to any tattoo-related problem is to get more (good) tattoos. I can think of one particular poster who was given this advice from several different people but has apparently chosen not to take it.

In any case I'm wondering if you saw this article which addressed the same topic. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/magazine/the-existential-anguish-of-the-tattoo.html?_r=0

It's mostly bullshit and will definitely annoy @Graeme but there it is. It does reinforce the fact that some people simply shouldn't get tattoos.

But what the hell, I'll take your survey.

[Graeme]

@DJDeepFried I read that article and it annoyed me, but I don't completely hate it. I think it's telling that this "existential anguish" he's writing about comes from his Red Hot Chili Peppers logo tattoo, but when he talks about the swallow he got at Adorned, he says simply that he likes it and that it reminds him of the place and time he got it. And sure, he may have had all sorts of pretentious aspiring-writer in his early-20s reasons for getting that tattoo, but when it comes down to it, it's a tattoo of a bird. The "meaning" of that tattoo has probably shifted a hundred times since he got it, which is something you can't say for tattoos that have a very literal meaning attached to them.

I took the survey because the OP seems like she's making a genuine effort to interact with us here--very much unlike other people who came here asking for similar things--but I don't think this line of inquiry is ultimately very useful because it's trying to make generalisations where they can't be made. I don't want to be Captain Obvious here, but not all tattoos are equivalent and looking at tattoos as if a tattoo is a tattoo is a tattoo, which I feel this survey does, (to be fair to the OP, there is some nuance in the survey but the problem with using quantitative methods to explore this subject is that you're going to lose specificities) isn't going to give much useful information. Most of the regular posters here get tattoos because we like tattoos and we like the art of tattoos. That's going to be a whole different thing than somebody who gets tattoos to symbolise meaning. There are a bunch of other things I could get into here but I'm not going to because I'm already bored of writing this.

[Orangutango]

Taken, mostly cause you actually approached this like a respectful human, not someone looking for other people to do their shortcuts for them. Good luck with it and here's to no regrats.

[Hands On]

the question "how many tattoos do you have?" will probably have a bunch of LSTers stuck for a little while.

[TrixieFaux]

the question "how many tattoos do you have?" will probably have a bunch of LSTers stuck for a little while.

Ha! I took the survey and was totally baffled by that one...and the how many do you have upper arm ___ lower arm ___. When it's a sleeve it's just 1...but...I had one already that became in corporated in one sleeve and 2 that became incorporated in the other sleeve...so is that 2 and 3? Or 1 and 1? OH THE MATH, IT'S HURTING MY BRAIN! I only teach kindergarten, we don't go into these types of mathematical dilemmas. ;)

[Bexter]

Ha! I took the survey and was totally baffled by that one...and the how many do you have upper arm ___ lower arm ___. When it's a sleeve it's just 1...but...I had one already that became in corporated in one sleeve and 2 that became incorporated in the other sleeve...so is that 2 and 3? Or 1 and 1? OH THE MATH, IT'S HURTING MY BRAIN! I only teach kindergarten, we don't go into these types of mathematical dilemmas. ;)

Ha. Sounds like a maths question from a text book "if Lisa has one tattoo on her back that was covered up with a new tattoo and Peter has 2 tattoos on his arm that were incorporated into a sleeve, how many tattoos does Felix have?"

[Dbeatdano]

I figured since I wasn't very nice to the last person who posted a survey that I would take this one. I have to say it was pretty insightful and well thought out. I hope my answers help you with your research on a pretty interesting topic. And I like your watch tattoo btw.