Do Co-Workers Like Your Body?

Piercing Prejudice: People that pierce their lips, tongues and other highly visible areas may be unwittingly setting themselves up for prejudice from co-workers, business professors at Texas State University say. Using surveys of 150 people—some with body art and others without it—researchers Brian K. Miller, Jack Eure and Kay Nicols found that most people “would rather not work with someone who has visible art in situations requiring face-to-face contact with customers, even if qualified for the job.” Interestingly, “even those with body art were critical of others whose bodies were adorned with fashion statements,” although those opinions were expressed only anonymously. The conclusion is that even people who wear body art find the practice “a little unsavory in co-workers.”

The issue extends to people’s wallets. Respondents told the researchers they “do not want to share sales commissions” with people who wear body art out of fear it may unfavorably affect their own performance on the job—although it is unclear how this might happen. The scenario used was of a company that sold business insurance, with participants asked to comment on working with people who prefer lots of tattoos or unusual body piercings.