Skip to main content

Tattoos Don't Convey Accurate Impressions Of People, Study Says

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on July 2, 2025.

via HealthDay

WEDNESDAY, July 2, 2025 — Tattoos have become a form of self-expression, a means of telling the world something about yourself.

Unfortunately, observers mostly misread these inky cues and misjudge the personalities of tattoo bearers, a new study says.

Study participants tended to agree among themselves on what they think a tattoo says about someone, but their impressions were generally off-base, researchers report in the upcoming August issue of the Journal of Research in Personality.

“When people saw a tattoo, they tended to think at least similarly in what they assumed the person was like,” said researcher William Chopik, an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University.

“However, the accuracy of these assumptions does not align with reality for most traits,” he added in a news release.

For the study, researchers had 274 adults with 375 tattoos fill out a questionnaire to assess their personality.

The team then showed photos of the people’s tattoos to a second group of 30 college students and professors, and asked them to judge the bearer’s personality solely based on their tattoos.

The judges tended to agree with each other regarding what a tattoo said about a person, but those judgments rarely corresponded to the tattoo owner’s self-reported personality, results show.

People were consistently misjudged on their agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion and neuroticism, when evaluated solely on the tattoos they had.

For example, people with death-related tattoos were judged to be less agreeable and more neurotic, but those observations didn’t track with results from their personality inventory.

There was one exception, however.

People with quirky or wacky tattoos were perceived to be open to new experiences, and that evaluation proved accurate in personality tests.

Those folks were accurately judged to be more open-minded, interested in seeking new experiences, and appreciative of artistic endeavors.

“We were surprised to see that people accurately judged someone’s openness based only on seeing a photo of a tattoo,” said lead investigator Brooke Soulliere, a research associate at Michigan State, in a news release. “When people see a wacky or goofy tattoo, they assume that person is open to experience. And ... they’re correct about it.”

A next step for future research would be to see if behavior toward tattooed people changes based on these judgments, researchers said.

“For example, women with visible tattoos are less likely to be hired for supervisory positions and are offered a lower salary than peers without visible tattoos,” researchers wrote.

“Discrimination based on someone having tattoos is likely never acceptable," the study added. "However, as we showed, people make different judgments about different types of tattoos (even if personality was rarely related to the types of tattoos people have).”

Sources

  • Journal of Research in Personality, August 2025
  • Michigan State University, news release, July 1, 2025

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Read this next

Tuna Recalled in Seven States Over Listeria Fears

WEDNESDAY, July 23, 2025 — Two types of tuna sold in seven states are being recalled due to listeria concerns. The first recall affects tuna salad and...

Urgent Care Often Hands Out Inappropriate Prescriptions, Study Finds

WEDNESDAY, July 23, 2025 — Urgent care clinics are handing out fistfuls of antibiotics, steroids and opioids for conditions these drugs won’t help, a new study...

Recalled: More Than 67,000 Cases of Deodorant Sold at Dollar Tree, Walmart, and Amazon

TUESDAY, July 22, 2025 — More than 67,000 cases of Power Stick deodorant have been recalled due to an undisclosed manufacturing issue. The recalled deodorants, made by A.P...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.