Tattoos And Piercing Linked To Bad Behavior

By Margarita Nahapetyan

The more body art you have, the more likely you are to be involved in risky and criminal behavior, says a new study titled "Body Art, Deviance, and American College Students."

Researchers at Texas Tech University in the United States led by a sociology professor Jerome R. Koch, found that there is a straight link between the number of tattoos and body piercings a person has and the amount of "deviance" they were involved in. The "Body Art Team" revealed that those individuals who have 4 or more tattoos on their bodies, 7 or more body piercings, or one "intimate piercing," are far more prone to use illegal drugs, be arrested for criminal offenses, cheat on college work, drink alcohol, and have multiple sex partners.

Professor Koch and his colleagues surveyed 1,753 students from four American colleges (two state-supported public schools and two highly selective religious institutions), asking all of them to report their level of body art acquisition as well as their history of deviance. The study found that 37 per cent of all respondents in the poll were pierced, 14 per cent of the surveyors carried at least one tattoo on their body and 4 per cent per cent reported having seven or more piercings, at least four tattoos, and/or at least one piercing in their private parts. In addition, the participants told the experts about different aspects concerning their behavior, including drug use and alcohol consumption, sexual life and whether they cheat on tests.

The findings revealed that there were sharp differences in the levels of deviant behavior among students who had just one tattoo against those who had four or more, and among those with just one to three piercings against those with at least seven, said Professor Koch. Students with lots of tattoos and piercings were ten times more likely to have an arrest history, a 4-fold increase in use of illegal drugs (other than marijuana), and there was a 5-fold increase in having had at least nine sex partners in the previous year. The researchers said they did not find any difference between the behaviors of students with no body art and those with small numbers of tattoos or piercings.

Professor Koch observed that thirty years ago, those individuals who had tattoos on their bodies, were part of a subculture, but these days having a tattoo has become more mainstream, and so some people are pushing the envelope in the use of body art in order to be different from others.

The study was first reported in Miller-McCune magazine, which tracks academic research, and will be printed in The Social Science Journal in March.