Affective forecasting for cosmetic surgery of Thai women: A qualitative study

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to study the components and mental simulation in affective forecasting for cosmetic surgery of Thai women. In this qualitative case-study, 17 participants were purposively selected using snowball sampling. Both prospective and retrospective approaches were designed for data collection in which nine cosmetic surgery prospective and eight cosmetic surgery retrospective participants were grouped, respectively. Narrative and in-depth interviews were used in collecting data. The results showed that the participants forecasted that after undergoing the cosmetic surgery, they would have positive emotions (satisfaction, happiness, feeling proud, confidence) which were more intense than their negative emotions (fear, irritation, annoyance, worry, disappointment, stress), with the duration of forecasted emotions expected to last longer than the negative ones. However, the actual emotions after the surgery were different from the forecasted emotions (for example, feeling fine and dissatisfaction). It was revealed that positive emotions were more intense than negative emotions. The duration of the forecasted emotion showed that positive emotions were forecasted to last longer than negative emotions. It was found that negative emotions were more intense and seemed to last longer than forecasted. The discrepancies could be attributed to mental simulation, such as unrepresentative simulation and decontextualized simulation. The results could be applied to reduce the discrepancy between expectations and reality and to guide related organizations in implementing some strategies for controlling cosmetic surgery clinics/hospitals to provide clients with accurate information before making any wrong decision or undergoing re-surgery, as well as to help those with negative emotions after surgery.