Here’s a quick question. When you spot someone with highly visible tattoos, what might be among your first guesses: Rapper? Pharmacist? Welder? CEO? Nanny?
Better slow down on the assumptions. Over past decades, American stereotypes about tattoos have pivoted. Not so long ago, body art almost exclusively leaned toward the rebellious segments of our culture. Today, acceptance is so much broader that matching mother-daughter tattoos don’t raise a brow even in the tidiest suburbs.
When it comes to the workplace, however, the story can get muddled. Hiring officers, managers and customers very likely do make assumptions because of your ink. But whether that saddles you with negative stigma or grants you a cool, independent-thinker image is more fluid that you might expect, according to Enrica Ruggs, associate professor at the University of Houston C.T. Bauer College of Business Department of Management and Leadership. She’s somewhat of a detective on how groups become marginalized in society and what onlookers should do when they witness it.
“In the past, tattoos existed on the edge of society... many tattoos serve opposite roles now and are designed to depict belonging."
“I became interested in tattoos because of my professional interest is stigma, especially in workplaces. My life’s work is to understand how people burdened with stigmatized identities are devalued in society and treated unfairly at work,” she said.
Ruggs is so intrigued by the evolving attitudes about tattoos and their related subtleties she has dedicated research to dissecting notions about wearers of body ink in the workplace. The more recent study, “Do Employees’ Tattoos Leave a Mark on Customers’ Reactions to Products and Organizations?,” of which she is first author, is published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior.
“In the past, tattoos existed on the edge of society. They were found mostly on outsiders from the mainstream and usually represented individualism, even rebellion. But that has turned around. Many tattoos serve opposite roles now and are designed to depict belonging. They can be visible shout-outs to a person’s culture, orientation, profession or some other group. Some memorialize a rite of passage. Others show symbols that reflect the wearer’s faith or reflect in-memoriam images that honor the passing of loved ones,” Ruggs said.
