The influence of gender or culture on determining esthetic facial profile

Ko, Su Jin; Kim, Hyun Soon; Kim, Young Jin

Abstract

Because many of patients seeking orthodontic treatment worry about the facial appearance and their chief motivation for orthodontic treatment is facial esthetics, it is critical to understand the influence of gender or culture on the evaluation of profile esthetics. The purpose of this study was to find out any influence of gender or culture on judging good facial profile. 4 different groups were asked to evaluate 133 facial profiles to test the influence of gender or culture on judging good facial profiles. Those 4 groups consisted of 10 Korean males, 10 Korean females, 10 Korean American males, and 10 Korean American females. 2 evaluation systems were introduced, absolute and relative. Soft tissues of selected good profile group were analyzed and statistic analysis was performed. Conclusions were as follows : 1. Inter-evaluator difference for judging good facial profile was statistically significant, even if there was general agreement for the best profile among 40 raters. 2. Gender difference under the same cultural environment was not significant statistically. 3. The same ethnic groups with different cultural background showed statistically different preference on judging good profile. 4. Good facial profile group had their own characteristics compared to remaining group in several soft tissue measurements which were vertical facial ratio, soft tissue facial convexity, and antero-posterior relative lip position.