I really liked Angela’s activity for class yesterday; we could see how our attributions about the girl’s personality and life-style changed, depending on her tattoos.  Although we discussed how the story behind a person’s tattoo could alter our perception of the ink, our society enforces judgment based on appearance.  Our group assumes the heavily tattooed girl wouldn’t be in a traditional profession, and sadly that’s probably correct.  Employers make a lot of personality and work ethic judgments based on a prospect’s appearance.  Josh even told us how his tattoo could have affected his military career, I wonder if the strong stigma correlates with the prevalence of tattoos in prisons and gangs.  Does simply having a tattoo in our society, regardless of the meaning, make you a larger liability of violence and criminal behavior?

-Allison B