‘Intergenerational Gap’ Might Play a Stronger Role than Socio-Cultural Gap in Contemporary Age Perception

Introduction: This study aimed to examine differences in inter-sociocultural perspectives among orthodontists assessing post-surgical facial appearance changes of Korean patients with ‘guessing age' of the patients as a tool. Methods: 20 orthodontists practicing in US and Korea examined facial photographs of 14 patients (7 male and 7 female) with skeletal Class III who underwent surgery-first orthognathic correction, facial bone contouring and which followed by post-surgical orthodontic treatments by an oral surgeon, a plastic surgeon and an orthodontist respectively. Two groups (US and Korea) of examiners postulated patients' perceiving age after observing frontal repose, frontal smile, 45 degrees and profile views of final (T2) first then initial (T1) photographs of each patient in such order. The data was analyzed according to examiner's practicing years (younger vs older group) and nationality (US vs Korea). Generalized Linear Model was used to compensate random effects for categorical variable. Results: Unexpectedly, a significant generation-gap emerged in both nationalities. Both older groups in US and Korea perceived less age difference (i.e., less improvement from the surgery) between T2 and T1 than the younger groups. In comparison with male patients, the age estimation of female patients revealed stronger generation-gap (i.e., lesser differences between T2 and T1). Conclusions: Our results showed, to certain extent, a cross-cultural consensus on the effects of the combination surgery is advantageous to enhance perception of ‘youthfulness' in the face. Evidently, modern-day standard of beauty has become global; however, considering the different results from the U.S. older groups, generation-gap perhaps plays a more significant role in social cognition.