Men's Cosmetic Surgery in Tehran; A Dialectical Study of Agent and Structure based on Critical Realism

This study, based on the Critical Realism paradigm, investigates the social contexts and structures and causal mechanisms which lead to men's cosmetic surgery in Tehran and their dialectical relationship with human agency. The methodology of the research is based on Amber Fletcher's  three-step method includes  description, deduction and retroduction. For this purpose, two groups of data were collected: the quantitative data which extracted from previous national surveys and the qualitative data that obtained through in-depth semi-structured interviews with cosmetic surgeons (n = 10) and the men who have received cosmetic surgery services(n = 14). The findings show that body image dissatisfaction, increasing of self-esteem, social approval  and better social communication were among men's internal motivations for proceeding cosmetic surgery. The women and  celebrities has acted as men's external encouragers. Limited surgical centers, reducing the gap between cosmetic surgery costs and middle-class income, a lack of diversity in accepted forms of identity displaying, Increasing growth of virtual social networks, the booming cosmetic surgery market, and  diminishing social importance of religion, have provided necessary contexts and social conditions for men's aesthetic surgery. The transition of Iranian society from traditionalism to modernism, medicalization of the aesthetic field, increasing  growth of materialistic values, policy of releasing  the medical space of  the community by the Ministry of Health, growth of self-centeredness and the decline of generalized trust were among the social structures and causal mechanisms which emergenced and expanded  men's cosmetic surgery in Tehran.