Psychology - attitudes and appearance Flashcards
What do people want to be able to do?
- Survive in a social network
- Makes sense of their social world - reality
- Predict the effects of behaviour
- Have control (make sensile decisions & nice rather than nasty events)
- Act in a way that fits their view of themselves
- Maintain their own self-esteem
MAY NOT ALWAYS ACT CONSISTENTLY
What are attitudes?
Feelings and behaviour (knowledge?) towards something/someone
- Affects their responses to others (defence mechanism)
- Consequence of experience and socialisation (we adapt our behaviours to try and fit in)
What is the impact of appearence? Being attractive…
- More desireable as friends/lovers
- More intelligent
- Less likely to behave aggressively
- Happier/more successful
- Better mental health
- More self-confident
What is the impact of appearance? Having normal dentition:
- Better looking
- More desireable as friends
- More intelligent
- Less likely to behave aggressively
What is the dental perspective of smiling?
Facial musculature: ability to display expressions of the mind
Smiling and laughing: expressive (relational) behaviour, positive effect (competance & response), intelligence, sympathy, extraversion, attractiveness
What do we think of physical appearance?
Many of us are unhappy with the way we look
- £millions spent each year on beauty products and diet food
- Surgical interventions growing in popularity (many of us cant afford the expensive treatments but cosmetic treatments e.g. whitening and strightening of teeth are getting cheaper)
what is disfigurement?
The state of having ones appearance deeply and persistently harmed medically as a form of disease, birth defect or wound
or
An appearance that is different from a culturally defined norm which is visible to others
= more reliable (although breast cancer -> cannot see mastectomy but still feel disfigured)
What is a congenital disfigurement?
Born with it e.g. cleft lip and palate (1 in 700), birthmarks, craniostynosis (sutures in skull fuse prematurely = 1 in 1/4 million)
What is an example of a genetic disfigurement?
e.g. neurofibromatosis (tumours growing on nerves = numbness & deforms face = facial pain, headaches, hearing loss, tinnitis -> Type 1 from birth & Type 2 is bilarteral)
What is an example of a cancer disfigurement?
e.g. skin melanoma (before/due to treatment of cancer), Maxillectomy (removal of oral/throat cancer)
What is an example of palsies and strokes disfigurement?
e.g. Bells palsy
What are two accidental injury disfigurement examples?
e.g. burns and road traffic accidents
What are 4 examples of dermatological conditions disfigurement?
Acne, vitiligo, psoriasis & alopecia
What are the common symptoms of Body dismorphic disorder?
- Mirror watching
- Camoflage (make up, big jumpers, scarfs)
- Avoiding social situations
- Seeing oneself as grotesque
Body Dysmorphic disorder:
- Often believe their ‘defects’ are so obnoxious and real that they need to seek surgery (5 X more likely to be dissatisfied with the results of surgery)
- Believe what they see in the mirror is true and that others feel disgusted by them in the same way they do
- May see imagined spots or acne, or a nose that is bulbous, unsymmetrical and disproportionate to their face
What are the ‘problems’ of looking different?
Social disability (meeting new people, making new friends, obtaining jobs, romatic relationships)
Personality problems (worse with mild rather than severe disfigurement as reference peope are still ‘normal’ -> more likely to have anxiety & depression)
Why are images relevant in dentistry?
- Consultations are social encounters (need to display technical skills & empathy/understanding)
- Need to make rapid judgements (need more than immediate information, priorities -> what and whose)
- Patients anxious (appearance and expectations, functional difficulties, concerns about changes to condition and appearance)
- LISTEN TO CONCERNS (be aware of thos out of proportion & can refer to GP)
How do you form impressions of others?
- Actions, context & what people say and how
- Judgements about personality and character
- Influence how we feel and act with each other
- Attitudes to health, illness, dentists and medicine affect responses to healthcare (if you’ll go to the dentists or brush your teeth etc.)
What are attributions?
- What someone is really like (independent of moment or occasion)
- Based on preconception and observation (how you have grown up)
- Implicit theory of personality (which traits go together, expectations/perceptions of characteristics)
When is it best to present positive information?
First = primacy
Often use short cuts (dont really process the information, not a rational process, easier to accept information from someone who seems nice or looks like an expert)
Impression management:
Social interaction & social identity
Social interaction is a two way process
- Putting on a front (dentists: dental skills, look like a dentist, instill confidence, appropriate chair side manner)
- Supported by a team (other dental care practitioners -> go to considerable lengths to allow someone to save face)
Social identity:
- Change behaviour to fit in
- Behaviour is not a group of isolated acts
