Psychology - attitudes and appearance

Question 1

What do people want to be able to do?

Answer 1

• 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

Question 2

What are attitudes?

Answer 2

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)

Question 3

What is the impact of appearence? Being attractive…

Answer 3

• More desireable as friends/lovers
• More intelligent
• Less likely to behave aggressively
• Happier/more successful
• Better mental health
• More self-confident

Question 4

What is the impact of appearance? Having normal dentition:

Answer 4

• Better looking
• More desireable as friends
• More intelligent
• Less likely to behave aggressively

Question 5

What is the dental perspective of smiling?

Answer 5

Facial musculature: ability to display expressions of the mind

Smiling and laughing: expressive (relational) behaviour, positive effect (competance & response), intelligence, sympathy, extraversion, attractiveness

Question 6

What do we think of physical appearance?

Answer 6

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)

Question 7

what is disfigurement?

Answer 7

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)

Question 8

What is a congenital disfigurement?

Answer 8

Born with it e.g. cleft lip and palate (1 in 700), birthmarks, craniostynosis (sutures in skull fuse prematurely = 1 in 1/4 million)

Question 9

What is an example of a genetic disfigurement?

Answer 9

e.g. neurofibromatosis (tumours growing on nerves = numbness & deforms face = facial pain, headaches, hearing loss, tinnitis -> Type 1 from birth & Type 2 is bilarteral)

Question 10

What is an example of a cancer disfigurement?

Answer 10

e.g. skin melanoma (before/due to treatment of cancer), Maxillectomy (removal of oral/throat cancer)

Question 11

What is an example of palsies and strokes disfigurement?

Answer 11

e.g. Bells palsy

Question 12

What are two accidental injury disfigurement examples?

Answer 12

e.g. burns and road traffic accidents

Question 13

What are 4 examples of dermatological conditions disfigurement?

Answer 13

Acne, vitiligo, psoriasis & alopecia

Question 14

What are the common symptoms of Body dismorphic disorder?

Answer 14

• Mirror watching
• Camoflage (make up, big jumpers, scarfs)
• Avoiding social situations
• Seeing oneself as grotesque

Question 15

Body Dysmorphic disorder:

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

What are the ‘problems’ of looking different?

Answer 16

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)

Question 17

Why are images relevant in dentistry?

Answer 17

• 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)

Question 18

How do you form impressions of others?

Answer 18

• ​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.)

Question 19

What are attributions?

Answer 19

• 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)

Question 20

When is it best to present positive information?

Answer 20

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)

Question 21

Impression management:

Social interaction & social identity

Answer 21

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