PSYCH032: Physical Self

Halo Effect

The tendency of people to rate attractive individuals more favorably for their personality traits or characteristics compared to those who are less attractive

Horn Effect (Devil Effect)

Give low ratings to the person because of 1 negative attribute

Culture and Perception of Beauty

• Cultural traditions can either be a positive or negative influence on body image and on self-esteem.

• The ideal standards of body sizes are culturally specific: shape of nose, lips, amount of body fat, length of feet (standards of beauty)

Body Image

Refers to how individuals perceived, think, and feel about their own body and physical appearance

Appearance

Everything about a person that others can observe; height, weight, skin color, and hairstyles.

Causes of poor body image:

1. Emphasis on the thin ideal body

2. Bullying and peer pressure

3. Media

Effects of Body Image

1. Body Dissatisfaction

2. Depression

3. Low self-esteem

4. Eating Disorder

5. Extreme Body Modification

Bulimia Nervosa

Out of control eating episodes or binges are followed by self-induced vomiting, excessive use of laxatives or other

Anorexia Nervosa

The person eats only minimal amounts of food or exercises vigorously to offset food intake, so body weight sometimes drops dangerously (Underweight - what is perfect)

Binge-eating disorder

Individuals may binge repeatedly and find it distressing (feel guilty about their binges), but they do not attempt to purge the food.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

• Imagined Ugliness: a preoccupation with some imagined defect in appearance by someone who actually looks reasonably normal

• Subjective Ugliness: They may do something about their imagined ugliness.

St. Augustine

Asked whether things were beautiful because it gave delight, or whether it gave delight because it was beautiful.

Plato

Connected beauty to love and desire.

Aristotle

Asserted that the chief forms of beauty are order, symmetry, and definiteness.

David Hume

Beauty is no quality in things themselves; it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.

Francis Hutcheson

The perception of beauty does depend on the external sense of sight alone.