Behavioral Avoidance Of People With Facial Disfigurement

Cofer had no image problems while growing up; she always felt beautiful and was viewed as one in her hometown. However, after suffering with an extreme case of chicken pox and being left with permanent scars on her face, she chooses hiding behind her hair and books as a coping mechanism and prefers being “invisible”. Unfortunately chicken pox was the least of her problems, since many new factors affecting

Imagine lacking the ability to recognize the familiar face of a loved one or spouse. Or having to rely on voices, clothing, and certain attributes of that individual in order to have some kind of knowledge on who they actually are. This condition is defined as Prosopagnosia; known as face blindness or facial agnostic. According to Barton (2008), it was first described as a consequence of cerebral damage by Quaking and Bordello in 1867. This term comes from the Greek word “face” and “lack of knowledge.” Stated by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (2007), Prosopagnosia is anticipated to be the result of damages, abnormalities, or destruction in the right fusiform gyrus; part of the brain that controls the perception of faces and the functionality of memory in the neural system. This deficit can be present from birth, the result of a stroke, a traumatic brain injury, or neurodegenerative diseases. In order to help an individual with Prosopagnosia, it is essential to develop compensatory or redeeming strategies, as well as the use of clues or attributes to help them better identify individuals.

Everyone looks different from each other . Some are considered more attractive than others . This has caused many problems in our human race . This is because of the judgment of people based on their outward appearance . This actions caused many problems and are shown by the characters in the stories read this semester . Those characters were victims of been judged because of their outward appearance . This result in different types of effects such as being Stereotyped as a criminal , Also not been accepted because of who they want to be . Another effect is that some have lost their self-confidence .

As our current society stands, it is miserable to stand still and speculate the outstanding amount of people who have been put aside by society, who have been bullied upon, and suffered due to physical appearances. These individuals, instead of enjoying a normal life, are forced to confront the one problem they can't run away from; themselves.

This article argues that the physical appearance not only matters, it is important to our everyday life. It states that we uses some of the physical characteristics, especially facial appearance, to identify certain types of people. It is a survival skill in the case of recognizing criminals ,children, and peers. This is a scholarly research on facial appearance. I can use this to a one of the major point to support my thesis.

There are several different types of psychological and neurological phenomena that individuals live with every day. One of most interesting conditions that many individuals might not be aware of is prosopagnosia or face blindness. Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize and distinguish faces. For example, individuals with this condition could have difficulty recognizing their child’s, spouse’s, parent’s, or friend’s face. Many individuals with prosopagnosia will rely on other features to distinguish between other people, such as hair style or color, voices, or posture. As discussed in Chapter 3, prosopagnosia is thought to affect the Fusiform Face Area.

“He will soon learn to have a thick skin about what he has” - my senior dermatologist told as we walked out of the unit for children with congenital skin disorder, in which skin peels off even with slightest friction. I had gone into dermatology for its challenging complex diseases and hoping for a future with intellectual explorations. I was shocked to see the lack of structure to deal with the psychological aspects of patients. Often, I sat besides bewildered patients, listening to their stories of stigmatization and rejection in the community because of their appearance. I believed in adapting individual approaches to different personality types and cultural backgrounds. I was unwilling to accept everything at its face value, but felt satisfied seeking for causes, asking questions, and above all analyzing the biological, psychological and social aspects of diseases. As I analyzed, I saw each disease being defined by the individual’s experience - her/his way of “being in the world”.

Throughout all societies and ages, prejudice has existed. Individuals or groups are oppressed because they are different from the majority. It has taken many shapes and forms, yet most people associate prejudice only with gender, color, or sexual orientation. Each of these has a visible history that has been recognized and attempts at amends have been made as society tries to become more accepting. But there is one group that has always existed, a category that is widely ignored but mistreated, judged, and abused based on a factor that these individuals cannot control: appearance.

There is an English saying: you shouldn't prejudge the worth or value of something, by its outward appearance alone. Not only does this go for objects of value, but for people as well. This is a modern theme which can be applied to the 21st century mentality, where mass media and advertisements put focus on ideal beauty. If there were no predetermined ideal models which defined the meaning of “normal”, one would never suffer isolation. Disabilities, unattractiveness, or unusual physical attributes in one’s self are attributes that people look for. Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, puts to focus the importance of appearance through the tale of a creation that was not only unwanted, but never given an opportunity to show his true self. By examining

For many years, I felt inferior of my appearance. In my childhood, I used to be a lovely girl, and everyone who saw me would say that I will grow up into a gorgeous girl, as well as I thought. But, as we know, life is so cruel that it always doesn’t follow what we expect. When I was 10, I started to get pimples on my face. At first, I didn’t worry about that so much, because my parents told me it is a normal phenomenon when children grow up.

When I read the book, Wonder by Raquel J. Palacio, I experienced how a little boy with a facial defect felt every single day with the way people treated him, good or bad. This book helped me see that no matter how someone looks, you should treat everyone the same. Therefore, when I meet someone who isn’t like the rest of us, I try to go out of my way to make them feel appreciated and I am more opened minded about their condition.

Clothes can invade the body and brain, placing the wearer into a different state of mind. Enclothed cognition is the systematic influence that clothes have on the wearers psychological process (Adam & Galinsky, 2012). Prior to the introduction of enclothed cognition, a well known study conducted by Craig Haney, Curtis Banks and Philip Zimbardo (1973) known as the Stanford Prison Experiment, focused on the psychological effects of power between mock prisoners and prison guards. However, what made this study so well known, was the influence of social role on behavior, since each guard and prisoner were assigned to play into their own role, and in turn, resulted to levels of brutality and abusive behavior (Haney et al., 1973). One of the factors

Even compensatory strategies, such as recognising an individual by their hairstyle or gait, may be rendered ineffective, if a known individual appears in a new context or has changed some aspect of their appearance. Despite prosopagnosia being of an obvious disadvantage to the sufferer, it does allow for the investigation of components involved in normal face processing. By comparing the retained perceptual functions in a prosopagnosiac to those of an individual with ordinary face processing, it can be theorised which mechanisms work independently within face processing. Therefore, this essay will comment on three key distinctions which have been made about normal face processing, based on the research into prosopagnosia: the distinction between the systems involved in face and object processing; the distinction between the emotional response and conscious response of recognising faces; the distinction between the areas involved in recognising facial identity and facial

People often judge or misperceive others appearances in a less than equal manner before they even know the true nature of the person. Every day we make assumptions by what we can see physically. Even in the supermarkets, we distinguish good products from bad products based on how they look. We are apt to choose good-looking products because they don’t have flaws, cracks, and bruises. Moreover, we assume them to have good qualities and good tastes. Actually, taste doesn’t deal with its looking. However, we bias in favor of assuming human nature. Since people judge human beings based on how they look, it is called prejudice. In fact, prejudice just disadvantage

An enduring problem in today’s society, especially with children, has to deal with sociality. Public appearance is very important to us and when we don’t look good, or have a low self-esteem, it can lead to further issues,