First Impressions and Body Image

First impressions count; beauty is only skin deep; don’t judge a book by its cover; or we might hear that a certain politician has charisma, whatever that means. Body image is very much talked about but what does psychology say about body image and how does body image affect our health and fitness?

There are several perspectives of personality and behaviour; however when we are talking about processing of imagery, the Evolutionary Perspective of personality can be compared with actual brain imagery. Firstly, have you ever noticed that dogs are very good at catching tennis balls? This is because dogs only see in black and white; hence they can process movement very quickly. Humans have colour vision and that slows down our reaction time. Also processing colour image needs a larger brain and a larger brain needs a lot of energy to operate. In evolutionary terms it is very expensive to have a brain.

So what are the evolutionary advantages of having colour vision over say a better sense of smell? Ten thousand years ago on the plains of Africa, which is really yesterday in evolutionary terms, humans we able to defeat the camouflage strategy of other animals.  So when a human saw glimpse of coloured fur in the underbrush the human was able to detect whether the animal was prey or predator. Sure a dog’s sense of smell is very sensitive but if the dog is downwind of another animal its sense of smell is defeated. However as this judgement between predator or prey had to be made quickly humans became to rely on first impressions. So the bad news is that we are genetically programmed to judge things on very little visual information. We very much rely on first impressions.

There is some good news. Humans are much more attuned to danger than to reward, after all if a hunter was to mistake an antelope as a lion and runs way he is missing out on a meal. However if the hunter mistakes a lion as an antelope then he is the meal. So by simply smiling at someone and saying there name you are going a long way to creating a good impression. Secondly, in most situations first impressions fade and humans begin to process other information.

The bad news is that we humans worry too much about the impressions we make. Because we are wearing a shirt that might be a little creased or because we have some other minor blemish we withdraw within ourselves and we disengage with other people. Hence, ironically, we end up not providing other people with the information they need to make a more informed decision about who we are.

How does this all apply to health and fitness? Firstly we unduly stress ourselves about the image we are presenting to other people. Some people might feel uncomfortable exercising in gyms, we are always comparing ourselves to other people in the gym. Our evolutionary adaptive behaviour of looking out for danger from all quarters has become maladaptive in our modern world; we are looking out for threats that are just not there. In the next few blogs I will outline some simple strategies on how to avoid these evolutionary pitfalls.

Who Do You Think You Are?

You are who you think other people think you are!

This is probably one of the most well known phases in Social Psychology, if not the most confusing.

The phase refers to our image of ourselves, and is sometime referred to as “the looking glass self”. If you were to look into a mirror you would see an exact representation of yourself. Of course when you look into the mirror you interpret what you see. Your attention is drawn to all the little things you are not happy with, the little pimple, maybe a grey hair. Or maybe you might think your shoulders or biceps look great after a couple of months of weight lifting, a little vain perhaps. The point is your impression of yourself is not the exact representation presented in the mirror.

The same process happens when you meet people face-to-face. You project an image of yourself onto the other person. Like a mirror you read back your own impression of yourself. Without the other person doing anything much, you interpret reactions and non-reactions as confirmation of your own impression of yourself. For example if you think “most people like me” every time someone says “hello” you might read that as “they are saying hello because they like me”.

Also the process is dynamic. People react to the image you project. To use the example above, if you truly believe in the phase “most people like me” people are actually more likely to like you. People sub-consciously read your projected image and react accordingly. Psychologists have included this interaction process into a theory of personality, the Social Learning perspective of personality. In other words we learn our personality. All the thousands of interactions over a lifetime contribute to the formation of our personality.

So how does this help with fitness and health? Our image of ourselves is one of the key determinates of our health and fitness. People with positive self images seem able to look at themselves in the mirror and make a realistic assessment of themselves and decide to make changes without too much emotional distress. People with positive self images, often don’t have as fixed image of themselves; they view themselves as changeable. After all this is process of personal growth. So how do we develop a positive self image?

Over the next few weeks I will write various suggestions on how to develop a self image that is primed for personal growth. However the first step is to take some positive action, it doesn’t have to be anything big, in fact I am going to suggest something small, the smaller the better. As an example it might be eating a piece of fruit or a vegetable for morning tea. Then start describing yourself as a person who eats fruit and vegetables for morning tea. Over the next few weeks this blog will present some of the theories developed by well known sports psychologists on how anyone can build a more positive self image.

I Don’t Feel Like Training Today!

There are times when we all feel like not training; after all we are only human. It is best to have a regular training routine and to stick to it. Rather than breaking your routine you might like to try just doing a very light workout. So if your regular routine is to go the gym and lift weights, still go to the gym but may be do lighter weights or more aerobic type exercise, but try to kept your regular routine going. You want to try to build a habit of exercising.

One mistake people can make is to try to do too much. If you are training very hard over a period of two to three months you body will peak. Building muscle is all about stretching, straining and micro-tearing your muscles. However your muscles can only do so much work before they need a rest. Try scheduling a rest week very couple of months. After your week’s rest don’t go straight back to your previous level of exertion. Cut it back a bit maybe to about 70% of your previous exertion level and start building up again over a number of weeks. As an example if you are doing 30 push ups, have a week’s rest, then start back at maybe 20 push ups, after a week build it up to say 25 push ups, etc. Not only will you avoid burn out you will see you performance improve.

Training is not only about building our muscles and lung capacity, it is also about training our mind. We need to set goals, and sometimes this means setting ambitious goals that we will fail to meet. If we were to meet every goal we every set there would be an argument that the goals are not ambitious enough. On the other hand we need to know when to give up, “it was a big ask and I gave it my best”. The important thing is to keep a realistic perspective on what is happening. Do you not feel like training because you are little more tired today than usual or is your training routine not really of interest to you anymore. If you have set an ambitious goal sometimes you might need to back away and then have another run at it.

The term a psychologist might use is a “Narrative”. Narrative theory is probably one of the most exciting new perspectives in psychology. This perspective on behaviour is not so much about our experiences but how we interpret them. So the above example of not wanting to train on a particular day could be interpreted in a number of ways. So again how does this influence our health, wellbeing and fitness? The way we interpret things is very likely to influence the way we behave in the future. So although we need to keep a realistic view of things, we should be concentrating on achievements and things that we enjoy. I am not saying that we should live in a world where everything is sweetness and light, bad happens we should. However we are more likely to be successful when we set goals and see those goals as part of a bigger picture.

How to stop snacking out of the Fridge!

Have you ever wonder how they train seals at the zoo, dogs to do tricks in movies or elephants to kick footballs? The trainers wait until the animals do something they want to encourage and then give the animal some food. So if an elephants happens to touch a football with it’s foot, it is given a food reward. After a short time the elephant is only given a reward if the elephant moves the ball with it’s foot. Pretty soon the elephants are playing football, kicking balls through goals etc. This is called Operant Conditioning.

Operant conditioning is part of the behavioural perspective of psychology. This perspective posits that behaviour is learned. At the time of birth we are all blank pieces of paper and all subsequent behaviour is learned. This perspective was popularised by a chap called B.F. Skinner in America in the 1950’s Skinner used birds to show how behaviour is learned when reinforced with food rewards.  Behaviouralists believe that there is no role for logic, thoughts or feelings in the understanding of behaviour. The only thing that needs to be considered is the environment, stimulus, reward and punishment. Whereas B.F. Skinner used direct rewards, in the form of bird food, other behaviouralists developed theories of social learning. Later researchers, such as Albert Bandura, completed experiments to show that behaviour could be learned simply by observing behaviour and physical rewards were not required. If an individual was to observe someone else being rewarded for performing a particular action then the individual is more likely to perform that behaviour.

So how does this relate to health and fitness? Because social learning is the basis for most advertising. In the standard add someone uses a product and is rewarded. Often this revolves around being in a friendly group when you purchase fast food or being admired because you have brought the right car. Does this work? Well advertising companies spend literally billions of dollars each year on advertising. In the case of fast food there is good research to suggest advertising suppresses our natural suspicions of fast food. We learn to eat to fast food without really thinking about it. We tend to switch from logical thought to automatic behaviour. Of course there are other things that cause us to eat, however, how we learn about food is vitally important.

There are other perspectives on behaviour. However, the behavioural perspective is very well supported by years of experimental evidence and is known to be very powerful in changing behaviour. Although learning theories might appear simple, good behaviour is rewarded and bad behaviour is punished, if we understand this principle we can all change aspects of our behaviour. Particularly, we can change habits that impact on our health and fitness.

Guess what? Every time you go to the fridge you get a food reward. You are training yourself to go into the kitchen, open the fridge door and look for food. A classic example of operant conditioning. To break this habit simply put some very light hand weights in the fridge. If you happen to find yourself learning into the fridge, aimlessly, about to snack, pick up the hand weights and maybe do a little exercise. Just half a minute will do. You will quickly un-train yourself.