Perception of Beauty

Perception of Beauty
Author: Martha Levine
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2017-10-25
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9535135813

The authors in this book ask us to consider whether the perception of beauty has been defined by our genetics and culture over the years - has it grown and changed? Do certain neural connections define our emotional reactions to beauty? Does beauty follow any rules or laws? Can the aspiration toward beauty be detrimental? Can we divorce ourselves from dictates and sink into a mindful connection with our internal beauty? Can we move from the superficial where "beauty is only skin deep" to an intense appreciation of beauty in all of its variations. The Perception of Beauty will lead to a deeper understanding and contemplation of nature, art, and the world around us.

Handbook of Positive Body Image and Embodiment

Handbook of Positive Body Image and Embodiment
Author: Niva Piran
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2019-04-02
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0190841885

For five decades, negative body image has been a major focus of study due to its association with psychological and social morbidity, including eating disorders. However, more recently the body image construct has broadened to include positive ways of living in the body, enabling greater understanding of embodied well-being, as well as protective factors and interventions to guide the prevention and treatment of eating disorders. Handbook of Positive Body Image and Embodiment is the first comprehensive, research-based resource to address the breadth of innovative theoretical concepts and related practices concerning positive ways of living in the body, including positive body image and embodiment. Presenting 37 chapters by world-renowned experts in body image and eating behaviors, this state-of-the-art collection delineates constructs of positive body image and embodiment, as well as social environments (such as families, peers, schools, media, and the Internet) and therapeutic processes that can enhance them. Constructs examined include positive embodiment, body appreciation, body functionality, body image flexibility, broad conceptualization of beauty, intuitive eating, and attuned sexuality. Also discussed are protective factors, such as environments that promote body acceptance, personal safety, diversity, and activism, and a resistant stance towards objectification, media images, and restrictive feminine ideals. The handbook also explores how therapeutic interventions (including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Dissonance, and many more) and public health and policy initiatives can inform scholarly, clinical, and prevention-based work in the field of eating disorders.

Beauty and the End of Art

Beauty and the End of Art
Author: Sonia Sedivy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2016-04-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1474255760

Beauty and the End of Art shows how a resurgence of interest in beauty and a sense of ending in Western art are challenging us to rethink art, beauty and their relationship. By arguing that Wittgenstein's later work and contemporary theory of perception offer just what we need for a unified approach to art and beauty, Sonia Sedivy provides new answers to these contemporary challenges. These new accounts also provide support for the Wittgensteinian realism and theory of perception that make them possible. Wittgenstein's subtle form of realism explains artworks in terms of norm governed practices that have their own varied constitutive norms and values. Wittgensteinian realism also suggests that diverse beauties become available and compelling in different cultural eras and bring a shared 'higher-order' value into view. With this framework in place, Sedivy argues that perception is a form of engagement with the world that draws on our conceptual capacities. This approach explains how perceptual experience and the perceptible presence of the world are of value, helping to account for the diversity of beauties that are available in different historical contexts and why the many faces of beauty allow us to experience the value of the world's perceptible presence. Carefully examining contemporary debates about art, aesthetics and perception, Beauty and the End of Art presents an original approach. Insights from such diverse thinkers as Immanuel Kant, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Arthur Danto, Alexander Nehamas, Elaine Scarry and Dave Hickey are woven together to reveal how they make good sense if we bring contemporary theory of perception and Wittgensteinian realism into the conversation.

Essential Psychiatry for the Aesthetic Practitioner

Essential Psychiatry for the Aesthetic Practitioner
Author: Evan A. Rieder
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2021-06-28
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1119680123

ESSENTIAL PSYCHIATRY FOR THE AESTHETIC PRACTITIONER Aesthetic practice requires an understanding of human psychology, yet professionals across cosmetic medicine and related fields receive no formal training in identifying and managing psychological conditions. Essential Psychiatry for the Aesthetic Practitioner provides concise yet comprehensive guidance on approaching patient assessment, identifying common psychiatric diseases, and managing challenging situations in cosmetic practice. This much-needed guide brings together contributions by dermatologists, plastic surgeons, psychiatrists, psychologists, and other experts to help practitioners understand the role of psychology in cosmetic practice and improve interpersonal relations with their patients. Assuming no previous background knowledge in psychiatry, the text provides cosmetic practitioners of all training and experience levels with clear guidance, real-world advice, and effective psychological tools to assist their practice. Through common clinical scenarios, readers learn to determine if a patient is a good candidate for a cosmetic procedure, enhance the patient experience, deal with difficult personalities in the cosmetic clinic, recognize obsessive compulsive and body dysmorphic disorders, and more. Describes how to use psychologically informed approaches and treatments for aesthetic patients Features easy-to-use psychological tools such as motivational interviewing, progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, and acceptance and commitment therapy Includes extensive references and practical tips for understanding the psychological implications of cosmetic treatments Covers cosmetic consultations for female, male, and transgender patients Discusses the history and psychology of beauty as well as the role of cosmetics and cosmeceuticals Emphasizes the importance of screening for common psychological comorbidities Addresses the impact of social media on self-image and its role in a growing crisis in beauty and appearance Highlights the need to develop new guidelines to treat rapidly evolving patient populations Explores how gender fluidity and variations in ethnicity are changing the approaches to aesthetic patients Essential Psychiatry for the Aesthetic Practitioner is required reading for dermatologists, plastic surgeons, cosmetic doctors, dentists, nurses, and physician assistants and all other professionals working in aesthetic medicine.

Time And Beauty: Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies

Time And Beauty: Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies
Author: Adrian Bejan
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2022-02-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9811245487

Time and beauty are two of our most visceral perceptions. Yet, their nature is seldom questioned. In this ground-breaking new work, Adrian Bejan — a true 'original' among physicists — explains, in a scholarly yet colorful style, the scientific basis for the perception of time and beauty.Organized into three main ideas, the book begins first with the perception of time. The author expounds on why we feel that time flies faster as we get older. Perceived time, also called 'mind time,' is different from clock time. In this context, time is another word for 'perceived change'. Next, readers will discover that beauty is appealing because beautifully-shaped images are scanned faster by two eyes. To observe our immediate surroundings and to understand them faster is highly advantageous to survival; hence, there is an underlying evolutionary advantage to our discernment for ideal ratios, shapes, and beauty at large. Finally, time and beauty are jointly understood to explain why the global pandemic had decelerated our mind time. This understanding arms us with techniques to slow down our mind time (which accelerates with age), and to create the conditions for living longer and more creatively.Scientists may have contemplated aspects of time and beauty separately. In contrast, the author submits an original and rewarding approach to understanding them together. In the process, key questions to our cognition are answered. Why does the mind 'try' to make sense of a new mental image? Why is there a natural tendency to organize a new input and mentally position it among past perceptions? Through physics, the book offers a general answer: to empower the individual with speed and clarity of thought, understanding, decision-making and movement. The same answer holds for the other disparate perceptions illustrated in this book, from time and beauty to ideas, message, shape, perspective, art, science, illusions, and dreams.

Beauty Sick

Beauty Sick
Author: Renee Engeln, PhD
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2017-04-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0062469797

“[Beauty Sick] will blow the top off the body image movement…provocative and necessary.” — Rebellious Magazine An award-winning psychology professor reveals how the cultural obsession with women's appearance is an epidemic that harms women's ability to get ahead and to live happy, meaningful lives, in this powerful, eye-opening work in the vein of Peggy Orenstein and Sheryl Sandberg. Today’s young women face a bewildering set of contradictions when it comes to beauty. They don’t want to be Barbie dolls but, like generations of women before them, are told they must look like them. They’re angry about the media’s treatment of women but hungrily consume the outlets that belittle them. They mock modern culture’s absurd beauty ideal and make videos exposing Photoshopping tricks, but feel pressured to emulate the same images they criticize by posing with a "skinny arm." They understand that what they see isn’t real but still download apps to airbrush their selfies. Yet these same young women are fierce fighters for the issues they care about. They are ready to fight back against their beauty-sick culture and create a different world for themselves, but they need a way forward. In Beauty Sick, Dr. Renee Engeln, whose TEDx talk on beauty sickness has received more than 250,000 views, reveals the shocking consequences of our obsession with girls’ appearance on their emotional and physical health and their wallets and ambitions, including depression, eating disorders, disruptions in cognitive processing, and lost money and time. Combining scientific studies with the voices of real women of all ages, she makes clear that to truly fulfill their potential, we must break free from cultural forces that feed destructive desires, attitudes, and words—from fat-shaming to denigrating commentary about other women. She provides inspiration and workable solutions to help girls and women overcome negative attitudes and embrace their whole selves, to transform their lives, claim the futures they deserve, and, ultimately, change their world.

Beauty Pays

Beauty Pays
Author: Daniel S. Hamermesh
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2013-04-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691158177

Demonstrates how society favors the beautiful and how better-looking people experience startling but undeniable benefits in various aspects of life. This title shows that the attractive are more likely to be employed, work more productively and profitably, negotiate loans with better terms, and have more handsome and highly educated spouses.

Beauty: A Very Short Introduction

Beauty: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2011-03-24
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0199229759

In a book that is itself beautifully written, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores this timeless concept, asking what makes an object--either in art, in nature, or the human form--beautiful.--From publisher description.

The Evolution of Beauty

The Evolution of Beauty
Author: Richard O. Prum
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2017-05-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0385537220

A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin's own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time. The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.

The Sense of Beauty

The Sense of Beauty
Author: George Santayana
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9781412838900

The author of the introduction to this new edition, John McCormick, reminds us that The Sense of Beauty is the first work in aesthetics written in the United States. Santayana was versed in the history of his subject, from Plato and Aristotle to Schopenhauer and Taine in the nineteenth century. Santayana took as his task a complete rethinking of the idea that beauty is embedded in objects. Rather, beauty is an emotion, a value, and a sense of the good. In this aesthetics was unlike ethics: not a correction of evil or pursuit of the virtuous. Rather it is a pleasure that residues in the sense of self. The work is divided into chapters on the materials of beauty, form, and expression. A good many of Santayana's later works are presaged by this early effort. And this volume also anticipates the development of art as a movement as well as a value apart from other aspects of life.