How do psychological factors affect the way we percieve things?

[Junkhead]

On this subject, I am most interested in seeing how psychological factors affect how we see ourselves (appearance-wise, physically) and how we see others.

I've read things like, we're so used to seeing ourselves in the mirror, that when we take a picture, it may look "weird"; that this affects how others seem to have different preferences and how a person can seem more attractive if spent more time with (RFoF said that a scientific discovery proved that, or something).

Maybe this can open up our minds a little. I don't intend this to be an arguement about realism and soliptism, even if it may touch those borders.

I'm really curious about this...it's a question that has come to me. "What if what I'm seeing at the mirror, isn't what really is?".

[Phoenix Wright]

how you sound in recordings more closely resembles how you sound to those around you. because of physics, this is true.

with a mirror, it's different. that's you. cameras are not perfect at representing what they take pictures of; the representation can be incorrect. the way reflection works makes a plane mirror the closest you can get to seeing you.

in terms of "psychological factors" changing how we perceive things: of course they do! this is why people can be depressed, and after some time become happy, then spiral back into depression.

when it comes to me personally, i try to turn everything negative into a positive. i've learned to love my red hair, my overly white skin, my brain, my body, my everything. if i can change something that i feel needs changing, i work to change. if something horrible comes up in my life, i think of the bright side, always. i'm optimistic/realistic. it helps more than i ever thought it could. i'm happy, and will pretty much remain that way for the rest of my life. even if i'm being delusional in my self-confidence at some point in the future, i won't care. as long as i'm legitimately happy.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Phoenix Wright

[Alfred Kamon]

You have to consider that everyone sees the world from his own point of view.

Everyone has different standards when defining things like beauty or intelligence. And those standards are dynamic, not binded to one's personality like most people might think, since personalities tend to change in time as well. If you saw a very thin girl in the middle of the street your thoughts about her will be different from those you would had when you were a child, and will be different from those you are going to have in the next years. One's psychology changes continuously day by day, affecting the way he sees reality - and reality changes one's psychology as well.

People are actually scared to admit that their way of seeing the world is forged by the society they're in, but it's exactly like that. Since the day you were born you were told what's 'wrong' and what's 'good', what it can be done and what not. Meaning that in time your psychology is strictly binded to those standards, or tries to search its own freedom against those standards, but fact is that they influence you in some way. And that's why people of different cultures see things differently, and people of the same area in different times have different opinions: it's because societies change in space and time and with them everyone's psychology - and/or the opposite.

that this affects how others seem to have different preferences and how a person can seem more attractive if spent more time with

That is because when you love someone, you tend to elevate that person's character, till the point where it actually becomes your standard.

For example, I know a person who loved big boobed girls when he was young, then he eventually got married with a flat-chested, and in time his love for that person made him like flat-chested people in general.

Source: I'm a student of psychology.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Alfred Kamon

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that is one broard broad topic you have here

do you mean biological psychology's ontake on how it affects behaviour? the cognitive? the sociocultural?

Edited September 8, 2013 by CrimsonLord3

[MRDRHAWK]

I would think that the notions we have in our head of the world around us are affected primarily by things directly involved with our lives, such as friends or family or even coworkers, but these notions and beliefs; building off of the example that someone mentioned before, people who are more into big-boobed women may eventually decide that big boobs aren't his thing after all, and it may or may not have anything to do with an external stimuli.

It's all a matter of perception; we only perceive one side of any particular event in our lives, and thus that notion - our own perception - is the only basis for our thoughts and beliefs on anything.

[FrostyFireMage]

I've learnt to stop getting my hopes up over anything, what does that say about me?

[BluBlaDe]

I've learnt to stop getting my hopes up over anything, what does that say about me?

You are a realist and won't easily be fooled. Welcome to real life man.

Hoping is stupid anyway. We don't need to hope since we can make our own life the way we want to.

Hoping is hoping someone else will do things the way you want them to do which truthfully never happens.