M.A. (Clinical Psychology) / Rheumatoid arthritis, lithe great crippler" 1 has now established itself firmly in the category 'psychosomatic disease' and a psychosomatic approach is used when considering the aetiology of the disease and often the therapy and prognosis of the patient as well. The rehabilitation of the afflicted patient is the central concern of medical and para-medical personnel engaged in rheumatology. The patient's motivation for rehabilitation is generally considered to be the single most important factor affecting the rehabilitation process. The task of assessing this motivation falls to the psychologist...

L’objectif de cette recherche est de découvrir comment se développe l’image du corps et la relation d’objet, et ainsi l’élaboration du moi, des personnes aveugles de naissance.La problématique : deux approches de la cécité se confrontent. Une approche pessimiste faisant de la vision l’essentiel du savoir, liant le handicap physique au handicap sensoriel ; Une vision modérée, donnant du crédit à la perception haptique. Qu’en est-il de l’image du corps et de la relation d’objet ? Partant des conceptions de Lederman, Anzieu et Tisseron, nous avons conçu l’idée du Regard-peau. L’hypothèse : Le Regard-peau, permettrait à partir du perçu multimodal - une reconnaissance de l’image du corps et de l’objet ; - et un accès à la métaphore du désir en tant que relation à l’objet et à son interdit.La méthode : Pour arriver à confirmer ou infirmer cette hypothèse nous avons eu recours, aux acquis théoriques de la psychanalyse du développement, et sur le plan méthodique, à l’entretien semi directif, enfin à la création d’une situation expérimentale observable que nous avons créée étant donné qu’aucune expérimentation visuelle n’était possible. La population étudiée comprend 20 aveugles-nés âgés de 18 à 21 ans, qui nous a permis de comprendre l’état de cécité, et 3 jeunes hommes non-voyants de naissance, qui ont fait l’objet d’une étude de cas. / AThe objective of this research is to discover how the image of the body and object relation develop, furthermore, the ego development of congenitally blind people. Problematic: two approaches of blindness have been in confrontation. A pessimistic approach making vision the essential of knowledge, linking physical disability and sensory disability; A moderate vision, giving credit to haptic perception. What then about the body image and object relation? Starting with Lederman concepts, Anzieu and Tisseron, we onceived the idea of the gaze - skin. Hypothesis: The gaze - skin would allow, from the multimodal perception a recognition of the body image and the object; - and an access to the metaphor of desire as a relation to the desired object and its prohibition. Method: To get to confirm or disprove this hypothesis we used, the theoretical knowledge of developmental psychoanalysis, and methodologically, the semi-directive interview, and finally the creation of an observable experimental situation that we created because no visual experimentation was possible. The studied population included 20 congenitally blind people aged 18 to 21 years, which has enabled us to understand the state of blindness, and three young men blind from birth, who have been the subject of a case study, and were excluded those who became blind after a period of vision.

Grounded in Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000), the purpose of this thesis was to investigate the protective role of self-determined (i.e., autonomous motivation) relative to non self-determined motivation (i.e., controlled motivation) in response to various media portrayals of the female body. Findings from three laboratory experiments support these hypotheses. Women who felt less self-determined in their daily activities (Study 1 and Study 3) and in the regulation of their eating behaviors (Study 2), perceived more pressure from the media to be thin (Study 1), experienced more body dissatisfaction (Study 1 and Study 2), expressed greater concerns over the quantity of food in their diets (Study 1), and reported more negative affect (Study 2) following exposure to a video which exemplified the societal ―thin ideal‖ compared to a video which did not. They also generated more negative self-appraisals of their body‘s appearance and competence (Study 3), experienced more body shame (Study 3), and reported more introjected reasons for restricting their actual intake of chocolate (Study 3) following exposure to video which depicted the female body as an instrument of women‘s actions compared to one which depicted the female body as object (Study 3). Conversely, women who felt more self-determined in their daily activities (Study 1 and Study 3) expressed greater concerns over the quality of food in their diet (Study 1) and reported less vitality (Study 3) in response to media portrayals of women engaged in self-care (Study 1) and physical activities (Study 3). However, body dissatisfied women who felt more self-determined in the regulation of their eating behaviors (Study 2) formulated more intentions to monitor their food intake and eat fewer unhealthy foods (Study 2) after viewing a video of thin female models compared to no models. Together, these findings support a protective function for self-determined motivation and a potentiating function for non self-determined motivation.

Grounded in self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000) and objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), the purpose of this thesis was to investigate the role of dispositional autonomous and controlled motivation in predicting who might be more protected from or more vulnerable to experiencing state self-objectification (Manuscript 1), diminished cognitive functioning or cognitive performance (Manuscript 1 & 2), and poorer self-evaluations (Manuscript 2) following exposure to advertisements portraying one of two leading cultural body ideals: the male muscular ideal (Manuscript 1) or female thin ideal (Manuscript 2). The objectives were to investigate the effects of the two ideals while evaluating the contribution of autonomous and controlled motivation orientation in statistically predicting various body image consequences using five separate male undergraduate samples. Consistent with the overall hypotheses of the thesis, the muscular ideal video and thin ideal video significantly decreased men’s cognitive functioning and cognitive performance compared to men in the neutral video conditions (Manuscript 1 & 2). In addition, men who were primed with the muscular ideal video demonstrated significantly higher levels of self-objectification compared to those in the neutral condition (Manuscript 1: Study 1 and Study 2). Mediation results revealed an indirect effect of the muscular ideal video on men’s cognitive functioning (i.e., appearance schema activation) through self-objectification (Manuscript 1: Study 1), thereby supporting objectification theory as a means of explaining how portrayals of muscular body ideals affect men’s cognitive function. However, inconsistent with previous studies, the female thin ideal did not significantly affect men’s self-evaluations (Manuscript 2: Study 2). Lastly, in line with self-determination theory, all five studies (Manuscript 1 & 2) found that autonomous motivation orientation played a significant moderating role against the cognitive consequences associated with cultural body ideals among young college men. Men who viewed the muscular ideal video and who reported high levels of dispositional autonomous motivation demonstrated less appearance schema activation, less difficulty solving a challenging Soma puzzle, and performed better on the Modified Stroop task compared to men with low levels of dispositional autonomous motivation (Manuscript 1). Similarly, men who reported high levels of dispositional autonomous motivation and viewed the thin ideal also demonstrated less appearance schema activation and less difficulty solving a challenging Soma puzzle compared to men who reported low levels of dispositional autonomous motivation (Manuscript 2). In contrast, controlled motivation orientation was not a significant moderator across all five studies (Manuscript 1 & 2). Collectively, our findings highlight the importance of incorporating autonomous motivation orientation and self-objectification into theoretical models of men’s body image.

Objective: Body image may be regarded as a very useful tool in marketing strategies. In the theoretic part of the thesis, body image topic is discussed from the women and men's perspective. Main aspects which could be used in marketing are stressed. 1) The first aim of the thesis is to support or explode a theory about current slim ideal in women and athletic body in men and furthermore struggling of men and women to fulfill this ideal by dieting or exercise. 2) The second aim is to find how exactly body image is used in printed adverts on cosmetics, medicines, food supplements and medical devices distributed in pharmacies. Methods: Questionnaire study, analysis of adverts on leaflets. Results: Aim 1: A total of 43 subjects were included in the study, 28 females, 15 males. The majority of subject had university education (35 subj.), none of the subject had only basic level of education. The most frequent residence included Prague (30 subjects). Two hypotheses were statistically confirmed in the study, i.e. Hypothesis 7: Women more than men are aware of the fact, that advertisements do influence their feeling about what they want to look like (p=0.004) and Hypothesis 13: The desire to loose weight is dependent on age (p=0.002). In women, slim body is preferred, while in men the best body would be athletic one. Aim 2: The percentage of total area which aimed at body image differs substantialy within the analysed sample (minimum 4%, maximum 36% of total area of the leaflet). Body image is most frequently used in adverts on cosmetics. In general, it seems, that the area dedicated to body image is very similar across all cathegories. Most of the adverts showed woman's body or its parts. If a man was shown, it was always in a particular social role (a father, a grandfather). Conclusion: Basic presumptions and hypotheses about body image of men and women in our society were confirmed. In line with published literature data, the women's ideal would mean a slim lady who takes care of herself. In men, it is a tall handsome browny man with friendly nature. A certain pilot study into printed adverts on various products sold in pharmacies also confirms wide use of body image in advertising on cosmetics and also over the counter sold medicines. Also in this part of the thesis a compliance with literature-published data concerning use of body image in advertising was found.

The importance of body image in marketing comunications. The comparison of ideal and real beauty measures using clustering method and MML-TGI data.

Body image is undoubtedly important in everyone's life. The main objective of this thesis is to find its importance for marketing. To achieve this goal, it was necessary to find out the society's opinions on the issue of beauty and body image, how do media picture human body and if there exists a difference between these two things. The first part of this theses consists of the historical development of the beauty ideal. It is followed by segmentation of Czech population, based on the data from the project MML-TGI, survey focused on beauty preferences and content analysis of lifestyle magazines. The findings support among other things the importance of beauty to most people, media's focus on extreme thinness for females and disparity between the presented ideal and people's preferences. The results lead to one conclusion: the importance of body image for marketing exists and is significant.

This thesis examines the pervasive presence of the vulnerability of the human body in Charles Dickens’s writing. It demonstrates, through a collection and discussion of bodily references drawn from the range of Dickens’s novels, that the the body’s vulnerability is, in conjunction with the use of humour and the literalizing of metaphorical references to the body, a crucial and fundamental element of both Dickens’s distinctive style and of his enduring literary popularity. Chapter one provides evidence for the contention that a sense of physical vulnerability was particularly intense in the Victorian era and that Dickens shared this awareness as his social and humanitarian interests and activities illustrate. The following chapter focuses on Dickens’s more private concerns with the body, particularly upon his personal physical fears and experiences, the public attention given to his body as a result of fame, his continual denial of his own physical frailties, and the interplay between his body and his writing all of which provided impetus to his literature. Chapters three, four, and five examine consecutively the ways in which physical vulnerability—to damage, disease, and death, but most importantly to dismemberment— function in the novels. They do so on three broad levels: Character, Conversation, and Expression which depict in ascending order increasing bodily insecurity in Dickens’s texts. The Character level concerns the bodily forms and fates of Dickens’s characters. We see here that the more a player’s body is described the more vulnerable it will become, thus good-hearted heroes are virtually “bodiless” and suffer little physical pain while evil characters are described in great anatomical detail and come to bodily harm. Dickens metes out “bodily justice” on this level in that he ensures that characters who have transgressed the rules of good conduct in his fictional world are physically punished for their misdeeds and that bodily punishment is in direct proportion to the “crime” committed. On the Conversational level Dickens depicts extreme physical horrors by expressing these things humorously, by putting descriptions of them in mouths variously and interestingly accented, and, most significantly, by playing on the dual literal and metaphorical meanings of bodily references. Most of this anatomical dialogue is anecdotal and therefore unverifiable, hypothetical and therefore unlikely to happen, or professional, i.e., spoken by “bodily experts” such as doctors or undertakers, and therefore irrefutable. Here exaggeration and extremes attract readers who are simultaneously fascinated and repelled by what characters say of the body. Dickens’s methods of Expression reflect physical reality—all bodies are vulnerable to sudden damage just as Dickens can dismember a body suddenly either with the stroke of a pen or by delaying its complete description. We see that on this level the body is at it most vulnerable and is damaged by methods of expression rather than by narrative. Dickens here plays most intensively with the literalization of metaphor, linguistically insisting that if a head appears around a doorway we can no longer assume that a body will follow. The novels are filled with dictionally decapitated heads and severed limbs, but through the use of humour and by reanimating these members Dickens ensures that his style elicits not simply a reaction of horror in his readers but elicits a response to the grotesque—a strong instinctual attraction to his work which is rooted in the body, not in the intellect. This dissertation concludes that the body’s vulnerability is not only a continual presence in Dickens’s novels but is an under-examined yet fundamental element in what makes his writing style distinctive and what makes his work continually popular. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of the present study was to examine the associations between body image, self-esteem, experiences with weight stigma, and fat bias in male and female young adults. Data were collected via a Qualtrics questionnaire using recruitment fliers posted on social media. Results suggest that female’s experience greater expectations in body size and image, and the higher the BMI the poorer the body image, self-esteem, and the greater the number of experiences with weight stigmatization. Implications for working with young adults with excess body weight will be discussed.

Master of Public Health - MPH / Obesity is one of the critical problems that threatens not only health, but the economy at a global level. Among the factors associated with obesity is less than optimum level of nutrition literacy. Nutrition literacy is more than just the food knowledge, it is a combination of other essential factors that help individuals to maintain healthy a body size. These factors include the selection and consumption of nutritious food; acquiring knowledge and skills in the areas of meal planning and preparation; as well as using and knowing how to read food labels correctly.