How does a dentist's appearance influence the patient's automatic deciding process at the case presentation? Through the same threat-detection mechanism that produces fight-or-flight responses to anything unexpected. Research by Dr. Sheena Iyengar at Columbia University and other behavioral scientists has documented how appearance signals shape automatic cognitive processing. When someone looks the way the observer expects a professional in their role to look, the observer's automatic deciding system stays at ease, freeing executive capacity for the actual content of the interaction. When appearance feels incongruous or unexpected, the observer's threat system activates subconsciously, executive function gets diverted to evaluating the mismatch, [...]

How does a dentist's appearance influence the patient's automatic deciding process at the case presentation? Through the same threat-detection mechanism that produces fight-or-flight responses to anything unexpected. Research by Dr. Sheena Iyengar at Columbia University and other behavioral scientists has documented how appearance signals shape automatic cognitive processing. When someone looks the way the observer expects a professional in their role to look, the observer's automatic deciding system stays at ease, freeing executive capacity for the actual content of the interaction. When appearance feels incongruous or unexpected, the observer's threat system activates subconsciously, executive function gets diverted to evaluating the mismatch, [...]

How does a dentist's appearance influence the patient's automatic deciding process at the case presentation? Through the same threat-detection mechanism that produces fight-or-flight responses to anything unexpected. Research by Dr. Sheena Iyengar at Columbia University and other behavioral scientists has documented how appearance signals shape automatic cognitive processing. When someone looks the way the observer expects a professional in their role to look, the observer's automatic deciding system stays at ease, freeing executive capacity for the actual content of the interaction. When appearance feels incongruous or unexpected, the observer's threat system activates subconsciously, executive function gets diverted to evaluating the mismatch, [...]