Some eighteen portraits are now recognized of Leonardo in old age, consolidating the impression from his bestestablished self-portrait of an old man with long white hair and beard. However, his appearance when younger is generally regarded as obscure, although he was described as very beautiful as a youth. Application of the principles of metric iconography, the study of the quantitative analys...

/ n this chapter, we consider modesty and its importance. We begin by defining modesty, proceed to argue that being modest is hard work, and then lay out some reasons why this is so. Next, we make the case that modesty correlates with, and may even cause, several desirable outcomes—intrapersonal, interpersonal, and group. We conclude by attempting to reconcile the discrepancies between two empi...

Often, when several norms are present and may be in conflict, individuals will display a self-serving bias, privileging the norm that best serves their interests. Xiao and Bicchieri (J Econ Psychol 31(3):456–470, 2010) tested the effects of inequality on reciprocating behavior in trust games and showed that—when inequality increases—reciprocity loses its appeal. They hypothesized that self-serv...

1 HERE are social practices and virtues which, if we are to characterize them, require us to mention the truth. This is not the same as mentioning what other people hold true (their beliefs), or just mentioning what we regard as true (our own beliefs). We may contrast in this respect two different virtues of truth, which may be labeled sincerity and accuracy. Sincerity (at the most basic level)...

The Gauss self-linking integral of an unframed knot is not a knot invariant, but it can be turned into an isotopy invariant by adding a correction term which requires adding extra structure to the knot. We collect the different definitions/theorems/proofs concerning this correction term, most of which are well-known (at least as folklore) and put everything together in an accessible format. We ...

Cross-cultural research on well-being often focuses on the influence of socio-ecological factors on well-being. National accounts of well-being suggest that modern nations – wealthier, and well-educated nations –are happier than less developed nations. In the current thesis, I examined whether cultural factors influence individuals’ preferences towards self-evaluation, and whether (cross-) cult...

Over the past century, personality theory and research has successfully identified core sets of characteristics that consistently describe and explain fundamental differences in the way people think, feel and behave. Such characteristics were derived through theory, dictionary analyses, and survey research using explicit self-reports. The availability of social media data spanning millions of u...

This paper develops a theoretical approach for understanding how the census has not only played a role in constructing population (census making) but also has simultaneously created subjects with the capacity to recognise themselves as members of a population (census taking). The ‘population’ is now generally considered something that is not discovered but constructed. But what is neglected is ...

This experiment varied whether individuals interacted with virtual representations of themselves or virtual representations of others in an immersive virtual environment. In the self representation condition, half of the participants interacted with a self representation which bore photographic resemblance to them, whereas the other half interacted with a self representation that bore no resemb...

In the first address to the French Parliament by a U.S. President since Woodrow Wilson, in June 1994 President Bill Clinton spoke of the growing challenge posed by nationalism to international order. In decided contrast to Wilson, who came to Paris after World War I to champion the idea of national self-determination, Clinton arrived after the cold war to warn how nationalism undermines interna...