Personality Traits, States, and Social Cognition – in life and everyday life

Beeinflusst unsere Variabilität, wie wir über andere denken? Betrifft die Veränderung unserer Persönlichkeitszustände mehr als uns selbst? Wie beeinflussen andere unsere Persönlichkeitsentwicklung? Wie wirkt sich Selbstbezug auf das Denken über andere aus? In dieser Arbeit werden die vielfältigen Beziehungen zwischen unserer Persönlichkeit und der Beziehung zu und Interaktion mit anderen Menschen in verschiedenen Bereichen der Persönlichkeitspsychologie untersucht. Neben der Zusammenfassung der vier Veröffentlichungen, wird der theoriegeleitete Ansatz erläutert und in Persönlichkeitsdynamik und -prozesse eingeführt. Zentral sind die Konzepte der Persönlichkeitsmerkmale, der innerpersonellen Variabilität, der Persönlichkeitsentwicklung, des Selbstfokus, des Egozentrismus und der egozentrischen Verzerrung–im Rahmen ihrer Bedeutung für die Theory of Mind (ToM). Publikation 1 schlägt ein zweistufiges Model vor, wie die innerpersonelle Variabilität die ToM durch Erweiterung und Relativierung des Egozentrismus einer Person erleichtern kann. Publikation 2 fürht die Terminologie und die statistischen Werkzeuge der dynamischen Systemtheorie für die Untersuchung von Persönlichkeitszuständen ein und diskutiert Anwendungsfälle. Publikation 3 stellt ein Klassifizierungssystem vor, mit dem systematisch zwischen persönlichen und kollektiven Lebensereignissen unterschieden werden kann, wobei die unterschiedlichen Mechanismen berücksichtigt werden, durch die beide Arten von Lebensereignissen die Persönlichkeitsentwicklung beeinflussen können. Publikation 4 präsentiert Belege für eine kleine, aber robuste positive Beziehung zwischen achtsamer Selbstfokussierung und ToM. Nach der Reflektion der Beiträge zum Fachgebiet werden drei Forschungsansätze aus dem Risikomanagement, der Persönlichkeitspsychologie und den Neurowissenschaften diskutiert, die auf die Forschung zu innerpersönlicher Variabilität und Persönlichkeitsentwicklung sowie zu Egozentrismus und ToM einzahlen könnten.Does our own variability affect how we think about others? Do personality states changes involve more than ourselves? How do others affect our personality development? How does focusing on oneself affect thinking about others? This dissertation explores the many relationships between an individual’s personality and ther relation to and interaction with other people across multiple areas of personality psychological research. Before summarizing four publications of this cumulative project, I explain my theory-driven approach and introduce the field of personality dynamics and processes. In particular, I focus on the concepts of personality traits, within-person variability, personality development, self-focus, egocentrism, egocentric bias–often in light of their relevant for Theory of Mind. The first publication proposes a two-tier framework of how within-person variability can facilitate Theory of Mind by broadening and relativizing a person’s egocentrism. The second publication introduces the terminology and statistical tools of dynamic systems theory to the investigation of personality state levels and presents possible use cases. The third publication introduces a classification system to differentiate between personal and collective live events in a systematic way that is sensitive to the different mechanisms by which both kinds of life events can affect personality development. The fourth publication presents evidence for a small but robust positive relationship between mindful self-focus and Theory of Mind. Finally, I reflect on the publications’ contributions to the field and suggest three lines of research stemming from risk management, personality psychology, and neuroscience that could inform research on within-person variability and personality development as well as on egocentrism and Theory of Mind further in the future

Assessment of Socio-Economic Sustainability and Resilience after COVID-19

The pandemic period has caused severe socio-economic damage, but it is accompanied by environmental deterioration that can also affect economic opportunities and social equity. In the face of this double risk, future generations are ready to be resilient and make their contribution not only on the consumption side, but also through their inclusion in all companies by bringing green and circular principles with them. Policy makers can also favor this choice

Ecology-based planning. Italian and French experimentations

This paper examines some French and Italian experimentations of green infrastructures’ (GI) construction in relation to their techniques and methodologies. The construction of a multifunctional green infrastructure can lead to the generation of a number of relevant bene fi ts able to face the increasing challenges of climate change and resilience (for example, social, ecological and environmental through the recognition of the concept of ecosystem services) and could ease the achievement of a performance-based approach. This approach, differently from the traditional prescriptive one, helps to attain a better and more fl exible land-use integration. In both countries, GI play an important role in contrasting land take and, for their adaptive and cross-scale nature, they help to generate a res ilient approach to urban plans and projects. Due to their fl exible and site-based nature, GI can be adapted, even if through different methodologies and approaches, both to urban and extra-urban contexts. On one hand, France, through its strong national policy on ecological networks, recognizes them as one of the major planning strategies toward a more sustainable development of territories; on the other hand, Italy has no national policy and Regions still have a hard time integrating them in already existing planning tools. In this perspective, Italian experimentations on GI construction appear to be a simple and sporadic add-on of urban and regional plans

COVID-2019 Impacts on Education Systems and Future of Higher Education

The rapid outbreak of the COVID-19 has presented unprecedented challenges on education systems. Closing schools and universities and cancelling face-to-face activities have become a COVID-19 inevitable reality in most parts of the world. To be business-as-usual, many higher education providers have taken steps toward digital transformation, and implementing a range of remote teaching, learning and assessment approaches. This book provides timely research on COVID-19 impacts on education systems and seeks to bring together scholars, educators, policymakers and practitioners to collectively and critically identify, investigate and share best practices that lead to rethinking and reframing the way we deliver education in future

Street Furniture and the Nation State: A Global Process

In the popular imagination, street furniture has traditionally been understood as evoking a sense of national or local identity. From Paris’ metro entrances, DDR lampposts in Berlin, and London’s york stone pavements, the designed environment has been able to contribute to the unique qualities of a place. In some instances this was deliberate. In postwar Britain for instance, the Council of Industrial Design – a state-funded design organization - often appeared to measure the quality of street furniture on the basis of its national characteristics. On other occasions, the relationship between such objects and identity emerged accidentally. In Britain during the 1980s, for example, the replacement of Gilbert Scott's red telephone box with an alternative BT model provoked considerable debate. For many people, this act was not just a Conservative attack on nationalization and state-ownership, but also on the very fabric of British identity. This understanding of street furniture has retained its currency for many years, and cities across the world have used street furniture to provide a sense of visual coherency for neighbourhoods in need of new identities, strengthening their character and improving the public's relationship to them. In this way, street furniture has been employed as a cipher for the narrative of regeneration, in which - as a means of altering the identity of a space - street furniture can project a new face upon the street. Increasingly however, advertising companies are able to lever themselves into the street furniture market by offering to provide the service to the local authorities for free in return for advertising space. In offering this service, global companies like JC Decaux, Wall and Clear Channel command a huge amount of commercial power within the city. The excessive homogenization of street furniture coupled with the overwhelming presence of advertising which is increasingly sanctioned by local authorities keen to reduce costs, has resulted in the perception of poorer quality streets. Thus, the irony of regeneration is that by seeking to promote the unique identity of a city, many places often end up looking more and more alike. This paper will examine recent developments in the process by which the street is furnished and the agents responsible. It will specifically look at how these changes have affected the relationship between street furniture and identity, and equally the effect this process has had on understandings of national design histories. Clearly, evaluating contemporary street furniture through the lens of the nation-state is of very little value, since the international differences between street furniture are considerably less marked than they used to be. This extraordinary aesthetic convergence is partly linked to economies of scale - after all, just how many different kinds of bus stop can Europe afford to have? Yet it also reflects some of the challenges posed by globalization and privatization of public space. This paper will reflect upon that process, and how these bigger narratives increasingly affect the landscape of the street

Environmental and territorial modelling for planning and design

Between 5th and 8th September 2018 the tenth edition of the INPUT conference took place in Viterbo, guests of the beautiful setting of the University of Tuscia and its DAFNE Department. INPUT is managed by an informal group of Italian academic researchers working in many fields related to the exploitation of informatics in planning. This Tenth Edition pursed multiple objectives with a holistic, boundary-less character, to face the complexity of today socio-ecological systems following a systemic approach aimed to problem solving. In particular, the Conference will aim to present the state of art of modeling approaches employed in urban and territorial planning in national and international contexts. Moreover, the conference has hosted a Geodesign workshop, by Carl Steinitz (Harvard Graduate School of Design) and Hrishi Ballal (on skype), Tess Canfield, Michele Campagna. Finally, on the last day of the conference, took place the QGIS hackfest, in which over 20 free software developers from all over Italy discussed the latest news and updates from the QGIS network. The acronym INPUT was born as INformatics for Urban and Regional Planning. In the transition to graphics, unintentionally, the first term was transformed into “Innovation”, with a fine example of serendipity, in which a small mistake turns into something new and intriguing. The opportunity is taken to propose to the organizers and the scientific committee of the next appointment to formalize this change of the acronym. This 10th edition was focused on Environmental and Territorial Modeling for planning and design. It has been considered a fundamental theme, especially in relation to the issue of environmental sustainability, which requires a rigorous and in-depth analysis of processes, a theme which can be satisfied by the territorial information systems and, above all, by modeling simulation of processes. In this topic, models are useful with the managerial approach, to highlight the many aspects of complex city and landscape systems. In consequence, their use must be deeply critical, not for rigid forecasts, but as an aid to the management decisions of complex systems

(Dis)Obedience in Digital Societies: Perspectives on the Power of Algorithms and Data

Algorithms are not to be regarded as a technical structure but as a social phenomenon - they embed themselves, currently still very subtle, into our political and social system. Algorithms shape human behavior on various levels: they influence not only the aesthetic reception of the world but also the well-being and social interaction of their users. They act and intervene in a political and social context. As algorithms influence individual behavior in these social and political situations, their power should be the subject of critical discourse - or even lead to active disobedience and to the need for appropriate tools and methods which can be used to break the algorithmic power

(Dis)Obedience in Digital Societies

Algorithms are not to be regarded as a technical structure but as a social phenomenon - they embed themselves, currently still very subtle, into our political and social system. Algorithms shape human behavior on various levels: they influence not only the aesthetic reception of the world but also the well-being and social interaction of their users. They act and intervene in a political and social context. As algorithms influence individual behavior in these social and political situations, their power should be the subject of critical discourse - or even lead to active disobedience and to the need for appropriate tools and methods which can be used to break the algorithmic power