Chapter 4 examines Galen’s credentials as an ethical philosopher in the light of his recently discovered essay Avoiding Distress. It argues that his moral agenda which is expanded upon here makes him an active participant in the practical ethics of the High Roman Empire, with a more profound attentiveness to popular philosophy than is usually admitted. Galen’s dialogue with what has been termed ‘Stoic psychotherapy’ and the Platonic-Aristotelian educational model helps build up his ethical influence through an engagement with the past. On the other hand, his individual characteristics, such as the autobiographical perspective of his narrative and the intimacy established between author and addressee, render Avoiding Distress exceptional among essays (whether Greek or Latin) treating anxiety, especially when compared to the tracts on mental tranquillity written by Seneca and Plutarch. Another distinctive element of the treatise is that Galen’s self-projection as a therapist of the emotions corresponds to his role as a practising physician as regards the construction of authority and the importance of personal experience.

In this chapter, MCP and B&L-E are applied to contemporary politeness phenomena in the Chinese linguaculture. Four areas are selected for analysis: Self-denigration and self-presentation, moral order and morality, conflict resolution, and humorous mockery. These areas – which would seem to be disparate at first sight – are expected to display different politeness principles at work. However, Chen shows that MCP and B&L-E, working together, offer a unified account for all while, at the same time, are capable of revealing differences among them. Humorous mockery, for instance, has been viewed by some as a genre to which politeness does not apply. Chen’s analysis demonstrates that it does, as long as one sees it as a tug-of-war between self-politeness and other-politeness.

This chapter introduces relationship initiation, the process by which people come to mutually identify themselves as in a romantic relationship. The chapter first describes how relationship readiness, romantic motives, and sociosexuality affect relationship initiation. Then, the chapter outlines the strategies and tactics that facilitate initiation (e.g., conspicuous consumption, altruistic acts), the gender roles that influence which strategies people use, and the major barriers that hinder relationship initiation (e.g., access to partners, shyness, low self-esteem). The chapter also reviews the stages that often occur as relationships develop, as well as divergent initiation paths. Lastly, the chapter covers the surprisingly influential role that other people play in shaping initiation trajectories and the reasons why most “could-be” relationships do not become relationships (e.g., rejection, ineffective initiation approaches).

Consumption is inherently a social activity. Interpersonal influences derive from exposure to others’ communications and actions and can affect the motivations, thoughts, emotions, or behaviors of a given focal consumer. Such influences arise from direct interaction between two or more individuals or from indirect exposure to other individual(s), such as via social media, social norms, or thinking about others. This chapter highlights and integrates the large body of interpersonal influence research from approximately the last five years (published between 2014 and 2021) using an organizing framework built around the customer journey. We also offer thoughts on where we see opportunities for moving interpersonal influences research in new directions.

One of the biggest, newest and most exciting assessment and research opportunity to occur since the millennium has been the exploitation of Big Data, which is the ‘electronic footprint’ that we all leave when using credit and other cards as well as the web, through a variety of social networks. Assessment, selection and recruitment experts have not been slow in seeking Big Data as a way of collecting a wide variety of pieces of information about targeted individuals. There have also been some high-profile scandals using Big data. This chapter looks at the five Vs of Big data: Volume (how much data on individuals is potentially available), Variety (the wide range of data on behaviours available), Velocity (the sheer speed of data accumulation and possibilities of analysis), Veracity (the all-important point of the accuracy and truthfulness of the data) and Value (whether it is uniquely valuable or not). Studies on Facebook profiles are discussed in detail. It is perhaps the most exciting prospect for person assessment, but the promises, perils and problems are also discussed. Finally, half a dozen experts report on how they see Big Data as offering opportunities for person assessment.

This chapter focuses on ethical training in Byzantium by examining texts from the tenth to twelfth centuries, including Theophanes Continuatus and works by Peter of Argos, Theodore of Nicaea, John Tzetzes and Constantine Manasses, while briefly discussing connections to works on ethical practice by Plutarch and Athanasius of Alexandria. Studies of hymnography, elite rhetoric and gender have displayed the central role of imitating past models in the cultivation of ethical habits and construction of the self in Byzantium. People in the Byzantine period both refined and displayed their character by patterning their emotions and responses on ancient and biblical models. Numerous historical texts presented classical figures as ethical examples to a medieval audience primed to shun or imitate those behaviours. The elite rhetorical habit of likening subjects to great characters of classical antiquity is explored in this chapter as but one aspect of a larger set of cultural practices that aimed at learning ethical behaviour through the imitation of valorised models.

This chapter is about social networking sites and social media. Bracketing direct and private communication through other modalities (e.g., email, IM, chat/text), the remaining types of communication made possible through social media are examined. This chapter reviews mass-personal communication perspective on social media. This chapter offers three themes to understand social media use: social media as the social news, social media as the archive of self, and social media as bridging social capital. Social news is the idea that we use social media to advertise the events of our lives and read about the lives of others. The archive of self refers to both the searchability and permanence of our digital connections made possible with social media. Theories of social capital were among the first perspectives to develop during the rise of social media, and the value of social media for bridging social capital is examined in this chapter.

The quality of interactions and relationships depends on the thoughts and feelings of both partners. Hence, people often try to manage the thoughts and feelings others have about them. This chapter reports the results of a program of research examining the role of interpersonal value goals – goals to be valued as a relationship partner – in interpersonal interactions and relationships. This research suggests that adopting the goal to be valued by others often motivates people to enact prosocial behaviors and adopt compassionate goals, and elicits positive responses from partners. The link between interpersonal value goals and prosocial behavior was particularly strong when participants endorsed lay theories that prosocial behavior elevates people’s interpersonal value and when they were immersed in relationship contexts in which specific partners rewarded their prosocial behavior, suggesting that selection of prosocial strategies as a means to pursue interpersonal value depends on explicit and tacit knowledge of interdependence.

Chapter 6 uses ANOC 12 as a case study for a kin group in the initial stages of its developmental cycle, showing that such groups seek to be represented with high-ranking ones in order to accrue status and improve their social position. Stelae can be used both to promote kin groups and to encourage networking with other groups, but they do so through modes of display that need to be decoded if they are to be used as a source of social analysis. One of those modes of display was the use of filiation formulae, which should not be seen as a reflection of genealogical relatedness, but rather as a tool for self-presentation.

Mechanisms of group formation are not clear for ancient Egypt, but sources indicate that groups were probably cognatic and recognition of relatives was bilateral, despite a clear patrilineal bias. Group formation, as in many other cognatic societies, was probably not limited to relatedness by descent, but it could have been based on operational criteria mediated by practice. In this manner, different and complementary groups could have existed throughout a person’s lifetime. In fact, there seems to be a combination of ego-centred and ancestor-centred groups in monumental sources.