Slávka Démuthová

This collection delves into the conceptual and semantic dissection of aesthetic and moral emotions. It grapples with their definition, scope, function, and structure. Highlighting a range of semantic research methods, the authors also present interdisciplinary studies on emotions like anger, admiration, disgust, guilt, and feelings linked to beauty perception. This book serves as a thematic and methodological gateway to interdisciplinary human emotionality research.

The monograph examines the issue of self-harm in adolescents, a high-risk behavior in which individuals intentionally cause themselves harm. Research in this area has produced significant disparities, with experts disagreeing on the definition and methods for identifying self-harm. The specifics of its occurrence, signs, risk and protective factors, and dynamics of development or prognosis are all unclear. The monograph aims to provide basic information on self-harm, its prevalence, and forms, as well as to clarify its formation and retention as a maladaptive coping strategy. Furthermore, it presents unique data from a multi-year research project on a group of adolescents and identifies potential areas for further research.

The monograph presents psychological interpretations of the specific reactions of individuals within the perception of attractive human faces. It concentrates on exploring selected attributes of human face that increase its attractiveness. After introducing essential information on the specifics of facial perception and its brain correlates, the monograph presents findings on the effect of symmetry, averageness, proportions, sexually dimorphic features, personality characteristics, or the importance of specific parts of the face to its attractiveness. Based on the results of both foreign and own research, the authors formulate interpretations of why and how the identification and preference of examined characteristics have been developed and maintained by the evolution.

The monograph outlines the dual role of mathematics in relation to beauty. On one hand mathematics refers to an objective, through mathematical formulas expressible side of beauty. On the other hand, it points out that entirely abstract things like mathematical equations can be seen as beautiful, too. This refers to two aspects of beauty. 1. The biological, evolutionary: our brains react to certain aesthetic stimuli in scientifically adequately explainable way. 2. Philosophical spiritual: This shows a connection of beauty with goodness and being. To such a perception we can mature. Handed down wisdom can be mentioned as a hint: You cannot find beauty, if you don't carry it in yourself. Such an analysis can help us understand why we use the word beauty in so many different ways.