When painting reveals increases in social trust

Scientists from the CNRS, ENS-PSL, Inserm, and Sciences Po revealed an increase in facial displays of trustworthiness in European painting between the fourteenth and twenty-first centuries. The findings, published in Nature Communications on 22 September 2020, were obtained by applying face-processing software to two groups of portraits, suggesting an increase in trustworthiness in society that closely follows rising living standards over the course of this period.

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