Vladimir Lefebvre (Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Лефе́вр, born 1936, St. Petersburg, Russia) is a mathematical psychologist at the University of California, Irvine. He has created equations that are supposed to predict the large-scale consequences of individual actions. Among the parameters in the equations are the self image of the individual and the action as perceived via this self-image. The result is a number expressing the probability that the individual in question will perform a specific action.
Lefebvre's mathematical approach to social psychology is often referred to as reflexive theory - presumably due to the 'reflexive' nature of taking into account subjects' self-image(s). Lefebvre developed Reflexive Theory as a military researcher in the former Soviet Union, where he was born and educated prior to coming to the United States. According to Jonathan Farley, a mathematician at Stanford doing applied work on national security issues, Lefebvre's Reflexive Theory was a Soviet alternative to game theory which had been widely adopted by the American defense establishment.
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“I’m the boss, you’re an idiot. You’re the boss, I’m an idiot.”
—Russian army saying, trans. by Vladimir Ivanovich Shlyakov (1993)