Personality matters and makes an impact

The influence of personality on human development

“Personality matters.”

Milos Kankaras in the OECD document Relevance and assessment of personality characteristics.

The person is more than his or her personality. Personality characteristics, indeed, shape human behavior and influence different and relevant areas of life. Personality matters, and because it matters, it has an impact.

Our personality characteristics impact both the direct effects on our life achievements and through indirect effects on other personal factors such as the development of non-cognitive abilities, interpersonal competencies, academic performance, family well-being, performance in the work environment, social inclusion, and the general well-being of the individual and society as a whole.

In fact, there is evidence in psychological and empirical research on its importance and substantial influence in various areas such as education, sports, success, status, productivity, job, family and life satisfaction, health itself, etc.

Measuring personality and predicting your success

Performance tests generally overlook, or do not adequately assess, the soft skills (personality traits, competencies, goals, motivations, preferences) that are so highly valued today in the job market, in schools and in many other sectors. Assessing soft skills makes it possible to predict a person’s achievement and success.

Studies therefore underline the need to incorporate more routinely the measurement of personality in quality of life surveys, psychology tests, vocational orientation, personnel selection, etc. in order to develop one’s own human talent. Somehow assessing our personality helps us to predict the impact and success in our personal fulfillment.

Personality and its impact on education

In relation to education and training, personality development matters a lot. For example, different studies have shown that the “Responsibility” factor has a high impact on educational performance.

Among the eight key competencies listed in the European Framework for Lifelong Learning, Kankaras shows that at least four refer mainly to personality traits and “non-cognitive” skills, or so-called soft skills:

  • Learning to learn: includes self-discipline, perseverance and motivation.
  • Social and civic competencies : involves communication skills, tolerance, empathy and knowing how to cope with stress.
  • Sense of initiative and leadership. Entrepreneurship: in relation to the ability to plan and manage projects, leadership skills, innovation and risk-taking.
  • Cultural expression and awareness. Creativity: Key elements include appreciation and understanding of diverse cultural forms of expression of ideas, experiences and emotions.

It matters how we are and how we are formed; so getting to know, evaluate and adequately enhance the personality in human growth and development is a challenge. A challenge in which artificial intelligence can be a great means and our best ally. Technology at the service of human development.

Our personality has a certain power in decision making, because we make what we are and we make ourselves by being. Let’s learn to know ourselves better to decide better and be what we really want to be.

If you work in a context of evaluation, assessment and development of people, ask for our free demo:
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Artificial intelligence and innovation

Technological innovation uses various disruptive areas to have a positive impact. Currently, one of those that is having the greatest impact on our lives and on public opinion is artificial intelligence (AI), one of the innovative technologies of the digital revolution.

The field of artificial intelligence has made remarkable progress in recent years and is having a real impact on people. Although the current state of AI technology is still a long way from the foundational aspiration of recreating human-like intelligence, research and development teams are taking advantage of these advances and progressively incorporating them. The ability of computer programs to perform sophisticated text, image and language processing tasks has advanced significantly; for example, in healthcare it is already becoming a reality.

Taking the pulse of innovation

Stanford has a dedicated center that publishes rigorous reports every 4 years on the state and projections for the future, as well as the impact on people and society. This report describes active areas of AI research and innovation poised to have a beneficial impact in the near term.

“Artificial intelligence technology is progressing in so many directions and progress is being driven by so many different organizations that it will surely continue. AI100 is an innovative and forward-thinking response to this trend, an opportunity for us as a society to determine the path of our future and not simply let it develop without us noticing.”

Tom Mitchell, Professor and researcher of Maching Leraning, AI and cognitive neuroscience.

Taking the pulse of technological innovation these days is essential. Only on the basis of a real impact analysis of AI will it be possible to make the right decisions, with a goodtech approach and with ethical and responsible criteria. Artificial intelligence seems to be the future, but it is important to make sure that it is a future in which we want and can live as humans.

What are the most promising opportunities for AI?

One of the opportunities the report notes involves AI capable of augmenting human capabilities. Such systems can be valuable in situations where humans and AI have complementary strengths.

For example, in healthcare, an AI system can synthesize large amounts of clinical data to identify a set of treatments for a particular patient along with potential side effects; a human physician can work with the patient to identify which option best suits his or her lifestyle and goals, and explore creative ways to mitigate side effects that were not part of the AI design space.

An AI system may be better at synthesizing available data while a human being may be better at understanding the implications of the data, working with objectives that are difficult to fully quantify and identifying creative actions beyond what the AI may be programmed to analyze.

Artificial intelligence is not only automation of tasks and processes, it also can be and is a catalyst for innovation in different sectors. The challenge is to reconcile innovation with humanization, both of the technology and of the people who make use of it. In this way this binomial will achieve what for some might seem like magic, today is science applied to the service of human development.

If you work in a context of evaluation, assessment and development of people, request our free demo, an innovative tool at the service of human development:


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Critical thinking in times of artificial intelligence

As artificial intelligence advances, it is logical to wonder in which areas human skills will continue to be indispensable. One of them: critical thinking.

We find ourselves immersed in a constantly evolving era, driven by technological advances and new digital tools that are transforming the way we live, work and learn. However, as we become fascinated with the advantages these innovations offer us, we must also reflect on the challenges they pose.

One obvious issue is to confront how these innovations can undermine our cognitive abilities and lead to a certain intellectual and decision-making passivity. In times of artificial intelligence, there is a need to foster and develop critical thinking as an essential human competence.

In times of artificial intelligence…

We are constantly bombarded. Social networks, apps and personalized algorithms present us with an endless stream of content designed to capture our attention instantly, ephemerally and superficially. Add to this the rapid automation of an increasing number of tasks thanks to generative AI. Generative AI chatbots are excellent at crafting sentences that appear to be written by humans. However, they often present falsehoods as facts or have inconsistent logic.

As a result, our abilities to both concentrate, discern true from false, and think deeply can be threatened. Thus, instead of questioning and analyzing the information generated, we tend to accept it passively, without subjecting it to critical analysis. We have a new viral pandemic: and it is not physical, it is algorithmically driven.

“Critical thinking presupposes having the desire to seek, the patience to doubt, the fondness to meditate, the slowness to affirm, the readiness to consider, the care to put in order, and the hatred for all kinds of imposture.”

Francis Bacon

The best antidote to a future permeated by artificial intelligence is an education that aims to train critical thinking, with which we are capable of:

  • Discern between accurate information and misinformation, mediocre and brilliant arguments, identify biases and manipulations, dismantle prejudices and form opinions based on solid evidence.
  • Develop a deeper and more reflective approach to learning, problem solving and decision making.
  • Foster creativity, logical reasoning and the ability to consider multiple perspectives.

Being a cognitive skill closely related to reason, the purpose of critical thinking is action-oriented and applicable to any aspect of our daily lives, including problem solving or decision making; its scope of influence ranges from personal to work. In short, it allows us to be masters of our thinking and act accordingly.

Rather than replacing us, machines can become catalysts to enhance and nurture our human skills. The more artificial intelligence we have at our disposal, the more creativity and critical thinking we will need.

If you are an education professional or work in the evaluation, assessment and development of competencies, such as critical thinking, request our free demo:

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Boosting employability with Human AI

Professional of the Future“, a pioneering project promoted by the University of La Rioja and supported by the Government of La Rioja.

It aims to promote the employability of students from the first year of their university studies by reinforcing transversal employment skills throughout all the years of academic training.

To this end, they are evaluated through the HumanAI tool, which provides them with an individual report analyzing different skills and competencies. With the results of this evaluation, a personalized training itinerary will be drawn up to enhance the necessary competencies through group training modules and individual orientation sessions.

The last phase of the project foresees a second evaluation with HumanAI to verify the impact of the training received on the development of employability skills and the evolution of the corresponding competencies. Students will be able to apply for the recognition of ECTS and micro-credentials credits according to the training modules completed and their participation in the program.

If you want to know more about the project read more at: Professional of the Future

AI in the classroom? An educational innovation

“Today the great challenge we have is to know who our students are, who we have in front of us. Today’s education is very oriented to knowledge, but not to personal and professional training, and the same with teachers. That is why we take advantage of artificial intelligence, together with neurolinguistics, to be able to generate precisely these processes of growth and personal knowledge; also to have an impact on the ecosystem.”

Melania Ottaviano

Melania Ottaviano, director of the Diploma in Educational Innovation at Siglo 21 University, member of the TEDxRíodelaPlata team and Advisor of HumanAI Tech has participated in the Buenos Aires Book Fair. Patricio Zunini from the Ticmas team raises questions about artificial intelligence, its challenges in education and its impact on human innovation.

“With the chatGPT we started to think about the benefits, the opportunities… without forgetting the challenges and threats. What we do and what we see is how artificial intelligence can benefit, in this case, the development of socioemotional skills,” says Melania.

You can read the full interview on infobae: Are teachers prepared to incorporate artificial intelligence in the classroom?

“We develop skill by relying on AI.”

At the Integrated Center of FP del Mar it is clear to them that the development of socioemotional competencies is fundamental. Roberto Suárez Malagón, Head of the Accreditation Unit of this institution, tells us about his experience working with our Human AI assistant.

“The use of the Human AI tool allows us to have a diagnosis for each student and for them to know what these socioemotional competencies are, to think, to reflect and to work in the center and also in the field of employability, to see how we can reach a better integration.”

“That individual report is a basis to work on: from it, getting to know the student better, we follow up to find out how they have developed those competencies and how they have adapted.”

“No student in any course, job or vocational training activity should finish his or her studies without being able to analyze his or her socioemotional competencies, aptitudes, in short, character formation.”

Thank you, Roberto, for sharing your experience with Human AI!

“More relevant, more human.”

On Thursday, May 11, at the Metropolitan Design Center in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, an event took place that brought together more than 700 professionals, especially from the Human Resources area, where experiences were lived simultaneously, allowing to offer a wide range of content and formats. The Mercer Journey #35, “More relevant, more human”, a 360º event that brought the view of experts in economics, global talent issues and trends; as well as different challenges to lead in the “tech” era, manage talent by skills and build an employer brand.

Maria Beunza Mijimolle, CEO of Human AI participated along with Melania Ottaviano, commercial agent in the country.

“Being in a space where they talk about the most innovative in the field of talent development, in an event of this nature, with more than 700 participants and also with a company of enormous trajectory as Mercer Latin America, is already a fantastic alliance for us,” says Maria.

Among the panels, they had the opportunity to listen to Ivana Thornton, Mercer’s talent expert. They participated in different talks on HR trends, in which issues related to socio-emotional competencies, work and personal wellbeing, risk prevention and professional development were very relevant.

Human AI was present in the Patio Tech, a technological space with different start-ups and platforms with innovative proposals and applications.

Melania tells us that it was “a space where we could share, through the tutorial, a quick overview of the usefulness, why and what Human AI is for. Through a QR code, interested users, most of them from HR and recognized agencies in Argentina, could access a test. We had the opportunity to enter into dialogue with potential clients and strategic allies”.

Both had the opportunity to show the application to Cecilia Inés Giordano, CEO of Mercer Latin America, and Diana Mondino, renowned economist in Argentina. Several entities, renowned companies and organizations from different sectors, were interested in the ease of being able to work without tests and questionnaires.

“There is the possibility of doing things better, of doing them much faster, of adapting more to people, of personalizing more the professional development, the career, the needs and concerns of each one.” “People are eager to use new solutions that allow them to move forward. Of course, in Latin America there is this concern. We have had many meetings with the education sector, with ministers, with consulting firms, with sports clubs… everywhere there is this concern for developing competencies, soft skills and not just cognitive skills,” says María.

A reflection on self-knowledge

How can we teach to know the world as an object without first learning to know ourselves as subjects?

“Autoconocimiento y formación: más allá de la educación en valores”

Self-knowledge helps us not only to understand ourselves better, but also enables us to identify our personal and professional goals in a more accurate, realistic and meaningful way. This valuable aspect of our development, however, is often overlooked in education. We focus on acquiring knowledge and technical skills, but rarely stop to explore our own identity.

Gnoseological imperative

Importance of self-knowledge

The claim of self-knowledge is as old as humanity: “know yourself”. The well-known Greek aphorism is part of that “learning to be”, that basic and ontological competence of our life and our personal development. The first step, therefore, following the Greek line, would be to recognize that we are ignorant of ourselves: “I only know that I know nothing” or that I know nothing, as we would say with Socrates.

Likewise, Kant affirmed that self-knowledge, for reason, was “the most difficult of all its tasks”. Precisely because the philosopher communicates the idea of a complete, finished and perfect self-knowledge, and not as the possibility of a gradual process of knowledge, diversified in progressive moments. The need therefore arises for a process of personal growth that includes this gnoseological aspect: to be able to develop a foundation oriented to find out gradually and in depth who and how we are in order to understand why and for what purpose we act.

Pedagogical imperative

Pedagogical and didactic importance

“Self-awareness is perhaps the greatest and most misdiagnosed learning difficulty, and the most unnoticed educational failure of human beings.”

Agustín de la Herrán Gascón – professor

Beyond, therefore, being an individual imperative, self-knowledge is also a pedagogical requirement: “self-knowledge is an educational right that, although it may not be interesting for the profitability of social systems, it is interesting for personal maturity or evolution. Therefore, from the point of view of training, its teaching, is a professional imperative of the teacher”, says Agustín de la Herrán Gascón, pedagogue, doctor in Education and professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

Didactic premises

  • Self-knowledge is the axis of personal maturity, which in turn is the axis of formation, which in turn is the fundamental purpose of didactic
  • It is also a radical (spiral of transversals) or perennial theme. Teachers can contemplate it as an object and objective of reflection and teaching.
  • It can be communicated directly (by dealing with it) or indirectly (from other contents), as long as one acts not only with science, but also with awareness.
  • Before it can be taught, sufficient experience of awareness and experiential self-knowledge is required.
  • The didactic principles for this are coherence-exemplarity, internalization-evolution and the transmission of more concern for knowledge-consciousness, as a function of human evolution (our own, others’, collective and human in general).

Get to know yourself better, to be better.

Beyond data, there is information, beyond information there is knowledge, beyond knowledge, there is decision making, and subsequently the transformation of the person. The process of self-knowledge starts, therefore, from the knowledge of the data to end in the configuration and transformation of the personal being.

“Self-knowledge is a process linked to a result: the human being “is not born as a self […] he learns to be a self.”

K. Popper

An education, therefore, that favors the realization of meaningful and creative learning is undoubtedly a fertile education; and a Didactics that adopts self-knowledge as a formative reference can always be even more useful to know oneself better and be able to be better. Thus, self-knowledge leads the student to be able to integrate knowledge and at the same time to internalize himself as a person, a horizon to which education should aspire.

Socioemotional education and learning

In recent years, a movement has been generated in favor of promoting, disseminating and developing emotional education as a psycho-pedagogical innovation.

The Rethinking Education report (Unesco, 2015) certifies the need to overcome traditional academic learning and to foster a holistic approach to education and learning, in order to overcome traditional dichotomies between cognitive, emotional and ethical aspects.

Emotional intelligence

The construct of intelligence has undergone a very important conceptual expansion, especially since Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (1993), which has had a great impact on the attention to diversity in the educational context.

“Ability to perceive, appraise and express emotions accurately, access and generate feelings that facilitate thinking, understand emotions and regulate them to enable emotional and intellectual growth.”

Mayer & Salovey, 1997, What is emotional intelligence?

The academic deliberation about this concept is long and interesting: the development of the concept of emotional intelligence, Salovey and Mayer (1990), Goleman, D. (1995), interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence, Gardner 1993; personal intelligence, Sternberg (2000), the so-called social competence by Rose-Krasnor (1997), Cherniss (2000), Topping, Bremmer and Holmes (2000) and Zirkel, (2000); etc.

Under the term emotional intelligence there are several conceptions that allow understanding this reality in at least three ways: as a cultural movement, as a personality trait and as a mental capacity.

From intelligence to emotional education 

From the educational point of view, it is preferred to speak, instead of intelligence, of emotional education, emphasizing the interaction between the person and the environment and, as a consequence, great importance is given to the learning and progress of the person in these competencies.

“Emotional education is understood as a continuous and permanent educational process, which aims to enhance the development of emotional competencies as an essential element of the integral development of the person, in order to train him/her for life”.

Bisquerra, R. (2009b). Orientació psicopedagògica, educació emocional i ciutadania.

The concept of emotional education is broader than that of emotional intelligence, although it is based on it; it has an integrating and open character. It includes contributions from neuroscience, research on positive psychology and subjective well-being, and the concept of flow, among others.

In the midst of the conceptual debate, a common point stands out: the existence of a set of emotional competencies, with a great value for life, competencies that can be learned and acquired. Emotional education therefore aims to contribute to this integral development.

The educational implication of this statement is very clear: it is necessary to focus efforts on the development of emotional competencies and to delegate to psychology the elucidation of the construct of emotional intelligence.

Emotional education at the service of skills development

From this educational approach, it is not enough to perform “some activities” from time to time. It requires intentional, systematic and effective work that requires an organized, coherent and integrated set of activities articulated with a common purpose.

  • Learning to motivate oneself.
  • Dealing with frustration.
  • Control anger and impulsive behavior.
  • Develop and spread a sense of humor.
  • Generate and self-generate positive emotions.
  • Foster empathy.
  • Delaying gratification.

This is a short list of emotional competencies whose development allows us to be better prepared for life, favoring aspects such as learning processes, interpersonal relationships, problem solving and the achievement and maintenance of a potential job, promoting a predisposition to learning, reducing conflict, reducing risk behaviors, improving the classroom climate, among other benefits.

“Emotional competencies are the set of knowledge, abilities, skills and attitudes necessary to understand, express and regulate emotional phenomena appropriately”.

Pérez, N, & Filella, G. (2019). Emotional education for the development of emotional competencies in children and adolescents. Praxis & Knowledge

Educating people, more than intelligences

In the educational ecosystem there is a clear conviction: teachers come to their classes with the desire to transform people, not intelligences.

Students are subjects susceptible of assuming not only technical or cognitive skills and competencies, but competencies in which they learn to manage in any situation, challenge and opportunity, whether personal, family or professional; so that they put into play and put into practice everything they have learned and acquired in the teaching and learning process.

Taking into account this implication entails, within the educational framework, designing personalized interventions adapted to the target audience with an active and motivating methodology. In this sense, it is worth remembering that a key element prior to the implementation of emotional education programs is the training of the educators in charge of their application.

Cfr. “Emotional education for the development of emotional competencies in children and adolescents“.

In order to assess competencies and develop them, try Human AI and learn 35 soft skills with just one text.

INTERNATIONAL FORUM ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

More technological, more human

FIIA 2023, International Forum on Artificial Intelligence, is proposed as a space for international dialogue to discuss the present and future of artificial intelligence. On the first day organized by the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional and Ticmas; Melania Ottaviano, HumanAI advisor, and Susel Jacquet, from the Ticmas team; talked with Patricio Zunini about how technology can become a useful tool to develop social-emotional learning.

More and more voices in the intellectual sphere are calling not only to take into account the growing insensitivity that can accompany the rise of technology, but also to continue to proactively develop our human condition.

(DE)HUMANIZATION?

If, instead of apocalyptic dehumanization, technology were a tool for developing socioemotional skills? This question was the key to the dialogue between Melania Ottaviano and Susel Jacquet at FIIA2023, on August 30 in the auditorium of the Regional Faculty of Córdoba of the National Technological University.

Our advisor in Argentina, Melania Ottaviano, director of the Diploma in Educational Innovation at Universidad Siglo 21 and part of the academic team of the Specialization in Virtual Learning Environments at Universidad Católica Argentina, stated that “it is extremely important to accompany all the development of Artificial Intelligence with human development”.

In the educational ecosystem, Melania continued, “it is increasingly important to begin to organically include emotional intelligence or everything that has to do with human skills in the teaching curriculum. These skills, Artificial Intelligence obviously cannot execute them, it cannot replace us (…) so it is key to include these types of skills, especially for the challenges of today’s world, for our students and also for teachers.” In a world full of technology, algorithms and big data, it is urgent to develop our more human side, since “we obviously run the risk that if we do not do it, we will not accompany this evolution”.

MORE SELF-KNOWLEDGE

“What recommendations would you give for working on the socioemotional dimension in an institution in an organization, not just in a school?”.

Regarding the development of the socioemotional part, Melania advocates for a boost in self-knowledge: “We know very little about our students, although we know if our students are good in Mathematics, Logic, Language… we know little about their level of leadership, empathy, frustration tolerance… and that is one of the challenges we also have today as teachers; to begin to know them to generate plans that can strengthen these skills”.

Self-knowledge is a fundamental part in order to develop this socioemotional dimension, and not only for students, but also for teachers and managers, since “there are few spaces in the institutions for self-knowledge, and it is essential to know what training they have and what challenges of these human skills are also necessary to develop in them”.

To this end, she stated: “I believe that the commitment of the management team is key, and to know that these are projects that are designed and must be sustained in the long term. We are very used to wanting to get results quickly and when we work with human skills, although they are malleable, they obviously require time, which is why I say that measurement is also key”.

MORE HUMANE

From this need arises the innovative proposal of Human AI: “We combine Artificial Intelligence and human development.Precisely through this application – which was developed with artificial intelligence – we can obtain a report, an analysis of our students, of more than 30 socioemotional skills; and from there we can make a project, a planning; knowing what are the opportunities for improvement and in which ones to continue growing and strengthening”.

Melania, commenting on the relationship between technology and the socioemotional part, affirmed that it is necessary to “find a balance between the use of this technology and seek a connection more and more to our essence as humans. There are always ethical limits, and in Human AI’s work there is strict data control to preserve the identity and sensitive information of each individual user. The preservation of identity is part of the ethical dimension of the company, because it is precisely sensitive information that you are having about a person, and it is very relevant”.

But she urged that this ethical debate “must be taken to the inside of each institution”. Although debates are taking place at the international and national level, I believe that we must open spaces for discussion in each institution. This is moving very fast, if we wait for the regulations to come from somewhere else, we will never be up to the task. There is a lot to discuss, some people are afraid of it, but I think we have to see it as an opportunity”.