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When we come to work, we bring our hard skills, like data crunching and Photoshop; we bring our soft skills training like negotiation and leadership. Along with the qualities we find on a CV, we bring behaviors to the workplace. Defense mechanisms is one kind of behavior that individuals use to create a barrier between themselves and stressful events, actions, or thoughts. They use defense mechanisms as a way to navigate around emotional threats or feelings. 

Artificial intelligence is heralded to be the singular, defining technology of the century. It impacts a wide-range of industries, organizations, and systems. From military uses, AI in recruiting, to healthcare, AI will underpin various processes within a few decades. Exploring attitudes of what the general public perceives or want from AI is essential. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is pretty mainstream. It's about everything---to Netflix movie suggestions to digital pre-employment assessment. 

In a world of AI in recruiting, a digital-first pre-employment assessment, and people analytics, it’s easy to forget the origins of understanding people. Psychology, a social science, gained ground when two psychiatrists pioneered major ideas about human psychology and development, Sigmeund Freud and Carl Jung. Although his theories are discussed to a lesser extent than Freud's psychodynamic approach, Carl Jung's ideas carry an influence whose effects can still be felt today. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic stopping the economic and social life of entire countries, researchers wanted to know which leaders made a difference in delivering a (more) positive outcome. From hiring, pre employment assessments, to travel, the results may affect how organizations attribute leadership in times of crisis. The University of Liverpool conducted a statistical analysis of 194 countries. Their conclusions: countries with women leaders performed better. Their countries suffered half as many COVID-related deaths.

Companies are on the hunt for that special formula that makes a team magic. Fortunately, science sheds light on how teams can perform. Deloitte’s national managing director Kim Christfort and Suzanne M. Johnson Vickberg performed a comprehensive study on team chemistry. They created questionnaires, similar to a pre-employment assessment, which contain business-relevant traits and preferences. Christfort and Vickberg are a social-personality psychologist and Deloitte’s Business Chemistry lead researcher respectively.

Facial expressions play an important role in recognition of emotions and are used in the process of non-verbal communication. Just like you hear your mother’s certain tone of voice---yes, *that* voice---you can quickly indicate a person’s feelings via their facial expression. This helps describe a person’s emotional state. Facial expressions assist us in ascertaining a person’s emotions and frame of mind. 

Researchers and scientists utilize facial expression detection in exploring the field of emotion  recognition.  Much of the research focuses on recognizing  seven  basic  emotional  states:  neutral,  joy,  surprise, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust.

In the field of psychology, the five dimensions (the ‘Big Five’) are commonly used in the research and study of personality. Since the late 20th Century, these factors have been used to measure, and develop a better understanding of individual differences in personality. It's commonly used as a pre-employment assessment---and as a basis for other personality systems. The Enneagram and the Myers-Briggs pull from the science-based Big Five.

“Push yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you”
“Don’t stop when you’re tired, stop when you’re done”
“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Till your good is better and your better is best”

But does this go the same for choosing candidates in the workplace?

In the field of psychology, the five dimensions (the ‘Big Five’) are commonly used in the research and study of personality. Since the late 20th Century, these factors have been used to measure, and develop a better understanding of individual differences in personality. The psychometric test was born, providing answers into how an individual's abstract reasoning, how their verbal reasoning tests, and created a slew of other aptitude tests. However the Big 5 is regarded as the "gold standard" due to its decades-long research; it's the only psychometric test to reach scientific consensus.

“Ain’t no party like a neurotic party”, said no one ever. Mostly because it would tend to look like a party thrown by Eeyore from the Winnie-the-Pooh books. Neuroticism is one of the five personality traits in the Big Five Personality Trait model. It's often confused with the word neuroses, which originated from the 18th century.

Personality is usually defined by the set of behaviors, feelings, and thoughts that arise from a person’s biological and environmental state. While there’s no set definition behind the word “personality”, psychologists define its traits along 5 dimensions: introversion-extroversion (also spelled “extraversion”), agreeableness, openness, consciousness, and neuroticism (i.e. emotional stability).

You may not be familiar with George A. Miller, but you may be familiar with some of the major ideas he spread to popular culture. He was one of the founders of cognitive psychology and believed the human mind used an information-processing model. He was the propeller in taking psychology from the ivory towers of academics and experts and integrating its learnings for people to learn from. In his 1969 American Psychological Association Presidential Address, he called this “giving psychology away” as part of a public service.

Ready or not, artificial intelligence (AI) and human intuition are going to be ultimate power couple. AI for talent strategy may surpass the likes of Jay-Z and Beyonce, Simba and Nala, or bacon eggs. AI and talent professionals will be carving out the future of fast-thinking companies.

18th century Russian writer Anton Chekov may seem the last person to consult with on business. He earned his living as a doctor and writing plays. However he did pen a precious nugget of wisdom, “Man is what he believes”. This kind of philosophy can perforate throughout an organization. In fact, it could be changed to “A company is what it believes”.