If Sigmund Freud was the king of psychoanalysis, Carl Jung was its crown prince. The two men were friends for a time, then bitter enemies. Yet nearly every idea that followed them in personality psychology can be said to be an afterthought to their contributions.

Recently on The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, and Blake Loepp, PR manager, spoke with Robert Hogan, PhD, founder and president of Hogan Assessments, about the contributions that Carl Jung made to modern psychology.

Dr. Hogan is an international authority on personality assessment, leadership, and organizational effectiveness. He appeared on episode 73 of The Science of Personality to talk about the importance of Freud.

Now let’s look at Carl Jung and why his work matters.

About Carl Jung

Understanding personality theory starts with the two great figures of Freud and Jung. Dr. Hogan called them the Plato and Aristotle of personality psychology. “They had something to say about almost every single important issue in the discipline,” he added.

Jung was an intuitive introvert with an interest in people and society rather than academic fame. Compared to Freud, who was a rationalist, Jung’s insight into people could seem mystical. He spent most of his scholarly career researching and writing about psychology, the unconscious, and myth and religion.

Freud and Jung had a complicated relationship. Because Freud was passionate about building a following around his own international reputation, he was intolerant of psychologists who disagreed with him. Although at first Jung upheld Freudian thought, he developed his own theories and ended his friendship with Freud. Freudians subsequently defamed Jung, destroying his reputation in a way that still affects the extent to which he is studied today.

Dr. Hogan said, “Personality theory is about the nature of human nature. Part of my mission in running Hogan Assessments is to restore people’s interest in personality theory.”

What Are Jungian Archetypes?

Both Freud and Jung thought that most human behavior was motived by the unconscious. They differed, however, in what they thought the unconscious was. Freud’s view of the unconscious was comparable to thoughts that have been systematically repressed over time. For Jung, on the other hand, the unconscious is the collective memory of the human species. “Freud would regard Jung’s view of the unconscious as hopelessly mystical, and Jung would regard Freud’s view of the unconscious as trivial,” Dr. Hogan explained.

Jung’s perspective is grounded in evolutionary theory. Humans possess a collection of emotions and response patterns from the history of our species. For example, one of our greatest fears is to be alone in a strange place in the dark. Our physical and emotional fear response in these circumstances comes from our collective unconscious, Jung would say.

Jung and Myth

Archetypes are thought patterns that help people make sense of their experience.¹ Jung identified numerous archetypes, including the persona, the shadow, and the hero. The famous hero archetype appears in nearly every human culture and follows the same general template. A divine child is raised in humble circumstances, displays supernatural abilities, rises to fame, and is betrayed and sacrificed.

The stories of Hercules, Oedipus, Jesus, Buddha, King Arthur, and Superman all share the Jungian hero archetype. “Certain things happen over and over and over and over again until, at some point, they’re recorded down there in the collective unconscious,” Dr. Hogan said.

Jung and Religion

Humans have three core motivations: (1) getting along, (2) getting ahead, and (3) finding meaning. Religion is one of the most powerful forces in human affairs because it speaks to our desire to commit our belief to an idea. Politics, philosophy, and history can hold similar psychological roles regarding belief.

According to Jung, religion is a universal in human culture. He viewed all religions as having similar underlying structures that allow people to find purpose in their lives. While Freud believed religion was a delusion, Jung took religion seriously. “People need to believe in something, and religion provides an answer,” said Dr. Hogan, explaining Jung’s perspective on the psychological necessity of religion.

Why Jung Matters

Jungian theory has had a significant impact on psychology. Aside from the legacy of his archetypes, which pervade popular culture, Jung invented the word association test. The person taking the test speaks the first word that comes to mind through free association in response to a word, image, or other stimulus. This test is still used in clinical psychology.

The biggest effect that Jung has had on modern culture was by laying the foundational theory for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a widely known personality inventory. The theory came about while Jung was comparing the personalities of Freud and Alfred Adler, another psychologist.

He defined four differences in how people acquired and analyzed facts. Jung noticed that Adler focused his attention on the external world, while Freud focused inside his own head. After focusing their attention externally or internally, some people perceived facts, while others perceived the meaning of the facts. Then Jung saw that some people accepted facts at face value, whereas others filtered facts through their unconscious. Finally, some people judged facts as true or false, while others judged facts as meaningful or meaningless. The MBTI’s creators later applied these four dimensions of discerning, acquiring, processing, and applying information to its development.

Many modern personality psychologists believe that personality causes a person to think, feel, or act in certain ways. That is opposite to Jung’s information-processing theory of personality. “The way you process information—the way you feel about information—is exactly what it means to be different, to have a different personality,” Dr. Hogan said. While there are more dimensions to personality, Jung is both unique and correct when he says that our approaches to learning information contribute to our personalities.

To emphasize the importance of Jungian theory, Dr. Hogan said, “All personality psychology can be seen as an extended footnote to Freud and Jung.”

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 75 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

Reference

1. Hogan, R., & Smither, R. (2008). C. G. Jung and Analytic Psychology. In Personality: Theories and Applications. Hogan Press: 77–102.

Leaders cannot anticipate every specific situation—not when the world is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). Knowing how to lead in a VUCA environment doesn’t mean making infinite contingency plans. Instead, it means having flexibility, solving problems, driving change, and handling the unknown. Strategic leadership in the face of VUCA means being versatile when your plan doesn’t go as planned.

Given the way that the 2020s have been going so far, the near future seems likely to continue to present VUCA challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic, Great Resignation, Russo-Ukrainian War, economic recession, and more have brought extraordinary hardship to boardrooms and living rooms. Organizations need people who are comfortable leading during crises and confident forming strategies when all the facts cannot be known.

Read on to find out why understanding VUCA is so important and how personality data can predict leaders who are more likely to respond successfully to VUCA situations.

What VUCA Is and Why It Matters

VUCA isn’t just a catchall phrase for challenging environments. Understanding its nuances enables leaders to be versatile.

What Is VUCA?

The acronym VUCA originates from the US Army War College as a description of the state of the world since the late 1980s. Here’s what the terms that comprise it mean and how they apply to leaders¹:

Volatility – A volatile world is characterized by sudden changes that require rapid response. A leader with flexibility can deploy well-honed skills quickly and change direction as appropriate.

Uncertainty – An uncertain world is characterized by the inability to know exactly what is happening now or what may happen next. A leader who anticipates problems can forecast potential flaws in solutions, detect errors, and experiment.

Complexity – A complex world is characterized by distinct but interconnected variables that influence decision-making. A leader who drives change can assess a broad range of response options and champion new methods, systems, or processes to improve performance.

Ambiguity – An ambiguous world is characterized by circumstances with multiple meanings that require unbiased objectivity to assess. A leader who can deal with ambiguity shows self-awareness and comfortably handles unpredictable or unknowable situations.

Another way to express the characteristics of VUCA is by how much information can be known and the degree to which the results from our actions can be predicted.² In complex or ambiguous situations, leaders tend to have less information available. In volatile or uncertain situations, they tend to have more. Usually, leaders can make accurate predictions in volatile or complex situations, while it’s often harder to forecast the effects of one’s actions in uncertain or ambiguous situations.

Why Does VUCA Matter?

Handling VUCA crises is just another part of leading an organization effectively. Analyzing which specific VUCA conditions a crisis brings will help leaders understand what responses are most fitting and how to implement them.

Every organization will face a crisis at some point, but it’s nearly impossible to know what the crisis will be. That is why a broad, principled approach to a VUCA world tends to be more successful than outlining specific details for every individual contingency. Cybersecurity threats and tsunamis are significantly different crises, but responses to both share the basic need to safeguard and secure people, property, and data.

Because crises are so common, responding well to VUCA challenges is a crucial capability for leaders today. A significant indicator of effective leadership is versatility, which is defined as “the ability to read and respond to change with a wide repertoire of complementary perspectives, skills, and behaviors.”³ Organizations need versatile leaders to overcome crises.

VUCA and Leader Personality

Hogan assessments measure personality characteristics that correspond to competencies that show a leader’s likelihood to respond to a VUCA world with versatility. Those competencies include dealing with ambiguity, anticipating problems, flexibility, and driving change.

Our research on the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) suggests that higher scores on the Adjustment, Ambition, and Interpersonal Sensitivity scales predict a versatile leader. A leader who scores this way is likely to be resilient when faced with challenges and remain calm under pressure, while driving the team toward results and creating an environment that fosters connection and trust.

Our research also indicates that lower scores on the Hogan Development Survey (HDS) scales Excitable, Skeptical, and Reserved predict a versatile leader. These leaders tend to be prepared for setbacks and react calmly when they need to work through problems. They are likely to create an environment of collaboration and remain tolerant, open-minded, and optimistic, while also being perceptive of others and the situations around them.

Finally, lower scores on the Security scale from the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) predict a versatile leader who is likely tolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty while maintaining a reputation for being an assertive and innovative leader.

Implications

The legacy of a leader is often determined by how they handle a crisis. In recent years, the business world has seen its fair share of crises. While some leaders have faltered, others have risen to the occasion.

Versatility seems like a core characteristic related to performance in VUCA circumstances. Versatile leaders can deal with ambiguity, anticipate problems, be flexible, and continue to drive change. Hogan’s research shows several core scales across assessment tools that seem to be key predictors of versatility. These scales predict a leader that should be unflappable under pressure, driven to succeed, open to new opportunities, perceptive, and collaborative. These leaders are not likely to overreact or quit in the face of challenge; rather, they will engage in versatile leadership by evaluating the current situation and responding with diverse perspectives and talents to overcome challenges.

VUCA responsiveness is an important component of strategic self-awareness in leadership development. Not every leader is naturally skilled in the face of uncertainty. Hogan provides leaders an opportunity to understand their personalities. Leaders who are self-aware in this way can learn to strategically leverage positive behavioral tendencies and mitigate those that may get in the way of success during a crisis.

This blog post was coauthored by Jessie McClure, MA, senior consultant, and Ryan Rush, PhD, consultant.

References

1. Kaiser, R. (2016, November 30). Leading in a VUCA World. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/its-vuca-world-framework-leading-todays-disruptive-rob-kaiser/
2. Bennett, N., & Lemoine, G. J. (2014, January). What VUCA Really Means for You. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you
3. Kaiser, R. B. (2020). Leading in an unprecedented global crisis: The heightened importance of versatility. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 72(3), 135–154. https://doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000186

A household name in American football, Deion Sanders recently garnered attention again as the new football head coach at the University of Colorado. Will his larger-than-life personality serve him in a leadership role?

Recently on The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, and Blake Loepp, PR manager, discussed the recent exodus of players at Colorado and how Deion Sanders seems as a leader.

Sports—or any high-level competition—can be relevant to the business world. Let’s look at how leader personality and a competitive environment may correspond to talent acquisition strategies.

About Deion Sanders

During the 1990s, Deion Sanders was known as a star player who excelled in multiple sports. A record-holding athlete, Sanders is the only person to have played in both the World Series and the Super Bowl.

In December 2022, he became head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes football team, where he promptly warned the players on his new team to transfer. The implication was that he doesn’t plan to develop them. Sanders implied that he would be filling positions with athletes he feels have more talent.

“‘The best way to change people is to change people,’” Ryne said, quoting Robert Hogan, PhD, our founder. “It’s an important change management organizational strategy. Sometimes that’s the most effective and efficient way to go.”

The Buffaloes previously had one win and 11 losses. Of the 83 players, 63 are not returning.

Similarities with Elon Musk

If this strategy of “cleaning house” sounds familiar, that’s because it is. There are a lot of parallels between how Deion Sanders started his tenure at Colorado and how Elon Musk started his at Twitter.

Both leaders have been criticized for their takeover methods. Yet both leaders have extremely impressive past records of success. As Dr. Hogan pointed out about Musk, “It is difficult to say how the Twitter acquisition will work out for Musk, but if his past business ventures are any indication, it would be hard to bet against him.”

As a player, Sanders won two Super Bowls. As a head coach, he took his team to two Celebration Bowls. Sanders deserves credit for knowing what he is doing. “Look at what’s on the paper,” Blake said, citing Sanders’s success record. “You can’t say that he’s going to do poorly.”

The two leaders are similar in another way. At Twitter, Musk reduced his workforce and enforced policies that called for increased worker commitment, such as in-office work and longer hours. “What Sanders is doing at Colorado is reducing the staff to just those players who are really committed,” Ryne explained. Some employees and players who don’t like how the environment has changed will leave. Others who accept the dramatically new direction will stay.

Will Coach Prime Attract Talent?

Deion Sanders’s popularity is expressed in his nickname “Coach Prime.” As a player with a larger-than-life personality, he built a strong personal brand. His confidence and discipline are likely to attract players who identify with his reputation for hard work and success. “They see that combination and say, ‘That’s who I want to play for,’” Ryne said.

Conversely, the bravado and show of Coach Prime—as well as his recent comments about the transfer portal—might deter some athletes. Will Coach Prime show favoritism by bringing former players along with him? Will he commit to developing new players or encourage them to transfer away?

In business as in sports, recruitment is a challenge. “Attracting talent is a personality question,” Ryne said. In fact, talent attraction is a performance metric backed by personality data. “Personality is definitely predictive of the ability to attract talent to an organization,” he added.

As to Coach Prime’s ability to do so, Blake said, “It’ll be a story to watch over the next few years.”

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 74 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

Derailers, in Hogan terms, are everyday personality strengths that can become overused—particularly during times of increased stress, pressure, or complacency. When we stop monitoring our strengths, our behaviors can become detrimental. Someone who tends to be supportive and loyal to authority, for example, could begin to seem excessively deferential and ingratiating. Derailment in the individual sense could hold a person back from performing well or achieving occupational goals. But what happens when the whole team derails?

Team derailment can take various forms, depending on the composition of the team’s derailers. Team members might seem apathetic or disengaged. They might stall or miss deadlines. They might produce low-quality work. They might show indifference or resistance to innovation. They might lack alignment on goals or exhibit internal mistrust. However team derailment manifests, it can damage trust and destroy efficiency.

One common cause of team derailment is change fatigue, which can be described as “emotional fatigue from the recent avalanche of change.”¹ Global, cultural, social, and local change has been so widespread in recent years that teams now struggle to tolerate organizational change—even minor changes that they used to adapt to with ease.

In other words, experiencing too much change within a short timeframe has affected our collective stress tolerance. Read on as we explore change fatigue, two types of team derailment, and how versatile leaders can restore team balance.

What Is Change Fatigue?

Change fatigue can occur when people experience a volatile, unpredictable, complex, and uncertain (VUCA) environment. It can emerge when nothing seems constant or reliable and when individuals are required to flex and adapt too often over a long period of time. The effects of change fatigue can include increased stress, decreased flexibility, and difficulty navigating change.

Teams can become susceptible to change fatigue when their overall versatility is naturally low or has been weakened in a VUCA environment. Leadership consultant Rob Kaiser defines versatility as “the ability to read and respond to change with a wide repertoire of complementary perspectives, skills, and behaviors.”² This characteristic is an essential socioemotional skill in the modern workplace. It’s also a key aspect of successful leadership, which we define as the ability to build and maintain high-performing teams. Versatility is tied to these four leadership competencies: (1) Dealing with Ambiguity, (2) Anticipating Problems, (3) Flexibility, and (4) Driving Change.

On an individual level, people navigate change differently according to their personality characteristics. The Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) scale Adjustment concerns composure and how we manage stress. The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) scale Excitability measures behaviors ranging from emotional calmness to emotional explosiveness.

Other Hogan scales may also indicate how likely we are to resist or embrace change. The HPI scale Prudence measures flexibility and tolerance of ambiguity. The HDS scales Skeptical and Cautious regard trust and risk tolerance respectively. The Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) scale Tradition relates to attitudes toward progress and principles, and the MVPI scale Security relates to attitudes toward structure and predictability.

A team’s ability to tolerate change can impact its collective success. How can a team mitigate the risk of change fatigue? And what can leaders do if the team has already derailed?

How Do Teams Derail?

Hogan Director of Professional Services Jennifer Lowe, MA, describes team derailment as derailers “going haywire.” An expert in team development sessions, Lowe emphasizes the role of the HDS and MVPI in understanding what divides teams and what can bring them together again.

Two Types of Team Derailment

The eleven HDS scales measure strengths that can become overused when change fatigue or other factors lessen people’s ability to monitor their behavior. There are two types of team derailment, which often occur at the same time:

• Shared derailment – Many team members may share an elevation on an HDS scale. This shared derailer can impact the team’s reputation. A Reserved team in derailment may be seen as siloed, unavailable, or uninvolved. A Bold team in derailment will likely appear arrogant, ambitious, entitled, and limit-testing.
• Individual derailment – When a team operates in derailer mode, its team members’ unique elevated HDS scales may all be in derailment. The various individual derailers tend to intensify each other. When a high Bold team member arrogantly tests limits, a high Reserved team member responds with withdrawal and isolation. All these simultaneously out-of-control derailers usually result in underperformance, misalignment, and poor communication.

When a team is overwhelmed by change, team members probably won’t manage their derailers as effectively as they might during times of stability. So what can help? The solutions to addressing team derailment and change fatigue can be found in shared values—and versatile leadership.

The Role of Shared Values

While the HDS can identify how the team is derailing, using the MVPI to explore shared values can help identify why. When Lowe addresses change fatigue in a team development session, she usually starts with the HDS and ends with the MVPI. “Teams tend to perform better if there are a couple of things that pull them together,” Lowe explained.

The 10 values measured on the MVPI can reveal what grounds a team. They can also indicate what shared values might improve communication. Shared values help team members recognize how everyone works together so that change doesn’t feel so challenging.

Lowe has a story about a team development session that illustrates how values affect team alignment. Once, she conducted a team session for the chief information officer of a US financial company. Personality data from the team members showed that about 70% of them scored high on the MVPI Security scale and about 30% scored low. Furthermore, the team leader had the overall lowest score on Security. The Security scale is associated with valuing certainty and predictability and minimizing risk and criticism.

During the session, the team created a metaphor to describe their team dynamics. The team compared themselves to a soccer team full of players who couldn’t admit to the coach that they needed some time on the bench. The low-scoring leader tended to take chances, test limits, and make quick changes, while the high-scoring team valued caution and consistency. Using these insights, Lowe challenged the leader and team to have a frank conversation about how each perceived and valued change.

It’s incumbent on leaders to set the example for how the team navigates change. Leaders who understand derailers and values can empower team members to feel secure and confident in themselves, their teammates, and their leader.

What Can Leaders Do About Change Fatigue?

Leadership isn’t a job title—it’s accomplishing goals by means of team performance. The responsibility for team efficiency, communication, and coherence ultimately belongs to the leader.

Leaders of teams who are derailing from change fatigue can implement these four action steps to help restore team unity:

Build Self-Awareness – A leader’s unchecked derailers tend to set off a chain reaction of derailers in team members. Take steps to exercise strategic self-awareness and learn to manage your derailers. Develop a repertoire of behavioral strategies to rely on for building relationships and communication.

Show Transparency – A leader who is transparent about their own vulnerabilities and derailing tendencies contributes to the team’s sense of connection and belonging. When team cohesion is strong, individual employees have nearly twice the capacity to handle change than those in teams with lower team cohesion.³

Be Consistent – Limit unnecessary changes to avoid inundating an overwhelmed team with constantly or suddenly changing priorities. When change is necessary, set expectations by introducing change with the right tone.⁴ It’s important to frame the plan as an adaptable blueprint that is expected to flex.

Pace Yourself – “Know when to set strategy on hold to create space for well-being,” Lowe says. Sometimes you need to slow down now to speed back up later.

References

1. Peregrine, M. (2022, July 22). Change Fatigue and Organizational Culture—A Critical Call for Leadership. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelperegrine/2022/07/22/change-fatigue-and-organizational-culture-a-critical-call-for-leadership/
2. Kaiser, R. B. (2020). Leading in an Unprecedented Global Crisis: The Heightened Importance of Versatility. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 72(3), 135–154. https://doi.org/10.1037/cpb0000186
3. Baker, M. (2020, October 14). How to Reduce the Risk of Employee Change Fatigue. Gartner Insights. https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/how-to-reduce-the-risk-of-employee-change-fatigue
4. Duffy, M. W., & Fosslien, L. (2022, May 4). Managers, What Are You Doing About Change Exhaustion? Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2022/05/managers-what-are-you-doing-about-change-exhaustion

Last month, the Hogan team was given a warm welcome by distributor Talent Assessments Vietnam (TAV) when we joined them on a whirlwind tour across the country. This trip was an excellent opportunity to continue the positive progress that TAV has already made. TAV planned a productive schedule, including launching their first Hogan Assessments Certification workshops, promoting thought leadership events, and conducting several business development meetings.

The vibrant, bustling streets of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi provided exciting backdrops for the duration of the trip. Krista Pederson, Hogan’s managing director of Asia-Pacific business development, and Dan Bass, solutions manager at TAV, presented their perspectives on inclusive leadership. They discussed how scientifically validated assessments can help promote equitable selection practices and foster an inclusive organizational culture. Interestingly, Vietnam is already on the path to inclusive leadership due to the diversity among its business leaders. Globally, Vietnam has one of the highest proportions of women in the workforce.¹ The country also beats the global average for women in senior leadership positions.² Nathan Cornwell, MS, Hogan’s senior consultant for the Asia-Pacific region, also joined in supporting meetings and workshops to share how Hogan can provide businesses with a competitive advantage.

Fueled on Vietnamese coffee and feeling Inquisitive, the team took the opportunity to immerse themselves in the local culture whenever possible. They sampled the cuisine, explored different city districts, and even experienced a light (but fortunately harmless) taxi collision.

Given the unique opportunities in Vietnam, Hogan plans to continue expansion in this market. As we collect more data, we will study the nuances of Vietnamese leadership styles and leaders’ personality trends.

We are delighted to be partnered with TAV and are excited to continue supporting their impressive growth in the market.

This blog post was written by Nathan Cornwell, MS, senior consultant, and Krista Pederson, managing director.

References

1. Vietnam Has One of the Highest Shares of Women in Work in the World. (2019, June 8). The Economist. https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/06/08/vietnam-has-one-of-the-highest-shares-of-women-in-work-in-the-world
2. Vietnam a World Leader in Having Women in Top Corporate Positions. (2020, March 10). Vietnam Plus. https://en.vietnamplus.vn/vietnam-a-world-leader-in-having-women-in-top-corporate-positions/169889.vnp

When Thenamaris, a ship management organization based in Athens, Greece, discovered a need to strengthen talent development aboard its vessels, the marine personnel performance and development team knew that the approach had to be grounded in science. They connected with ICAP People Solutions, an authorized Hogan distributor, to further explore how personality affects leadership performance. Together, Thenamaris, ICAP, and Hogan began a talent development initiative they dubbed the Ulysses Project.

Lasting for two and a half years, the Ulysses Project featured job analysis research to give Thenamaris insight into the qualities that help their seafaring leaders succeed in deck management and engine management positions.

More than 500 multinational officers completed Hogan’s three core personality assessments: the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), Hogan Development Survey (HDS), and Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI). To date, more than 350 of those officers have received one-on-one, confidential, and personalized feedback for development based on their results.

After the project concluded, the Thenamaris team gave Hogan a trove of feedback on the resounding success of the Ulysses Project. They spoke highly of their experience working with Hogan and ICAP and filled us in on some of the lessons they learned from using personality assessments to enhance their talent development strategy.

Here are just a few of the takeaways.

On Collaborating with Hogan and ICAP

To administer the assessments and deliver feedback to the participating officers, Thenamaris developed a team of internal Hogan facilitators early in the project. Several people completed Hogan’s foundational certification workshop. As part of the process, they completed the Hogan assessments and received feedback on their results.

The value was immediately apparent. One marine personnel manager remarked, “I completed my HPI, HDS, and MVPI questionnaires and received one-on-one feedback. I have realized firsthand how useful this effort can prove on a personal level. I do therefore expect that it will prove equally useful at a company level.”

(Spoiler alert: It did prove useful!)

As the project progressed, Hogan and ICAP’s collaboration, patience, and understanding impressed Thenamaris. Encouraged to ask questions, they found that Hogan and ICAP were available to help them whenever needed.

“Both Hogan and ICAP teams kept an open mind to collect as much information as possible to understand the peculiarities of the shipping industry, the challenges of the seafarers’ profession, and the differences between managing people onboard and ashore,” they reported.

This new experience for Thenamaris looked like “one more day at work” for ICAP and Hogan—in a good way. Hogan and ICAP’s expertise, experience, and project management capabilities gave Thenamaris extra confidence in the endeavor. Thenamaris’s team also appreciated the robust project planning, effective time management, and the high focus on quality.

“Working with partners with solid scientific and professional backgrounds made our lives easier all the way,” they said.

Early on, the Thenamaris team knew they could trust Hogan and ICAP and gain buy-in for the initiative from their leadership team. Most importantly, they were certain that the results of the project would be meaningful for the seafarers.

And they were.

On Using Personality Assessments for Talent Development

From the Ulysses Project, Thenamaris learned how personality assessments could strengthen talent development initiatives. Following are some of the most notable insights they gained.

Deeper Development Discussions

The Hogan assessments proved to be critical tools for going deeper in development discussions in a short amount of time. During a few of the feedback sessions, the personnel team gained insights into some seafarers’ personalities that previously were unrecognized—and it helped to explain past incidents aboard the ships. Now, Thenamaris has a new scientific lens for building high-performing leaders and teams.

Meaningful and Constructive Feedback

For many seafarers, the Ulysses Project was their first time receiving feedback more thorough than “bravo,” “good job,” or “well done.” Some employees even commented that it was a lifetime opportunity. Many others responded with gratitude for the experience and the opportunity to talk about their work with honesty.

Actionable and Applicable Feedback

The feedback provided was actionable, practical, and immediately usable. One second engineer testified, “I gained better insight and knowledge of how to manage my actions. I understood that it is more important what others think of me, rather than what I do. I was able to understand how to take advantage of the findings and try to apply them in my day-to-day life, even before joining my next vessel.”

Strengthened Trust and Engagement

The Thenamaris team realized that their genuine interest in the seafarers’ development and their willingness to listen had a positive impact on trust and employee engagement. Some seafarers approached them to ask for advice months and even years after their feedback sessions. Others reported that the feedback gave them epiphanies about their careers—for example, perfection isn’t necessary to pursue a promotion, but development is. For many seafarers, the experience offered a renewed perspective on their career trajectories.

Benefits for All

The seafaring leaders weren’t the only people who developed from the Ulysses Project. Those administering the assessments learned about themselves and their own areas for development during the process. In addition to what they gathered from their individual Hogan profiles, they also improved their skills in cross-cultural awareness, listening, showing empathy, and stepping outside of the comfort zone.

But that’s not even everything they learned! Want to know more about the Ulysses Project and its impact on Thenamaris’s talent and business?

“The unexamined life is not worth living” is a message attributed to Socrates and adopted by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Today, the theories of Freud are often considered dated at best and sexist at worst. Modern personality psychology, however, still gains a lot of value and influence from Freudian theory.

Recently on The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, and Blake Loepp, PR manager, spoke with Robert Hogan, PhD, founder and president of Hogan Assessments, about why Freud matters.

Let’s dive into seven relevant scientific ideas from Freud.

Does Freudian Psychoanalysis Work?

People want more out of life than just financial rewards. They want to know what life is about—how to achieve wisdom and happiness. This is why some may pursue psychotherapy, such as Freudian psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is expensive and time-consuming, Dr. Hogan pointed out. It typically appeals to wealthy, smart people who have time on their hands and want to understand themselves better.

Cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the most common types of modern psychotherapy, has the focused goal of treating mental health conditions, such as anxiety and depression. In contrast, the goal of long-term psychoanalysis is to create a deep, profound personal understanding beyond simple introspection. “It’s about a total psychic overhaul,” Dr. Hogan said. As to whether psychoanalysis “works” . . .

It can be life-changing in that it provides thorough, intimate self-knowledge. Self-awareness doesn’t necessarily lead to ultimate happiness. Freud himself was clear that the goal of psychoanalysis is not to make you happy. The goal is to persuade you to exchange your “neurotic unhappiness” for the “common misery” of humanity. By this, Freud meant directly facing reality with no illusions. This degree of intellectual and emotional honesty borders on philosophical existentialism, which can seem bleak. Yet, contrary to the belief that it is unscientific, psychodynamic psychotherapy is indeed an effective therapeutic approach.¹

Seven Important Concepts in Freudian Theory

“People are the most dangerous and deadly invasive species in the history of the earth,” Dr. Hogan said to explain why studying human personality is so significant. “Wouldn’t it make some sense to know something about people? The one discipline that has the nature of human nature as its explicit subject matter is personality psychology,” he added.

Yes, we know some parts of Freudian theory to be nonsensical today. But Freud created a systematic model for understanding people. Modern personality psychology is built on his framework, which makes it a good place to start. “There are about seven points about psychoanalysis that are absolutely true and that provide the scaffolding for a proper understanding of the nature of human nature,” Dr. Hogan said. He emphasized that the points do not have a priority order but are each fundamental.²

Psychic Determinism

Psychic determinism is the assumption that there are no accidents in our mental lives. All psychic phenomena have a cause. Our dreams, memories, impulses, speech, and behavior—everything has a meaning and can be interpreted. “I love that as a discipline for understanding people,” Dr. Hogan said.

Evolutionary Psychology

Personality is rooted in biology and human evolution. Evolutionary psychology stands on the assumptions that the study of human origins is essential for understanding human psychology and the fundamental human impulses have evolutionary implications. Freud claimed that the core human motives were sex and aggression. His notion of “sex” can be interpreted as social acceptance (getting along with others) and “aggression” as social competition (getting ahead of others). “Everything of significance in psychology is rooted in biology, and everything of significance in biology is rooted in evolution,” Dr. Hogan concurred.

Human Motivation

All human relationships are fundamentally ambivalent, according to Freud. In other words, there is no love without some hate, no good without some bad. Human motivation is likewise ambivalent. To get along with other people, we should avoid competing with them. However, success in life necessarily involves competition. That tension is unavoidable and leads to a struggle to accept others and ourselves.

Self-Deception

Freud argued that we are typically unaware of why we do what we do. As Freud knew, self-awareness is a prerequisite for successful relationships and careers. Many people lie to themselves about their identity, creating a gap between how they perceive themselves and how they are perceived by others. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s famous theory of behavioral economics describes how people deceive themselves in decision-making, a concept built on Freud’s foundational views about self-deception.

Authority

Attitudes toward authority are a fundamental component of personality. Freud wrote that human attitudes toward authority are established at about age five with the development of the superego, broadly defined as the conscience or morality. “Will you accept, internalize, believe, comply with authority, or will you reject, criticize, fight against, struggle against authority?” Dr. Hogan asked. Too much compliance can lead to suppression of creativity, while too much resistance makes a bad organizational citizen. Attitudes toward authority form early and are easy to measure, such as with the Socialization scale of the California Psychological Inventory or the Prudence scale of the Hogan Personality Inventory.

Primary and Secondary Process Thinking

Freud’s distinction between primary and secondary process thought is a precursor to Tversky and Kahneman’s distinction between fast and slow thinking. Primary process thinking is fast, impulsive, and directed toward immediate pleasure, which Freud called the pleasure principle. Secondary process thinking concerns setting aside immediate gratification for the sake of longer-term rewards, or delayed gratification. “The degree to which people adopt one or the other of these two forms of thinking has major implications for a person’s success in life,” Dr. Hogan said. It’s the difference in mindset, for example, between someone who drops out of high school to party and someone who works hard to earn an undergraduate degree to study a topic they really enjoy in graduate school.

Leadership

Freud was keenly interested in politics and the psychology of populist leaders and demagogues. To explain some of Freud’s social theory, Dr. Hogan said, “There’s the kind of person who will offer up outrageous, opportunistic claims, and there’s the kind of people who respond to it. Freud said you need them both to understand populist leadership.” The people who respond are looking for meaning in the message of the populist leader. “This connection between the needy bourgeois and the populist demagogues create these powerful movements,” he added, mentioning Charles Manson and Jim Jones.

Why Freud Matters

“Freud was a raging sexist,” Dr. Hogan said. While he may have been smart and sensitive, Freud was also a chauvinist. Many of his ideas are wrong, yet many others are also right. These seven points outline what a proper theory of personality should look like. They focus on the nature of human nature, which academic psychology has largely ignored or forgotten. “The most interesting part of modern of modern personality psychology is where personality intersects with clinical psychology,” he added.

Dr. Hogan reminded us that just as Plato and Aristotle are to philosophy, Freud and Jung are to psychology. Freud is part of the legacy of Western civilization that we would be wrong to forget. “With Freud, it’s a journey, not the completion of the trip, right? It’s worth doing,” he said.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 73 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

References

1. Shedler, J. (2010). The Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 65(2), 98–109. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018378
2. Hogan, R., & Smither, R. (2008). Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalytic Theory. In Personality: Theories and Applications. Hogan Press: 45-76.

In China, the Year of the Rabbit represents hope and peace.¹ These are much welcomed. After a turbulent year of COVID-19 surges and pandemic-related social restrictions, well-being in China is a concern for many organizations and their employees. Understanding individual differences, especially resilience, will be key. Can we expect the Year of the Rabbit to shed optimism for organizations and their employees?

How Has the Pandemic Affected Well-Being?

Research on the effects of the pandemic around the world has described its detrimental impact on well-being.² For employees, restrictions and lockdowns were significant contributors to poor well-being.³ Moreover, unequal economic effects have contributed to the pressures placed on workers and organizations.⁴ Each country has had a unique context in its response to and recovery from the pandemic.

In China, life during 2022 was distinctive. Major infection surges persisted, along with pandemic-related social restrictions. These conditions created unprecedented challenges for organizations, leaders, and employees to overcome. When the social restrictions were dropped in the fight against the virus, people wondered how the future would look.

Research investigating the effects of the pandemic in China found that there had been a detrimental effect to people’s well-being through 2022. By Q4, 27.4% of study participants had “low well-being” in comparison with moderate- and high-scoring peer groups. This was a high percentage in comparison with similar global studies of well-being.⁵ Women and younger people were impacted most adversely, along with expats. Yet by the end of 2022, scores had become low among locals too.

Low levels of well-being within organizations negatively affect productivity, increase employee turnover and absenteeism, and raise healthcare costs for employers. In the US, this can amount to as much as nearly $200 billion per year.⁶ Research has linked stronger employee well-being to other important pillars of organizational success, such as engagement, productivity, and overall company performance.⁷ Consequently, a focal point for business leaders and organizations in China is to restore employee well-being.

How Can We Restore Well-Being?

At Hogan, our stance is that employee well-being is the responsibility of both the employer and employee. Restoring employee well-being in China will require effort from both.

Research on the pandemic in China found that employee perception of organizational support could significantly predict positive changes in employee well-being levels (22%) and organizational commitment (68%) during the pandemic.⁸ This links well with research around the globe that found an increased demand for companies to support employee well-being.⁹

Of course, well-being is also the responsibility of the employee. Employees have individual needs, and their responses to the pandemic will have varied. But employers can take some strategies to help them become more self-aware of their individual differences.

Understand Values

A starting point might be using personality assessments to understand exactly which strategies are likely to work well given employee and team values. For example, Hogan uses the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory to identify what motivates an individual at work. Someone who scores high on the Affiliation scale is likely to appreciate opportunities to work alongside others. Leaders who prioritize individual and team values can ensure employees feel supported, potentially increasing their well-being and organizational commitment.

Understand Resilience

Resilience is an individual difference that varies within humans. It is defined as “the developable capacity to rebound or bounce back from adversity, conflict.”¹⁰

Research from the pandemic in China indicated that resilience was a strong predictor of levels of well-being, explaining 50% of the covariance.⁸ Resilience could therefore be a key component of well-being recovery for employees. Determining people’s levels of resilience is likely to help employers understand their individual needs for support.

How Can We Measure Resilience?

One of the best ways to measure resilience is by using a personality assessment. The Hogan Personality Inventory measures resilience with its Adjustment scale. High scorers on Adjustment are generally perceived as confident and resilient. Conversely, low scorers are perceived as being prone to stress and may seem to take longer to recover from the pandemic’s effects.

Personality assessments can help people become more self-aware about how they are likely to be perceived when under stress. Likewise, they can offer insight into how others may try to support them. For example, those who score high on Adjustment may appear to deal with stress well, yet internally feel as though they need more support.

Can We Increase Our Resilience?

You might question whether resilience can be increased. While personality tends to be consistent over time, it is possible to become more resilient. The answer lies in development.

Hogan’s Chief Science Officer Ryne Sherman, PhD, uses the analogy of weightlifting to answer this question: “Some people are naturally gifted with strong bodies and the right hormones that make weightlifting and building muscle mass relatively easy. Certainly, they still have to go to the gym to build those muscles, but for some it is easier or more difficult. That’s how I think about adjustment—resilience. Some people are naturally going to be more resilient than others. Regardless of your adjustment level, becoming more resilient takes work, like putting yourself in challenging situations and persisting.”

An example of this could be proactively seeking out new work projects that could present a new challenge or require perseverance. The type and level of challenge depend on an individual’s context, but with support from one’s colleagues and organization, this kind of development can be managed well.

What Does 2023 Hold for China?

Organizational support can help improve employee well-being in China. To ensure support is individualized, organizations should seek to understanding how people differ in their resilience. A high-quality personality assessment such as Hogan’s HPI can help with this. In summary, support and resilience are key to “bouncing back” in 2023.

This blog post was written by Nathan Cornwell, MS, senior consultant.

References

1. Suliman, A. (2023). Lunar New Year: What to expect as we hop into the Year of the Rabbit. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2023/01/21/chinese-new-year-lunar-rabbit-cat/
2. OECD. (2021, November 25). COVID-19 and Well-Being: Life in the Pandemic. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/1e1ecb53-en
3. CIPD. (2021). Coronavirus (COVID-19): Mental health support for employees. https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/culture/well-being/supporting-mental-health-workplace-return#gref
4. Cotofan, M., De Neve, J. E., Golin, M., Kaats, M., & Ward, G. (2021). Work and Well-Being During COVID-19: Impact, Inequalities, Resilience, and the Future of Work. World Happiness Report. https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2021/work-and-well-being-during-covid-19-impact-inequalities-resilience-and-the-future-of-work/
5. Ammar A., Mueller P., Trabelsi K., Chtourou H., Boukhris O., Masmoudi L., et al. (2020, November 5). Psychological Consequences of COVID-19 Home Confinement: The ECLB-COVID19 Multicenter Study. PLoS ONE, 15(11), e0240204. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240204
6. Pfeffer, J. (2018). The Overlooked Essentials of Employee Well-Being. McKinsey. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-overlooked-essentials-of-employee-well-being
7. Gallup. (2023) Employee Well-being is Key for Workplace Productivity. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/215924/well-being.aspx
8. Cornwell, N., & Rochon, P. (2023). Evolution of Well-Being During the Pandemic in China. Engineering Well-Being. https://engineeringsleep.com/well-being-and-lockdown-q4-2022/
9. Adecco Group (2022). The Future of Work Beyond the Pandemic: Takeaways from Global Workforce of the Future. https://www.adeccogroup.com/future-of-work/latest-insights/the-future-of-work-beyond-the-pandemic/
10. Luthans, F. (2002). The Need for and Meaning of Positive Organizational Behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23, 695–706. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.165

Artificial intelligence systems, especially large language models such as GPTs, respond to text-based inputs with novel, humanlike text outputs. You can ask for an essay about the fall of Rome or a love poem to your romantic partner, and the system will readily generate it. Such systems can even take medical test information as inputs and generate logically coherent (and possibly correct) diagnoses. Nonetheless, experts do not recommend using these models for medical advice—at least not yet.

To understand why, it is important to understand how AI systems work. GPTs do not have “understanding” of medical science or poetry or the Roman empire in the sense that humans can understand these topics. Instead, these systems have learned associations between words and pieces of text.ⁱ When GPTs see a piece of text that says, “Write me an essay on the fall of Rome,” they see the words “write,” “essay,” and “fall of Rome.” They interpret that input as a request to generate a logically coherent (and possibly factually accurate) series of words and phrases connected to the text “fall of Rome” in essay format. The system learned these associations through a long series of trial-and-error efforts using massive computing power on vast amounts of text (i.e., the internet).

Because AI systems can take virtually any input and produce some logically coherent and possibly accurate output, it should come as no surprise that they can also take scores from Hogan assessments as inputs and generate text-based outputs. Given Hogan Personality Inventory scores as inputs, ChatGPT will provide interpretive text for those scores. For example, I asked ChatGPT to provide an interpretation of a score of 5 on the HPI’s Ambition scale, and it said:

“Your score in the Ambition scale is low, which suggests that you may not be particularly driven to achieve power, status, or wealth. You may be content with your current position and not feel the need to constantly pursue advancement or recognition. This can be a positive trait as it may allow you to focus on more important things in life.”

This is a logically coherent and reasonable interpretation. However, the interpretation does not say much about potential for leadership, the degree to which the scorer has a sense of direction in life, or the degree to which the scorer is comfortable in front of a large audience—all of which are captured by Hogan’s Ambition scale. Although the interpretation may seem accurate and valid, it may not be driven by any connection to Hogan at all, but simply by how the word “ambition” is used broadly in language.

Keep in mind that Hogan interpretative reports and guidance are based on empirical relationships between our assessments and outcomes. Scores on our assessments mean what they predict, and our reports reflect those relationships. This not to say that GPT-based interpretations of Hogan scores will not be valid or accurate now or in the future. In fact, training GPT models to reflect Hogan nomenclature is possible, and we are working on such tools currently.

But we must caution against using general artificial intelligence systems to generate interpretations of Hogan reports. Our own testing indicates that, at least on some occasions, the AI systems generate interpretations that are grossly incorrect and completely erroneous. While we may change our stance on this in the future as AI systems improve and more test results come in, for the time being we strongly recommend that any Hogan report interpretations come directly from Hogan or a Hogan-certified practitioner.

This blog post was written by Hogan Chief Science Officer Ryne Sherman, PhD.

Note

i. Some might argue that human understanding of these things is also simply association between words and text; we are not so sure we are ready to make that equivalency yet.

Before we start catastrophizing about our future AI rulers, we should stop and appreciate the potential good that artificial intelligence can offer. The impact of AI on personality assessment and workplace communication will likely be positive—and extensive.

Recently on The Science of Personality Live, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, and Blake Loepp, PR manager, spoke with Michal Kosinski, PhD, associate professor in organizational behavior at Stanford University, about the evolving technology of artificial intelligence.

Michal’s primary research focus is studying humans in a digital environment using cutting-edge computational methods, artificial intelligence, and big data. He was also behind the first press article warning against Cambridge Analytica, the privacy risks they exploited, and the efficiency of the methods they use.

Let’s look at how AI language models have evolved, what AI-assisted communication might become, how AI affects the future of personality assessment, and whether AI language models can be creative.

The Evolution of AI Language Models

Within the next few months (as of March 2023), AI language models will become exponentially more capable and ingenious. How does that explosive growth happen?

The approach to the development of AI language models started with chess. At first, software engineers and data scientists fed AI chess programs with archives of chess games played by humans. Then they equipped two AI programs with a virtual chessboard and instructions for how to play without any human intervention. “For the first few million games, those models were completely stupid,” Michal said, explaining that the rate of play was millions of games per second. “But soon, after a few hours, what emerged was this alien, superhuman software that could play chess at a level completely unachievable to human players.”

Software developers and artificial intelligence specialists used the same adaptive strategy to teach AI models how to craft language. Humans learn language through conversation, context, and correction. They make mistakes, learn, and make mistakes more rarely over time. “At some point they stop making mistakes and reach new levels of language. The same approach was used to train ChatGPT and similar models,” Michal said. The AI programs were given sentences with one word missing, failed millions of times to fill in the blank correctly, and then began to get it right. After a few million dollars of electricity and a few billion sentences, Michal quipped, the programs showed language mastery at an extraordinary level.

The AI revolution originated by teaching machines to solve problems using the same strategies that we use to teach humans: reinforcement and feedback. At first, the machines make obvious logical mistakes, but then they don’t. “The AI is responding to you as if as if it’s another person, which is the most incredible thing,” added Ryne. Because computers can exceed humans in logical ability, they are well suited to both playing chess and using language.

AI-Assisted Communication

“AI is a revolution comparable with the invention of written language,” Michal said. Manual writing gave humans the ability to communicate across time, sometimes thousands of years in the past. Knowing how to use a stylus, quill, or pencil was an essential method for communication before computers. Now, knowing how to use a keyboard is essential. Very shortly, the same fundamental change will happen with AI language models, Michal predicted.

“I think that GPT is potentially a new language for humanity to communicate at speed and convenience unheard of and impossible before,” Michal said.

An AI language model won’t just help humans write emails. It will craft the perfect message in the language that is most readily understood for the recipient. Here’s how.

Imagine that Michal wants to send Ryne an email. An AI language model knows and remembers all the events of each person’s life and has consumed every piece of digital communication each has produced. If Michal asked the AI to send a message to Ryne, he could make the request in very few words as if speaking to a good friend with intimate knowledge of him. But because the AI knew Ryne at that same level, it could “translate” Michal’s message into the perfect form for Ryne. The AI could use not only Ryne’s preferred language, such as English or Mandarin, but also a highly personalized form of that language unique to Ryne.

“In terms of the potential for translation, it knows the meaning of what you’re trying to say. It can translate that into a meaning that somebody else can understand in the way they understand,” Ryne said.

Another sense of AI-assisted communication is searching the internet. You wouldn’t ask the AI language model to find a website for you; you’d ask it the question you wanted to learn. It would search all websites and tailor its answer to any length or depth for your individual understanding of the world.

AI in Personality Assessment

Artificial intelligence is great at knowing and remembering what has been written, both words and data. For an AI language model to predict personality based on language, you’d need to first collect a lot of quality data. Michal pointed out that AI language models already understand language, of course, and can translate words into analyzable numbers. “They already understand psychological concepts like personality,” he said. These models have read texts written by introverts and extroverts and could theoretically detect, based on a fragment of a text, whether a person is introverted or extroverted.

Ryne imagined whether personality assessments of the future would have questionnaires and self-reporting. “One of the big questions surrounding this topic is to what degree I’m a willing participant in this endeavor,” he said. The quality of publicly available information versus data gained from individuals intentionally taking a personality assessment will differ substantially. The AI-assisted analysis would likely be higher quality in the latter case. Voluntary participation would also address questions of ethics.

Using big data models to predict personality characteristics is not a new notion. It has positives: it can analyze millions of people in a minute, and it can match people with compatible work or suggest workplace training and development. It also has negatives: it can be used to invade privacy or manipulate people. “As with many other technologies, we focus on the risks of the technology itself, completely forgetting that the real risk is in the intentions of the users,” Michal responded.

Artificial Intelligence and Creativity

A new fronter in AI language models is innovation and creativity. Humanity has taken generations to refine speech and writing. Individual humans spend over a decade learning to speak and write. AI language models have mastered written communication in a few years at a high level that continues to increase.

Michal compared AI creativity to human creativity in that most of us learn and combine elements of what we know or have experienced in new, creative ways. Perceiving computers as nothing but glorified calculators is short-sighted thinking, he said. That computers can incorporate and build elements into new results makes them fundamentally creative too.

“Many other animals are also creative in their own ways that we do not always recognize because it’s just not our type of art. The same applies to computers,” Michal said. “They learn from us, they learn from each other, and they become extremely creative with what they are good at—and they’re increasingly good at anything we ask them to do.”

Note: When ChatGPT (March 23 version) was asked to provide a quote in fewer than 120 characters about how it learned language, this was its response: “Words woven, sounds spoken, meanings grasped. A symphony of curiosity, immersion, and connection. Language learned, world unlocked.”

Listen to this conversation in full, and find the whole library of episodes at The Science of Personality. Never miss a new episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!