Tag: work

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Psychology by Machine? Not for a While.

Psychology button on computer where "Enter" key should be

Technology can fly planes, drive cars; heck, virtually perform remote surgery (pun, not intended). Some believe that literally all jobs, even those that involve deeply personal competencies pertaining to psychology, will eventually be performed by technology. For them, if a “machine” isn’t already doing it, just wait. (Note: This is an extreme view).

Technology is changing the world faster than ever. If you agree with Moore’s law, it will only continue to increase its impact even faster over time.

Will technology take my job?

Probably so, and I don’t deny that likelihood for some aspects of psychology as well. But don’t quit yet! If you’ve been around a few years, like I have, it’s likely that technology has already “taken” all or much of the job you had 10 years ago. You’ve simply changed to stay in front of the technological evolution.

What does science say?

A recent study looked at the rise of technology in relation to the probability of it overtaking more than 700 jobs catalogued in O*Net, a public database of jobs and the various knowledge, skills and abilities required for their performance. The researchers (Frye and Osborne, 2013) reasoned that the probability of technology overtaking a given job is closely related to the time it will take for this to occur. As such, they created a list rank ordering the probability that these 700 jobs will be overtaken by technology in 20 years.

The study is now a few years old, but seems to have already made some accurate predictions. For example, you’ve probably received a “robocall”, a task once was performed by a person.

The crux of the study is in the researchers’ identification of three key job characteristics they refer to as “bottlenecks to computerization.” The degree to which a job encompasses one or more of these “bottlenecks” predicts the probability (and time) required for technology to be able to perform that job. These three bottlenecks include: 1) Fine Perception and Manipulation, 2) Creative Intelligence and 3) Social Intelligence.

Two of these three “bottlenecks” clearly relate to psychology: creative intelligence and social intelligence. But there’s more…

These three bottlenecks were further broken down into seven more discreet tasks. Of these seven tasks, social intelligence encompasses a majority of four – and psychology is integral to social intelligence.

The practical implication is that if your job requires you to “read” people or influence them, particularly in emotional ways, you’re likely safe from seeing a robot at your desk one morning anytime soon.

Specifically, the study predicts that social workers, therapists and teachers should have relatively long careers as far as “automation threat” is concerned. Psychologist, is also in the top 20 of the 700 jobs ranked according to the difficulty of automation.

Although this research is new, the issue isn’t. Psychological assessment has long been a topic of technological debate: Can a personality assessment alone more accurately predict behavior than an expert in psychological assessment?

Continue reading “Psychology by Machine? Not for a While.”

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Throw for the Catch

Receiver making a catch

It’s fourth and goal.

Time for one play to determine the winner of the game. You drop back to pass. One receiver’s wide open. You throw a “frozen rope” spiral — right on target. You hit the receiver so hard in the chest that there’s no way they don’t make the catch.

But they don’t. And you lose. (More than the game).

You race to the “would be” receiver, now crying and laying on the ground. “What’s wrong?!” you ask, amazed that the catch wasn’t made.

“You fwew it too hawd”, your 2-year old (nearly 3) whimpers.

How would this make you feel? Good play?

So, why? WHY, do we insist on presenting, solving, doing things our way when success so clearly depends on more than just you?

Continue reading “Throw for the Catch”

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How psychology affects you

Psychways | Psychology affects you (and all animals)

We are social animals living in a psychological world.

This simple reality has enormous consequences for everyone, everywhere. Here I explain two really big ways regarding how psychology affects you.

Implications of being Social:

Human beings are not only social, but the MOST social of all animals. As such, and just like all social animals, we need to relate to others for two purposes:

{There is a third reason, but I am committed to maintaining a PG-13 rating for these posts.}

Sometimes the implications (i.e., how psychology affects you) of these social needs are clear. For example, teams – whether in the workplace or on the sports field – understand that the team members need to get along with each other in order to get ahead of (or beat) the competition.

But it isn’t always this clear or simple. Inevitably, even within a team, there is competition among members to establish rank or get ahead.

A lot of what I do in the workplace is to work with individuals and teams so that they better manage the sometimes difficult choice regarding when to agree, and get along, versus when to take action to get ahead. One bad call here can really set you back.

Implications of a Psychological World:

The second reality of our being and how psychology affects you, and everyone else, is that we live in a psychological world. Everything we know is the product of our psychological processes (i.e. sensation, perception, reasoning, emotion). The real interesting fact (at least to me), is that our psychological processes aren’t perfect. We don’t know exactly what the “real world” is like.

This isn’t a complicated metaphysical issue. The fact that our senses are imperfect can readily be illustrated by the fact that two or more people do not experience the same ‘thing’ the same way. Regardless of right or wrong, there’s something going on via our psychological processes that results in these differences like the one so publicly debated regarding the “beige dress, blue dress” photo. See for yourself.

For better or worse, our human perception system is not perfectly reliable. What we see may not be what we get, but it definitely is what we make of it.

This is another frequent reason I am asked to help out in work environments. No, not to sort out whether a dress is blue or beige, but to deal with the fact that differences in perception, attitude and ultimately behavior can cause real problems. How often do we hear another public figure explaining, “that isn’t what I meant”? One thing is said or done and many different interpretations arise. On a lighter note, sometimes individuals become so engrossed in debate that they actually wind up disagreeing in style/tone, but agreeing in content/fact. This is where the term, “violent agreement” gets its meaning.

Two x Two equals Anything:

The fact that we are social animals, driven by needs to be with and/or dominate others, combined with the fact that our perception systems are unreliable, results in a very complex world at work – or anywhere.

Just these two factors could keep me busy till I “hang my hat.” The potential results that arise from different, sometimes opposing social motives combined with imperfect processing systems are innumerable. I’ve shared just a couple examples here to illustrate the pervasive and extraordinary power of psychology at work.

This, and other posts in my blog (esp. What is bias?, How about a little science with that intuition?), are dedicated to exploring the real and powerful impact of psychology at work, and also at play (non work). The intent is to help readers become more aware of the ever-present, psychology-based issues in all of our worlds and to offer advise on how to handle them.

Psychways is owned and produced by Talentlift, LLC.