Soft Skills I: Understanding personality PA017 SW Engineering II → Aspects of SW Development Management Jaroslav Ráček Josef Spurný Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University November 15, 2022 Personality & Neuronal Network human brain ≈ 100 billion neurons each neuron connected with others via approx. 1500 synapses → 15 ∗ 1022 neural connections 2% of body weight, but consumes 20 % of energy (standby), up to 35% under workload Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 2 / 23 Personality & Neuronal Network Neurons = hardware, mind = software Brain is a "wetware" – HW can change itself by running SW Neurons create connections and form structures by thinking, learning, experiencing emotions... Repeated patterns even transcript to DNA (DNA methylation) – evolution Connections that are weak and are not reinforced will perish – forgetting Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 3 / 23 Personality & Neuronal Network Individual neurons do not bear information Information is created by a aggregation of many neurons activated through synapses Simple subnetworks are connected to build up higher-level concepts, perceptions, associations based on information based on emotions that are experienced Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 4 / 23 Importance of emotions From evolutionary perspective, strength of external stimuli is defined by emotional value Stimuli that might be lethal are associated with negative emotions (phobias) Stimuli that increase survival chance are associated with positive emotions Emotionally weak stimuli will be forgotten easily Growing-up in emotionally poor environment may lead to inability to experience emotions (emotional centers in brain had atrophied) Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 5 / 23 Wetware property Brain does not distinguish between internal and external stimuli Thinking of stressful or anxious stimulus can cause physiological stress response Meditation or imaginative techniques may calm you down An image of authority may regulate your behavior even when that person is not around Experiencing is the only known way how to change neuronal network structure – that’s why psychotherapy works Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 6 / 23 Personality – Nature vs. Nurture Nature: We inherit personality traits from parents Talents Intelligence Resistance to stress Anxiety level Nurture: Personality traits are supported or suppressed by parenting Adequate responses to child needs Love, care, safety Developing talents Compensation or exaggeration of anxiety Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 7 / 23 Attachment theory Sensitive age of a child – 0-4 years How parents (typically mother) respond to child needs will affect child’s personality structure The structure cannot be reworked later in life, only modified through long-term relationships Attachment types: Secure Insecure – subtypes: Anxious–ambivalent Anxious-avoidant Fearful-avoidant (disorganized) Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 8 / 23 Personality structure – consequences Typical responses of a person to certain situations (stress, illness, unexpected change) or types of inputs (appraisal, critique...) will persist and can be predicted in teamwork in personal relationships in IT projects Emotional maturity is independent from intelligence Unexpected and illogical reactions are caused by emotions Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 9 / 23 Emotional maturity Emotional maturity is typically indicated by abilities to: adequately perceive and face reality perceive life events positively learn from experience (success & failure) withstand frustration constructively manage criticism or hostility Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 10 / 23 Facing reality – Protecting Ego We all have Ego – conscious self-perception of own strong & weak aspects, self-experience However, many wetware processes (or contents) are subconscious Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 11 / 23 Ego-defensive mechanisms Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 12 / 23 Ego-defensive mechanisms subconscious or mostly subconscious mental processes which motivate behavior are used to mitigate anxiety, mental harm or conflicts may help to adapt to stress, but they might also be pathological (not helping) have impact on perception, thinking or experiencing reality Awareness of ego-defensive mechanisms will allow you to understand illogical or nonsensical behavior. Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 13 / 23 Primitive ego-defensive mechanisms Denial: ignoring reality that is threatening or hard-to-accept Somatization: developing physical symptoms and paying attention to it (instead of conflict) Projection: denial of own unacceptable traits of behavior and attributing it to someone else Regression: avoiding conflict by child-like behavior (wrath, crying, refusing to communicate...) Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 14 / 23 Higher ego-defensive mechanisms Racionalization: developing rational arguments for unacceptable behavior Intellectualization: using abstract thinking to avoid complex or ambiguous feelings Supression: subconscious decision to ignore some parts of reality. Unlike denial, it does not include active ignorance of obvious facts Identification: accepting originally conflicting content, later this is perceived as own Introjection: accepting conflicting content, but this is not perceived as own Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 15 / 23 Mature ego-defensive mechanisms Humor: accenting funny aspects of conflicting situations to mitigate unpleasant feelings Inhibition: conscious decision to not think about something conflicting Asceticism: avoiding pleasant experience to avoid related internal conflict Sublimation: transforming unacceptable internal motives to behavior that is socially acceptable Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 16 / 23 Selected types of personality structure Why is it important to know personality types? To know how to recognize different types (in a team) To be aware of what behavior to expect from them To be aware of what behavior cannot be expected from them To understand how they can benefit or harm a project Disclaimer: The below presented personality structures represent certain categories. In reality, perceiving them as scale is useful, since people typically show behavior from multiple scales at various levels of development within these scales Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 17 / 23 Schizoid structure emotionally distant, limited ability to experience warm emotions or anger towards other people prefers solitary activities, does not enjoy social contact prefers "inner empire" – own reasoning, fantasies, introspection low interest in other people, insensitive towards social expectations or conventions prefers principles over relationships Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 18 / 23 Histrionic structure self-centered, seeks attention and appreciation of others demonstrates emotions that are in fact shallow (not genuine) can be easily influenced by others does not have consistent opinions, will agree with contradictory statements when talking to different people may be unreliable, not keeping-up to own word pays attention to physical appearance, may be seductive may lie, confabulate or manipulate to make impression Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 19 / 23 Impulsive structure emotionally unstable cannot control emotional reactions small input may result in explosive reaction may be aggressive, enjoy confrontations and trigger conflicts after they cool down, they act like nothing happened Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 20 / 23 Narcissistic structure grandeous self presents own qualities and achievements, expects appreciation is satisfied only when delivers superior performance after achieving some goal, they may loose attention Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 21 / 23 Paranoid structure perceives neutral comments as harmful, nit-picky, petty feel underpreciated, hardly admits own wrongdoing does not forget injustice and tends to build-up long-term spite tends to trigger conflicts Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 22 / 23 Personality Resumé Personality is a long-term pattern that can be modified partially, but not changed Knowing project participant can help predict their reactions to stress or certain situations Some people are not suitable for certain roles You cannot change people, but you can learn how to get along with them better People will like you if they will feel better in your presence Jaroslav Ráček, Josef Spurný ·Soft Skills I: Understanding personality ·November 15, 2022 23 / 23