AI can interpret personality traits for the workplace: Study confirms

A research study by Jinyan Fan, a professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Auburn University, was conducted to assess if artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots can be used to accurately measure personality. The research served the purpose of identifying factors such as student-program compatibility and strategies for retaining students in education. However, the findings also hold potential benefits for other domains such as healthcare and recruitment.

STOCKHOLM, August 30, 2023 - Traditionally, personality assessments have relied on standardized tests, but this study “How Well Can an AI Chatbot Infer Personality? Examining Psychometric Properties of Machine-inferred Personality Scores”, challenges this convention. Using AI to assess personality represents a new frontier in technological advancements and by pushing the boundaries of what AI can do, researchers are opening up possibilities for a variety of fields that rely on personality assessment. The study marks a significant milestone, providing the most comprehensive validation of AI-inferred personality scores to date.

About the study

In the study, researchers had an AI chatbot engage with 1,440 undergraduate students in one-on-one, two-way conversations and then generated each person’s personality scores from the conversation in real-time.

Researchers did another smaller study to see if the computer program's results were consistent over time. The results showed that the computer program could predict personality traits pretty well, but it wasn't always 100% accurate. It was better at figuring out certain traits than others. We also found that the computer program's results were similar to what people said about themselves on questionnaires. Overall, the study tells us that computer programs can be helpful in understanding people's personalities, but there's still more research to be done.

Traditional assessments have some downsides. For instance, they’re easy to fake. If you’re applying for jobs and your potential employer asks you to complete a personality test as part of the application process, because your motivation to get the job offer is very high, you, of course, try to put your best foot forward. If you do, that damages the validity of traditional assessment. The AI approach is more difficult to deceive because it’s less transparent than the traditional approach. You don’t know which features are important, so it’s very difficult for people to cheat the system.

In the AI approach, you go through a virtual interview. So, we have some confidence that it's more difficult to fake than traditional assessments. It’s a two-way communication back and forth, the chatbot asks you a few questions and may even make small talk and show certain levels of active listening. It feels more like talking to somebody naturally through two-way communication, so it’s a better overall candidate experience.

“The use of no-code AI chatbots to derive personality from conversations presents a new, effective, and more natural and empathetic form of psychometric assessment. It can help scale out human-driven interviews and personality insights discovery.” - Dr. Jinyan Fan, Lead researcher and a professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Auburn University

The most exciting aspect of this research for Tengai

The ability of AI chatbots to assess the personality of individuals has significant implications for the recruitment industry. AI chatbots with personality assessment capabilities can help streamline the initial screening process by evaluating candidates' personality traits. This can help recruiters identify potential matches based on the desired personality traits for a particular role or company culture. It saves time and effort by automatically filtering out candidates who may not be the right fit.

AI can also provide a more objective and consistent evaluation of candidates' personalities, reducing potential biases that human recruiters might have. By using predefined personality models or data-driven algorithms, chatbots can assess candidates based on specific traits relevant to the job requirements, without being influenced by factors like gender, race, or personal biases. Tengai has already been validated by psychometric experts to assess personality traits correlated to work performance and contribute to a more objective screening process, all according to a research study conducted by Dr. Anders Sjöberg and Dr. Sofia Sjöberg of Psychometrics Sweden AB.

Since AI chatbots can handle a large volume of candidates simultaneously, they can reduce the time and resources required for manual screening. They can quickly process and analyze responses to personality-related questions, allowing recruiters to focus on other essential tasks. This scalability ensures a more efficient recruitment process, especially in high-volume hiring scenarios.

“I think you will see more and more research focusing on this machine learning-based approach to personality assessment. My prediction is that over time, AI-based personality assessments will dominate the traditional assessment, particularly if we can further establish the psychometric property of the machine scores.” - Elin Öberg Mårtenzon, CEO at Tengai.

This information can assist recruiters in making data-driven decisions and refining the recruitment process over time.

About Tengai

Tengai is transforming the way organizations discover, engage, and hire top talent. Tengai seeks to enhance the candidate's experience by streamlining the screening process and sending personalized feedback to every applicant. Tengai is the industry’s leading end-to-end hiring platform that has been connecting companies and candidates for 20+ years and is proudly part of the Nordic Ethical AI landscape.

Contact Information

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