Human Skills and the Big Five Personality Framework
The OECD is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This is an international endeavor whose aim is "to build better policies for better lives", in which many nations around the world take part. During one of the university courses I attended this past academic year, I learned about the effort of the OECD to define, spread, improve the ability of individuals to navigate the digital age, i.e. the age we are currently living in. In fact, the OECD is only one of the organizations treating the topic of fundamental skills in today's day and age. The reason for which this article looks at the OECD efforts in raising soft skills awareness has to do with a specific topic: the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and soft skills. This specific sub-topic is very enticing to me, because what can inherent personality traits have to do with malleable attitudinal abilities? The Big Five personality framework is one of the most reliable personality tests available out there. I wrote about it in detail in this article, which you may find useful for understanding more clearly the topic. Soft skills, on the other hand, are skills related to human behavior and attitudes (e.g. entrepreneurial attitude, ability to learn, stress resistance). By definition, as a consequence, skills are malleable, as opposed to personality traits, which are considered fixed characteristics we inherently possess. Soft skills are often compared to cognitive, or "hard" skills, which are those capabilities that have to do with practical matters (e.g. being proficient at using Excel, being able to read properly and understand manuscripts, computing basic calculus).
As a consequence, this article delves into the relationship between personality traits and soft skills in the work environment, where the OECD is most focused. The job market is the main place where soft skills are taken into account very prominently, or so it appears. Countless job posts contain soft skills among their requirements, besides threshold cognitive abilities. Over the past couple of years especially, the topic of soft skills has widened its scope and weight in society at large. There appears to be a nostalgic willingness to counteract the paradigm-shifting advancements in technologies with authentic human savoir-faire. Human skills are becoming increasingly more a fundamental part of our existence and the stories we tell ourselves. The OECD has been contributing to the clear definition and spread of human skills. According to the OECD, skills are individual characteristics defined by 3 key factors:
Productivity: drive individual and socio economic progress
Measurability: are measurable, i.e. can be evaluated meaningfully
Malleability: they are malleable through environmental changes and investment
The OECD categorizes skills according to their function.
Cognitive skills → i.e. hard skills. These are involved in the process of acquiring and applying knowledge. They are articulated in 3 sub dimensions:
Basic cognitive abilities → fundamental skills such as speed of processing and memory (mostly innate abilities that can be developed through personal investment)
Knowledge acquired → the ability to assess, extract, interpret remembered knowledge
Knowledge extrapolation → this involves complex processes needed to reflect on the information and conceptualize novel ways of dealing with problems
Social and emotional skills → i.e. soft skills. These too are articulated in 3 dimensions:
Achieving goals → this refers to perseverance, self control, resilience
Working with others → the propensity to be sociable, respectful, empathetic
Managing emotions → self esteem, optimism, confidence
The differences and relations between socio-emotional (soft) and cognitive skills
Socio-emotional (soft) and cognitive abilities are strictly related despite their significant difference in definition, according to the OECD. The development of cognitive skills fosters our brain's plasticity to learn human skills. The relation between the two categories of skill is bidirectional. There is some degree of momentum generated when you acquire a new skill, whatever its nature. The momentum lies in the strengthened capacity to transfer your neuroplasticity to another upskilling scenario. Cognitive and human skills mutually influence each other. An increase in cognitive skills, for instance, is often followed by an uptick in particular emotional skills. Take the example of creativity, which is a socio-emotional skill with a strong cognitive component. Creativity involves producing content that is novel and original, and appropriate and useful at the same time. So, it is a tangled mixture of varying soft and hard skills dancing with each other, which, therefore, will be bolstered through the disciplined practice of creative endeavors.
In addition to the carryover effect that the two categories of skills have on each other, there is also a fundamental component of past skills when it comes to acquiring new capabilities. Owing to the infinite-game nature of learning skills during our lifetime, past skills are pivotal for developing new skills at any given moment ("skills beget skills"). There is a strong direct correlation between the level of skills that an individual already has and the level of skills they can achieve through training and experiences. There is cross-functional and intra-functional productivity. Intra-functional productivity refers to the ability of pre-existing skills (e.g. cognitive skills) to facilitate the undertaking of new abilities in the same domain ("cognitive skills beget cognitive skills"). Extra functional productivity is the ability of pre-existing cognitive skills to facilitate the undertaking of new human skills (and vice versa). This concept also has to do with possessing a growth mindset, which can truly make a difference in our resilience and ability to learn. A growth mindset refers to the inherent belief one can have about his/her own ability to deal effectively with new information. It is, to a large extent, an ingrained belief that unlocks our innate ability to grow as individuals and societal members.
How to measure socioemotional skills: the Big Five Framework
Attempting to concretely measure socio-emotional skills is not an easy endeavor. For starters, it is very complicated to even define specific soft skills. Their application in everyday life is rather blurry, and their boundaries far from clear. Take the socio-emotional skill persistence, for example. This is one of the human skills presented by the OECD in their framework. Is persistence always a virtuous pursuit? How much persistence is too much? How can one understand that? These questions may be in and of themselves part of the definition of persistence as a skill, one could argue. Truly knowing the boundaries of persistence is just as important as possessing the skill of persisting through toughness and life curveballs. This is because, well, if you can't figure out when it is actually time to quit instead of relentlessly beating your head against a wall, then what can you do with persistence as a skill?
The framework the OECD indicates as the most appropriate to measure socio-emotional skills is the Big Five personality model. This is, by nature, a psychological framework of personality testing, adapted and fit into the social nature of soft skills. The Big Five model frames individual personality into 5 traits (each one including two more specific dimensions): agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, extraversion. You can read a more detailed representation of the Big Five here, since the point of this piece is not to explain what the Big Five model is per sé, but rather to illustrate its application to the measurement of socio-emotional skills, as put forward by the OECD (2015). In particular, each personality trait (Big Five) is associated with one or more skills. There are 15 skills in total linked with the 5 personality traits. The macro-association between personality traits and soft skills are:
openness to experience → open-mindedness
conscientiousness → task performance (one's awareness of the impact of our own actions on the wider society)
emotional stability (the opposite of 'neuroticism') → emotional regulation (the ability to keep cool in stressful situations)
extraversion → engaging with others
agreeableness → collaboration
Each soft skills category (the terms on the right-hand side above) includes a cluster of mutually related social and emotional skills. Some skills are the result of a combination of two or more dimensions (compound skills). For example, self-efficacy stems from a combination of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and extraversion. Below you can find a visual representation of what the relationship between psychological traits and soft skills dimensions looks like (OECD, 2015).
The characteristics of each 'Big Five' domain and the socioemotional skills stemming from each dimension
As you can see from the picture above, each soft skill dimension "generates" sub-categories or more specific socio-emotional skills that can help navigate life better, and which are more likely to be present in individuals with particular personality traits. Let's now dive into each socio-emotional dimension and related skills, in order to get a more clear depiction of the OECD framework of skills development.
Task performance (conscientiousness): this dimension includes (1) achievement orientation, (2) responsibility, (3) self-control, (4) persistence. All these socio-emotional skills have a key characteristic in common: they stem from an individual predisposition to working hard in order to achieve objectives and milestones. They all require the ability to embrace delayed gratification and operate laboriously (conscientiousness).
Emotional regulation (emotional stability): (1) stress resistance, (2) optimism, (3) emotional control form the backbone of this socio-emotional skill dimension. If you are an individual scoring high in emotional regulation, you can go through life maintaining a calm attitude, free from impulsive reactivity and nervous decision making.
Collaboration (agreeableness): this OECD dimension is composed of (1) empathy, (2) trust, (3) cooperation. Highly collaborative people tend to score high on the trait "Agreeableness" (Big Five). They tend to be kind and empathetic, which can get to a negative extreme if excessively welcomed. This is because being too agreeable might lead to the people around you taking advantage of this condition of yours. The right amount of collaboration can go a long way. Figuring out the right amount is a process that often requires trial and error.
Open-mindedness (openness to experience): curiosity, tolerance, and creativity are the socio-emotional skills stemming from open-mindedness. These are soft skills that have to do with one's ability to venture into novel territory in life and work. Being open-minded can be a tremendous advantage if paired with a high level of conscientiousness (task performance).
Engagement with others (extraversion): the socio-emotional skills that are generated from this dimension are (1) sociability, (2) assertiveness, (3) energy. Individuals who score high in extraversion enjoy socializing and investing time in human relationships. They understand the importance of solid networks in their personal and professional endeavors, and act on this notion promptly, drawing energy from relationships.
Lastly, there are also some compound skills included in the OECD framework of soft skills (2015). These are skills that stem from the combination of two or more dimensions. More precisely, they are:
self-efficacy: the ability to reach goals rationally, by using the least resources possible while being effective. This is the result of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and extraversion.
critical thinking: "the ability to evaluate information and interpret it through independent and unconstrained analysis" (OECD, 2015).
self-reflection: the "awareness of inner processes and subjective experiences, and the ability to reflect on and articulate such experiences" (OECD, 2015).
This article delved into the OECD framework for soft skills development, and the strict relation between the Big Five personality framework and soft skills measurement. What is truly fundamental to absorb in this context is the deeply malleable nature of soft skills, which can be developed over our lifetime, if we navigate through life with an open mind, self-efficacy, and a growth mindset.
““Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.””
RESOURCES
OECD Framework for Social Emotional Progress — Harvard University
Skills for Social Progress: The Power of Social and Emotional Skills | OECD. (2021). Retrieved 3 May 2021, from https://www.oecd.org/education/skills-for-social-progress-9789264226159-en.htm
The Returns to Non-Cognitive Skills: A Meta-Analysis | Sofie Cabus, Joanna Napierala, Stephanie Carretero (2021). Retrieved 3 May 2021, from https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/jrc123308.pdf
Most of the knowledge shared here is the result of a university course on Soft Skills in Business
