=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-50/paper-5
|storemode=property
|title=The possible Impact of the Behavioral Characteristics of an Agent in ASCW Performance
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-50/ASCW_4.pdf
|volume=Vol-50
|authors=Tracy Litzinger,Susan Vallance,John A. Wise,USA
}}
==The possible Impact of the Behavioral Characteristics of an Agent in ASCW Performance==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-50/ASCW_4.pdf
The Possible Impact of the Behavioral Characteristics of
an Agent in ASCW Performance
Tracy Litzinger Susan Vallance John A. Wise, PhD., CPE
Embry-Riddle University Embry-Riddle University Embry-Riddle University
Human Factors & Systems Human Factors & Systems Human Factors & Systems
Daytona Beach, FL 32114 USA Daytona Beach, FL 32114 USA Daytona Beach, FL 32114 USA
(+1) (904) 471-5131 (+1) (281) 483-0079 (+1) (386) 226-6384
litz@aug.com SuVallance@aol.com Wise@db.erau.edu
ABSTRACT of data in the modern business and industrial environments. At
Logic has been empirically shown to only be a part of what is this time in our history, the wrong decisions are likely to be more
normally considered intelligence. Other dimensions of behavior costly to the organization, and indirectly to our society. With
have been demonstrated to impact an entity’s ability to ever-increasing numbers of complex problems requiring complex
“intelligently” deal with the world. Several management science solutions, the manager must turn to better problem-solving tools
and information science researchers have looked specifically at that integrate data from all sources and apply it to the decision
how the classic personality theory could be used to explain total problem [5].
system performance. Good managers recognize and assign
intelligent people to tasks based in no small part on other Given progress in AI, it will not be too difficult to program an
behavioral characteristics. This paper considers how such intelligent agent to perform specific tasks, face problems, or
characteristics could be applied to improve intelligent agents and “think” certain “thoughts” when placed in various Agent
how it would impact work performance. Supported Co-operative Work (ASCW) situations. Ferber [10]
defines an agent as a physical or virtual entity, which can act in an
environment, communicate directly with other agents, is driven by
a set of tendencies, and has resources of its own. An agent is also
Categories and Subject Descriptors capable of perceiving its’ own environment and behaves in a
H.5.3 [INFORMATION INTERFACES AND
manner, which leads to satisfying objectives, while accounting for
PRESENTATION]: Group and Organization Interfaces -
the resources and skills available to it and the way it perceives,
Computer-supported cooperative work, Organizational design,
represents, and communicates [10]. Some AI theorists believe that
Theory and models
intelligent agents will evolve through three stages: 1) personal
assistants (simple independent entities), 2) specialized agents
(capable of communicating with each other), and eventually 3)
General Terms autonomous agents that act on our behalf. If these “predictions
Performance, Design, Human Factors, Theory
apply to agent evolution in general, then you can expect to see a
growing community of agents that become more and more
Keywords interconnected while taking ever greater degrees of autonomy,”
artificial intelligence, intelligent agents, personality theory suggests Barker [2]. In a few years, agents may be collaborating
and cooperating across the web, delivering a wide variety of
services and products just like human workers currently do [13].
1. INTRODUCTION
When attempting to design an agent, who is as, or perhaps, more
As the pace of business and industry quickens, the complexity of
intelligent than humans, it is necessary to incorporate a vast array
the business world and the environment in which enterprises
of human characteristics and psychological aspects into the agent,
operate increases daily. The drive for higher sales, greater
and consider them at all levels of human understanding and
productivity, reliable products, larger market shares, etc. pushes
thought. It may be possible to assume that just as humans do, the
the manager, at all levels, to make more numerous decisions than
“thinking” that agents do is resultant of interactions between a
ever before. The manager is confronted with increasingly complex
number of cognitive components or cognitions, which may
problems and situations more often and decisions must be made in
generally be referred to as mental states. The term mental state
less time. The problems are even more confounded with today’s
may be questionably applied here because it leads to the
“information explosion,” the astronomical generation of volumes
assumption of a certain idea of sequential processing in cognitive
functioning for an agent [10]. Attempts must also be made to
thoroughly understand human thinking, including all of its
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for
structures and processes, and apply it to design, in order to make
personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are
not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that computers and agents more sensitive to human needs. Even thirty
copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy years ago, Churchman [8] made a compelling argument that one
otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, of the basic issues in the design of intelligent systems that perform
requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. historically human tasks is to determine what set of human
Conference ’00, Month 1-2, 2000, City, State. attributes should be incorporated into the intelligent system.
Copyright 2000 ACM 1-58113-000-0/00/0000…$5.00.
Along with actual design considerations, questions may be further decision-making process [18]. However, given various everyday
posed regarding the actual personality types of the agents. In other situations, one function tends to become more strongly developed
words, programming agents from a more psychological and differentiated, and provides direction and quality to the
perspective will bring into being perhaps “smart, virtual people”. consciousness [9].
Just as a good manager would select certain employees over The most widely used personality test, the Myers-Briggs Type
others to perform various cooperative tasks because of their Indicator® (MBTI®), is based on Jung’s ideas about perception
personality and/or general business approach, it seems equally and judgement. “Almost every human experience involves either
reasonable that one would want to use different intelligent agents perception or judgement and is played out in the world of action
to perform different tasks in ASCW. The American Management or of ideas,” suggests Briggs Myers and McCaulley [7]. If people
Association reports that personality testing remains the 2nd most differ systematically in what they perceive and in how they reach
widely used psychological measurement in the hiring process. conclusions, then obviously, they will differ in their reactions,
Beyond the hiring process, many companies are using personality interests, values, motivation, and skills. “Jung’s theory offers an
tests in improving internal communication, cooperation, and explanation for these differences which makes it easier to
teamwork among staff, identifying leadership, and helping recognize them and to use them in constructive ways” [7].
employees to “understand” themselves and their co-workers better
by knowing their personality types [19]. Mitroff [14];[18] has proposed that an information system
consists of (at a minimum) one person. That person, like every
In his book, The Design of Inquiring Systems, Churchman [8] person, has a certain psychological type. Mitroff has successfully
examined how computer-based inquiring systems would behave if applied the Jungian typology to demonstrate how differently these
they were designed based on one of the epistemologies of five personality types approach decision making and problem solving.
major western philosophers (i.e., Leibnitz, Locke, Kant, Hegel, or He has explored the impact of the differing personality functions
Singer). He demonstrated that different epistemologies generate and how their manipulation would impact total information
different types of answers to the same inquiry [8]. system performance. His research has also investigated new
possibilities for solutions to problems that contain basic
Litzinger and Wise [13] took Churchman’s concept and applied it differences in perception and judgement [14]; [18].
to the design of intelligent agents. They examined how
Machiavellian principals could influence the behavior of an
intelligent agent and how the Machiavellian agent would perform 3. JUNGIAN THEORY AND
compared to an agent developed using a stereotypical INTELLIGENT AGENTS
scientist/engineer model of behavior. For example, an agent that is Intelligent agents are performing a multitude of different tasks in
configured to be Machiavellian would thus manifest related the ASCW from bargaining and negotiation to communication to
characteristics (e.g. “ends justifies the means”, deception, cruelty, proposing solutions. Many of these tasks and interactions are
creative leadership, and strategic management) [13]. seemingly human-like, therefore, researchers are presently
attempting to assign intelligent agents with distinct personalities
and social roles (e.g., socially situated agents). Intelligent agents
2. CLASSIC PERSONALITY THEORY are appearing in the form of engaging interactive characters
Personality theories can offer a detailed and operational adding interest and friendliness to the online experience [4];[6].
description of personality development and how humans think So it seems reasonable that one would use Jungian personality and
and behave. The innovative ideas of Sigmund Freud and his cognitive theory to form the behavior of an intelligent agent. In
closest protégé and colleague, Carl G. Jung, had a deep impact, very general terms Jungian theory can allow traditional
not only on psychology, but also on twentieth century art, information system (or intelligent agent) behaviors to be
literature, philosophy, and potentially, the modern day e-world. addressed in terms of data acquisition issues and data processing
Jung’s theories were intended to provide insight into diverse issues.
personality types. He developed a unique paradigm for explaining
the personality and performance differences between people.
According to Jung, when we can systematically distinguish people
by their dominant personality function we are simply referring to 3. 1 Data Acquisition Issues
the way in which they most often behave. “The psychological Aleksander [1] defines perception, one of several vital thinking
type characterizes thus a general habitus, which naturally can characteristics, as encompassing all sensory inputs. Different
appear within the limits of the typical in all individual variations, effects of inputs may vary according to where they enter into
according to the social, mental, and ethical plane,” explains Jacobi specific regions of the mind’s state structure or possibly the
[11]. context in which an agent receives the information [1].
Specifically through perception, an agent is able to obtain
Jung divided personality along four salient functions, each one information about the world, which allows it to prepare its action
describing a way of processing and evaluating the “things one by pursuing its’ goals [10]. “The perceptive system constitutes a
encounters” in the world [9]. Jung believed that the basic door between the world and the agent, which gives it access to a
functions are constitutionally present in every individual and that certain ‘conception of the world’ in which its’ reasoning and its
they form the structure of consciousness. He believed that these actions are significant” [10]. An agent may also act as a result of
functions are automatically and unconsciously called into action motivations, which constitute the basic material for the foundation
when aroused by a stimulus or problematic situation. Each of tendencies.
function contributes a part of an individual’s make-up and their
Jung spoke of perception as a conscious form of “psychic energy” Thinking: Pure thinking types rely primarily on cognitive
and subdivided this activity into two basic and opposing processes for judgement, by first recognizing the meaning or
functions, “sensation” and “intuition.” He stated they are purpose and then forming a concept of it [3]. If an individual is a
“irrational” functions because they seem to work not with pure thinking type, information will be entirely symbolic, an
judgments, but with mere perceptions, without any real evaluation abstract system, model or string of symbols devoid of almost any
or interpretation [11]. Jung’s concept of perception and its empirical content. They are characterized by systematizing and
functions are what Mitroff has referred to as the data input evaluate by forming models and making rules. Thinking types can
dimension. Mitroff’s data input dimension is a continuous become so model bound, that they may be unable to understand a
function anchored by two antithetical ways of gathering data: situation unless they are able to create one [14].
“sensation” and “intuition.” Data input describes not only the
kinds of data initially taken in but more fundamentally, what is Feeling: Pure feeling types rely primarily on affective processes
regarded as data in the first place [18]. and value for judgement. Therefore, they take moral stands and
make moral judgements [14]. Feeling types are concerned with
Sensation: The pure sensation type pertains to individuals who the whole rather than the relationship between its parts and base
are concerned with detailed facts. They may be data bound and their evaluations on concepts including nice and nasty, good and
can to go on collecting data forever [14]. The pure sensation type bad, agreeable and disagreeable, beautiful and ugly, and pleasant
perceives objects in isolation and detail. Sensation types need to and unpleasant [9].
take a complex situation and break it down into very small parts
[18]. Sensation focuses awareness of things as they appear and When viewing and experiencing the world, there is no right or
need to deal with things like shape, color, and arrangement of wrong perspective, according to Jung [18]. Just as we do not
things. If an individual is a sensation type, information will be always see accurately, does not mean that intuition is always
entirely empirical, devoid of almost any theoretical content [14]. correct, for example. Or that thinking is better because it happens
Sensation types simply relate to the actual state of things [9]. to be named after one of our main mental functions [9].
Intuition: The pure intuition type is an individual who perceives
objects as possibilities. They look through the facts and beyond
them. They tend be too data free and form inexplicable hunches or 3.3 An Example
conclusions where there may be no established facts. Strategy As previously established, information systems consist of several
making and envisioning future possibilities and consequences are different people with varying psychological types, such as
the strengths of the intuition type [14]. Intuition types integrate thinking, sensing, feeling, or judging, who will encounter
details into wholes or larger patterns. Therefore, only larger situations and resulting problems. Individual approaches to
wholes and possibilities are considered real information [18]. circumstances and information may vary greatly, depending on
the method of generating evidence, how the evidence is presented,
their own psychological type, and how familiar they are with the
information. For the manager, information is the evidence upon
3.2 Data Processing Issues which his decisions will be based. Therefore, every corporation
In order to distinguish between various perceived inputs, a needs all kinds of managers. For example, some managers will
person’s awareness must be established involving the entry of rely on basic observations of events like accounting data, others
specific external events and information into the state structure of will rely on basic abstract reasoning like marketing models and
the system. The same idea of awareness applies when input is others will rationalize through debate. While planning and
received internally. Although in the case of internal inputs, the strategizing is the strength of the intuitive type, day-to-day
mind or system would interpret the input by exploring parts of its operations management is best suited for the sensation type. A
state structure, which are related to its’ past experience. Once management system comprised of only intuitive managers will
awareness is established of single or various inputs, attention then always live in the future and won’t pay proper attention to the
comes into play [1]. present. A management system comprised solely of sensation type
managers may be too limited and bound by the current set of
According to Aleksander [1], attention is the act of selecting available facts. They will be unable to envision future
between two different percepts or thoughts, which possibly possibilities, have a short planning horizon, and lack innovation.
involve either humans or systems switching thoughts from one Systematizing and rule making is the forte of the thinking type,
idea to another. What determines how the selection is made while assessing value and taking a moral stand tends to be the
involves will. Free will involves feeling free to think of feeling type’s strength. A management level consisting entirely of
continuing one way first and then another, or even of making a thinking type managers will be so model bound since their first
completely arbitrary choice [1]. Here, “thinking” and “feeling” and instinctive response to any situation is to formulate models
are the opposing functions that embody this activity, which Jung and to make rules. Unless they do this they will not be able to
calls judgement. Both functions are characterized as rational understand a situation or deal with it effectively. Eventually, they
because they involve value and cognition [11]. Mitroff [18] refers will “become victims of and slaves to their own categories and
to the judgement dimension as a continuous function anchored by systems” [14]. A management system made up of managers of the
two antithetical ways of reaching decisions: “thinking” and feeling type will lack attention to detail, habitually generalize, and
“feeling”. He calls this the decision-making dimension, which see “black and white” exclusively as they can only appreciate a
refers to how data is processed [18]. complete relationship rather than separate parts.
Similarly, let us now consider the behavior of an intelligent agent knowledge, thus avoiding getting stuck. Commonsense
that is assigned a psychological type. For instance, observe knowledge must be programmed with several representations of
several agents crawling through websites looking for URLs. One the information, which is adequate and provides the ability to
agent might be impressed by the appearance of a site; it’s switch to a new representation or understanding, if one of them
awareness focused on the shapes, color and layout of the site. fails. Besides applying basic human “thinking” concepts into the
Another may perceive the site in terms of potential profitable design of an intelligent agent, Minsky [17] emphasizes that the
markets. A third agent may be prompted to recall the history of basic processes of perception, awareness, and attention are not the
the Internet and the evolution of global business and technology, only thing that must be considered. Because there is so much
upon arrival at the site. A fourth may consider how much it would information available to agents, in regards to the activities of
enjoy investing the product this particular site is marketing. humans, the agent must not only simply understand the inputs in
Obviously, as demonstrated by the four possible approaches taken one particular way. Eliminating the programming limitations of
by each agent in this example, individual agents possess specific the past can lead to solving the types of problems that agents are
qualities, which may characterize them as sensation, intuition, designed for and allow them to “think” just as humans do [17].
thinking, and feeling types, respectively. These four different
characteristics become apparent in situations such as these where AI models currently exist which attempt to map cognitive and
an agent assesses and perceives the same website in it’s own emotional characteristics of humans [15]. Since personality is also
individual manner. Each of the four agents in this example in an essential human quality, then perhaps the Jungian typology
particular detect elements of the site in a different way, and the system should be incorporated into AI models, as well, and
same site means something different to each one of them. The especially for ASCW. For instance, each function could be
agents are designed to acquire and focus on certain specific mapped based on the different dimensions. Differing amounts of
elements, while other elements may be ignored simply because senses, intuitive possibilities, logic and rules, and value could be
they have not been designed or programmed in an agent’s specific translated into AI code depending on the situation. For example,
way of “thinking.” Boole investigated the fundamental laws of the mind’s operation
and gave expression to them in symbolic, mathematical language.
Employing varying types of people (or agents) who possess One can attempt to use that language and those laws in such a way
diverse psychological types will ensure that important information as to facilitate the solutions of certain problems facing managers
is attended to and miscellaneous information, which may not be and intelligent agents in management situations [5]. Apply
considered useful now, is disregarded for the time being. This pertinent elements of the decision situation and its assigned
may be useful in situations where timely resolutions to problems psychological function and thus, virtual personalities would
are needed. Depending on the situation one agent’s approach to emerge! True type development would result by possessing a
information may be significantly more fundamental to the current great command over these functions or powers [7]. Accordingly, a
situation and will ensure successful treatment. Each individual full program of agent typology research would seek to test the
may be able to combine their own approach to information interaction effect of all possible combinations of these variables in
management and solutions in order to provide a thorough and ASCW. Suppose we change one or all of these conditions. How
successful resolution. By combining the various types in ASCW, does changing these assumptions affect the overall design? Would
situations should not arise where a group is bound by information the same intelligent system designs be effective? Could we predict
and it may be easier to create effective strategies where the future and ultimately improve performance?
will be considered, but focus will remain on the present task at
hand.
4. CONCLUSION
Of course the Jungian personality typology is not the only model
3.4 Flexibility and Equilibrium to base agents’ patterns of working in ASCW, but it is used for
Just as the different functions are all at the disposal of every our purposes to illustrate how basic differences in behavior can
individual, however underdeveloped they may be, then might not create different possibilities for ASCW solutions. Four major
the same be desirable for an intelligent agent? For example, when modes or psychological functions characterize the Jungian
one solution to a problem is seemingly unsolvable or something typology. Jung differentiates these four functions from one
else goes wrong, a “personality challenged” agent might get stuck another “…because they are neither mutually relatable nor
[16]. mutually reducible,” and because they exhaust all the given
possibilities. In most individuals, a preference for one mode of
Jung [12] has also argued that a personality that is in equilibrium perceiving and one mode of judging is characteristically
(a self-actualized personality in Maslow’s terms) is one where the developed [11].
individual has the ability to move around the personality space as
a function of free will and the type of problem the individual is With the inclusion of human “thinking” characteristics and
facing in ASCW. The individual can operate with equal skill and applying Jungian typology in future designs, we begin to see steps
speed in any of the regions focusing on the problem they are toward the development of very realistic, “thinking” agents.
trying to solve. An intelligent agent with equilibrium would be Advances in design may provide agents with more human
able to easily move to a new path of data acquisition or characteristics and knowledge, allowing them to ultimately “be”
processing. human. But first, attempts must be made to thoroughly understand
human thinking and personality, including all of its structures and
Early AI researchers designed systems and programs, which processes. Once Jung’s four functions are understood and
automatically applied specific rules. However, new systems have embraced, it is inevitable that personalities will be easier to detect
the capability to program increasing, basic, commonsense and develop in agents.
5. ADDENDUM [8] Churchman, C.W. The Designing of Inquiry Systems. Basic
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