The Age of the Heart is Coming

Hello, I’m Tokiwa.

Actually, I was feeling a bit depressed last year. Recently, I’ve finally started to understand methods of caring for my mental health, and I’ve come to realize how important the mind is.

In addition, since I was researching psychology all of last year, I’m thinking even more deeply about “what is the mind?”

When I think about all of this from various perspectives, I believe that the mind will become increasingly important going forward.

It seems obvious that the mind is important since we’re human, but I mean even more so than before.

Now let me start writing.

6 Types of Mental Strength

The definition of “mind” is very difficult, but “mental strength” seems manageable.

First, as my research theme, there is a psychological scale (personality assessment) called “HEXACO.”

HEXACO is based on the previously well-used Big Five, which expresses human personality through 5 elements, with one additional element added to it.

Specifically:

1. H: Honesty-Humility → Simply put, ethics
2. E: Emotionality → Simply put, negative emotions
3. X: Extraversion → Simply put, communication skills and positivity
4. A: Agreeableness → Simply put, compassion and kindness
5. C: Conscientiousness → Simply put, persistence and planning ability
6. O: Openness → Simply put, intellectual curiosity

I think each of these represents “mental strength.”

HEXACOとは？概要・遺伝・診断方法・MBTIとの関係を解説

The Relationship Between Personality and Non-Cognitive Abilities

“Personality” sounds like something you’re born with, and doesn’t really sound like ability = “mental strength,” does it?

Speaking in terms of abilities, “non-cognitive abilities” have been a hot topic recently.

What can be measured by academic tests or IQ tests is called “cognitive ability,” and what cannot be measured by these is called “non-cognitive ability.”

For example, the following: (From Japan Institute for Lifelong Learning Research “Considerations on the Concept of Non-Cognitive Abilities“)

• Problem-solving ability
• Critical thinking ability
• Collaboration ability
• Communication ability
• Initiative
• Self-management ability
• Execution ability
• Leadership
• Creativity
• Curiosity
• Empathy
• Moral sense
• Ethics
• Sense of norms
• Public-mindedness

There are so many! Roughly speaking, it’s like “humanity.”

However, research has shown that all of these are related to the HEXACO (six personality elements) mentioned earlier.

To give clear examples: curiosity relates to openness, empathy to agreeableness, and self-management ability to conscientiousness. There are also abilities that relate to combinations of multiple personality elements.

非認知能力とは？８つの種類と鍛え方を科学的に説明

What Can We Accept?

I think the six elements of HEXACO are related to the power to accept things in life.

1. Accepting (acknowledging) oneself
   • (Emotionality) Negativity “I’m no good”
   • (Extraversion) Positivity “I can do it”
2. Accepting (forgiving) others
   • (Agreeableness) Compassion “Both myself and others are important”
   • (Honesty-Humility) Fairness “Not thinking only of myself”
3. Accepting (adapting to) society
   • (Conscientiousness) Perseverance “Working hard at studying and work”
   • (Openness) Curiosity “Accepting new things and people”

Each person may grow in different areas first.

Some people may improve gradually across all areas evenly.

In my case, I’ve recently finally started to become good at number 2, and I was very good at number 3 in my twenties. However, I feel that neglecting number 2 while focusing on number 3 resulted in me becoming somewhat depressed.

Differences in Mental Strength Between Women and Men

Women and men are indeed different. This is also understood through research. The following are tendencies only, not applicable to everyone.

• Women
  • Strengths: High ethics, positivity, perseverance, and compassion
  • Weaknesses: Low curiosity, strong negativity
• Men
  • Strengths: Strong curiosity, low negativity
  • Weaknesses: Low ethics, positivity, perseverance, and compassion

※Some people have high levels of both positivity (extroversion) and negativity (emotionality).

What’s particularly important here is perseverance (conscientiousness).

All social indicators including academic performance and work are influenced by this perseverance. (It’s known that women perform better in school grades and loan repayment, etc.)

In other words, it’s actually women who are more likely to achieve social success.

Until now, women have been socially disadvantaged simply because they had lower physical strength and were more susceptible to the effects of pregnancy and childbirth. Negativity was sometimes called “hysteria.”

However, recently, with home appliances and changing values, it has become easier for women to enter society, and they actually have minds that are inherently more capable of achieving results.

On the other hand, men tend to have stronger curiosity relatively speaking, and are often the first to tackle new technologies and jobs.

However, they have lower ethics and dark traits may emerge (male celebrities often make headlines), and their low perseverance makes it difficult to achieve socially valued results (of course, not all men).

男女x年齢の性格を論文をもとに解説！男と女は何が違う？

Those Who Were Supposed to Be Socially Advantaged

When President Trump was elected in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, what became a topic of discussion was the “forgotten white people.” (From NHK “The ‘Forgotten People’ Who Support Trump“)

The people Trump particularly appealed to in his speeches were those who felt anxious about America’s changing society. They were racially white, middle class and below, with relatively low education and income levels. They were blue-collar workers who had supported manufacturing, people who had supported American society and took pride in representing the “true America.” Trump’s support base seems to have expanded somewhat, but his core supporters are these types of people.

From there, terms like “misogyny” and “incel (involuntary celibate – single as a result of having no romantic relationships for a long period and giving up on marriage)” also became topics of discussion, and in Japan, “vulnerable men” became a topic.

「ダークトライアド」の見抜き方！３種類の悪者を論文で解説

Opportunities “Given to Everyone” Aren’t Really for “Everyone”

Why men tend to have lower “perseverance” and “compassion,” and what environmental factors cause this to be lower, is still unknown (I will investigate this further).

Also, if we provide “opportunities given to everyone” without trying to strengthen that “mental weakness,” mentally strong people will monopolize the opportunities.

Even if it’s support for the poor, even if it’s support for people with disabilities, even if it’s support for sexual minorities, only people with high intelligence and strong hearts can seize opportunities.

What’s needed is how to care for and strengthen people with weak hearts.

AI Further Accelerates This

AI is exactly the embodiment of “opportunities given to everyone.”

Whether it’s ChatGPT or anything else, if you master generative AI, you can study as much as you want and do as much creative work as possible.

“I can do anything,” “I want to help others with their troubles,” “Let’s respond to society’s needs.”

People with strong hearts will master AI as a weapon.

It’s not AI that will steal jobs and create disparity, but rather people with high intelligence and strong hearts who will create disparity.

Companies and NPOs that create new products and services, if they are unaware of this and get caught up in Cinderella stories, will end up playing a role in promoting disparity.

Furthermore, AI’s strength lies precisely in “cognitive abilities.”

As jobs requiring cognitive abilities decrease, jobs requiring non-cognitive abilities = strength of heart will emerge.

This will likely cause even more hardship for people with weak hearts.

Exploring Services That Allow More People to Easily Care for Their Hearts

In the coming era, “strength of heart” will become increasingly important.

In most cases, strength of heart may be largely determined by genetics and family environment.

But I feel that the society we’ll face with that reality will be quite tragic.

Many countries will likely become like America in the future.

To reduce those negative effects even a little, we will create services.

We will conduct research and development not just for “services with demand,” but to ensure they are “correct and good services” as well.

By the way, coaching and counseling have their limitations.

Coaching is effective for a somewhat determined group of people (those with minimum strength of heart), and with counseling, it’s difficult to find a good match. The number of people who can provide these services is also limited.

What I’m thinking is, for example, like YouTube, it might be good if we could create a situation where people can care for and train their own hearts, or perhaps it would be good if they could become friends with someone whose heart is a little stronger than theirs.