Podcast

Raúl Alejandro Espino on I-O Psych in the Spanish-Speaking World

Raul Alejandro Espino joins us to share his observations about I-O psych in Central America, South America, and Spain.

Transcript

This transcript is AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies. Please do not quote myself or any of my guests based on this transcript.

00:49.21
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Department 12 Podcast where we talk about everything I-O Psych I’m your host Dr Ben Ben Butina and joining me today. Is Raúl Alejandro Espino. How are you today Raúl?

01:06.48
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Doing great here and it’s in Spain a little sun not much but really good. How about you.

01:16.32
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
I’m doing pretty well. There’s some sun in near Pittsburgh where I live as well but probably not quite as warm as where you are oh really? Okay, okay.

01:22.87
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Actually send the cold but it’s it’s good for me starting winter.

01:31.84
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
And that’s kind of what we’re here to do today is we want to learn, especially learn a little bit more about io psychology in the spanish- speaking world. So maybe we could just start by going all the way back to your childhood. Do you mind sharing sort of where you grew up and.

01:48.90
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Yeah, of course well Ben thank you for having me I actually was born in Panama Panama city I’m from the capital Panama which is a little country in central america not south America central America um maybe you have heard it because of the canal.

02:05.39
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Sure panama canal I think Panama City is also where reggaeton originated and if I’m not mistaken me. Yeah.

02:05.57
Raúl Alejandro Espino
And im a canal and. Yes, you got it right? It’s not Puerto Rico it’s fine of man. We got a debate on that. But it’s good that you have it so you got it right? yes.

02:19.88
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
I think it was in Panama like 10 years before it got to Puerto Rico if I if I understand it correctly. Yeah, well let me ask you another cultural question just it might sound kind of funny but and I always ask. Do you remember losing your first tooth.

02:29.12
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Exactly.

02:36.21
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Um, um, that’s actually a pretty interesting question. Um I the only thing that I actually remember not my first but I remember that I did lose my 2 and when I was in school like eating a dorito. You know like a doritoship and.

02:45.11
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Oh.

02:50.59
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay, well.

02:54.69
Raúl Alejandro Espino
I remember that because like I started bleeding like quite a lot and I was maybe in fourth grade maybe fifth grade and it was really traumatic for me because well I didn’t expect it. But.

02:57.16
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Wow. Okay.

03:09.20
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, yeah, okay sorry to bring that up. Did your did your parents do anything that you recall special with lost teeth.

03:10.70
Raúl Alejandro Espino
I Don’t think the first one I remember but I do remember that one. No this a trauma there Not all.

03:24.24
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Um, not really if I did receive my money when I put it in the in the pillow I did remember that yeah I did we didn’t have the ferry thing but we somehow I got money from it.

03:27.93
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay, so you put your tooth under a pillow. Okay.

03:37.40
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay, all right, no ferry but money. Okay, yeah, so as rolewell shared Panama is in central america not South America pretty close. It’s just north of Colombia and just south of Costa Rica if your geography’s a little rusty and.

03:40.76
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Yeah I think that’s good.

03:56.14
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Growing up in in Panama did you know anything about io psychology or I guess what were your impressions of um, you know what were your impressions of of psychology in general when you were a kid.

04:09.87
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Ah, well when I graduated from high school I Study Science and Arts. So That’s I had the option of either studying a science bachelors or or an arts bachelors like I think that’s how you call Um, the. When I was young I was actually very lost into careers and what I wanted to do I had no professional orientation I think that’s one of the things that I actually that that got me into psychology professional orientation and personality evaluation like.

04:34.65
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

04:46.63
Raúl Alejandro Espino
How long can you match your personality to a career but at the beginning I really didn’t have any kind of knowledge and that so my dad kind of step in he was he was ah well, he’s an engineer a very successful engineer in Panama and.

04:48.40
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are.

05:03.87
Raúl Alejandro Espino
He’s specialized in occupational health and safety. So and the moment that the the the americans left Panama and you know they had the canal and they give it to Panama all these security occupational things that they were doing in the canal.

05:05.26
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay.

05:22.70
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Kind of were new to Panama so he was working in the canal so he had like a ah lot of opportunities starting up in that area so he was very adamant for me to study an engineering bachelors right? because he kind of said that if you want to make money you should start engineering. So.

05:25.30
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, yeah.

05:37.17
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, who.

05:42.43
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Since I was lost and had no idea what to do I Kind of followed that advice you know I call advice but he actually kind of said like I could help you if you started this right.

05:46.41
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are. Yeah advice with an incentive.

05:57.74
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Exactly night he wanted me to be like him right to to excel in the engineering world and well I didn’t actually took alike to engineering I started studying industrial engineering I actually did like two and a half years of industrial engineering. But I found.

06:02.72
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

06:17.22
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Engineering literally really boring like I have nothing against engineering but it was just not my cup of tea you could call it and well since starts I started to to travel a bit to know a bit about myself more read quite.

06:24.69
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, now.

06:35.87
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Different books like carjuon actually influence me a lot. Um, um I Love Junior books because it kind of forced you to explore yourself explore your personality especially and well I didn’t actually found that I Love psychology.

06:45.89
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are.

06:55.21
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Until I was around maybe 24 um so right now I’m 31 so it wasn’t that far. But for me, it feels like a lifetime. Um, when I when I started starting like I said.

07:00.16
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Who. Yeah.

07:11.57
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Okay, so I don’t want to study engineering I Want to study something that I love and now I kind of have the means like I started working in different multinational companies I Actually my most of my experience is as a corporate trainer. So since I was very good with languages I.

07:27.10
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, who.

07:31.41
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Actually have my c one in english I study english in Canada for a year in Vancouver so I was able to to practice a lot of of the language and I actually I graduated from an italian school so I do have my b two in italian and I’m actually.

07:34.73
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay.

07:50.14
Raúl Alejandro Espino
To get back into ad here in Spain so I can get more opportunities but um, the the thing that I found most intriguing about psychology especially at the beginning because I did my bachelor of science in psychology um is that it it forced me to kind of.

07:52.57
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Wow.

08:09.75
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Ah, understand myself better and that’s certainly not an easy thing. Especially if you maybe you have a gone or your your youth kind of like passing through life like numb to to reality So one of the.

08:09.99
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are.

08:19.56
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, yeah.

08:26.50
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Most important aspects that I found of psychology is that I like the way of how you can learn about yourself and still apply that to helping others and then eventually helping organizations as well to kind of understand the aspects of.

08:44.84
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Sure.

08:44.91
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Personality per se because I do have a certification in the big 5 That’s actually my favorite personality valuation I got that certification from the University Of Toronto in the big 5 and I learned a lot.

08:51.68
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, for.

09:02.81
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Just with the aspects of personality and that expanded my knowledge into the world of organizations especially because since I was a trainer I applied my psychology knowledge to to teach better to help others understand better I used to work for um. You know, call center and I actually worked there for a while and I was taken to Sarasota Florida to train and everything. So after that I I then got to a big multinational company.

09:30.30
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Who.

09:38.69
Raúl Alejandro Espino
I Think you may know it as a tetra pack you know tetrapa. Yeah, it ah it was a very enlightening experience for me because it kind of show me how organizations that really care about human resources like on the training side on wellbeing.

09:39.87
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Yes.

09:57.16
Raúl Alejandro Espino
So I was kind of new to me. So I really got in love with that after I finished my bachelors I I study a few course graduateduate degree I’m actually also a professor in undergraduate degree. So I do I thought like. Corporate psychology. It was called in Panama corporate psychology 1 corporate psychology 2 and I did my post graduate in Psychometrics. So I I apply like all of my psychological knowledge to the staistical world and I like fall in love with it because.

10:17.97
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay.

10:25.24
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Wow.

10:36.68
Raúl Alejandro Espino
I Saw like the real science behind psychology and then I also did a postgraduate degree in occupational health and safety right? The kind of following. Yeah, ah can I say and actually um I kind of apply.

10:47.22
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Ah, came and came full circle. Yeah.

10:56.18
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Also you know like the certification like esau certification um of ah preventing psychosocial risk I got like really into that and then applied the psychometric knowledge and that and well a few years back I finished my post-graduate on.

11:00.54
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

11:03.10
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Oh well.

11:14.63
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Higher education and well now I’m actually studying my my masters which is actually my first real masters and in Spain that’s ah in ah how you say in english it’s direction and management of human resources. So it’s kind of.

11:30.60
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay, who.

11:33.16
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Ah, special and Mba specialize in like strategic human resources like I really fall in love with multinationals and I really wanted to work for the best kind of companies that I could and yeah, well, that’s kind of a.

11:37.56
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, okay, are.

11:51.47
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well thank you your your background is fascinating and you have such an interesting sort of combination of of interests. Um I Wonder could you tell us a little more about.

11:52.36
Raúl Alejandro Espino
The real summary.

12:06.85
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Iy psychology in the spanish speaking world and maybe we could start with what it’s actually called because I’m 100% certain it’s not called iosy psychology.

12:14.50
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Yeah, you got that right? Well, it’s it’s kind of a mission mash right? Some universities call it occupational psychology some others call it industrial or others like the ones that I work at.

12:25.47
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Who who.

12:33.21
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Call it corporate psychology but it’s actually kind of a naming issue I remember your podcast kind of all the different kind of names that we use but in Panommi is way more confusing because like a psychologist working at our organization.

12:40.94
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Yeah.

12:50.83
Raúl Alejandro Espino
It’s kind of confusing to some people especially do they feed in human resources. Do they feed in occupational health. Do they fit in like in a global kind of evaluation kind of setting and it’s like a combination of everything but um, in in the.

12:59.19
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

13:09.97
Raúl Alejandro Espino
In the aspects of in Panama exactly I actually got really into corporate psychology. Let’s call it for sake of name. Um, thanks to my mentor like my tsis mentor I did my teethsis on bornout syndrome I did ah evaluation of the borin syndrome kind of.

13:15.11
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are. Okay.

13:29.29
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Standardize it in Panama. You know you got all the tools but you got to do the factual analysis validity and everything so I did all that cute stuff and it was very interesting because what most people in my university graduates.

13:31.50
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, okay.

13:46.19
Raúl Alejandro Espino
With practice like professional practice like you work in a company for a few like like a lot of hours and then you do like a small like a small thesis of what you did and usually not a lot of people do evaluation kind of side because the well at least in my university. The statistical side was really lacking so it was kind of more of a humanistic or clinical kind of point of View. A lot of people tend to study psychology to maybe teach um little children or in schools. Or clinical of course 80% is clinical. You could say um and the corporate side of psychology was was kind of like ah like a very and I would say rare kind of specialization on.

14:23.91
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

14:25.17
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, yeah.

14:36.68
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, yeah.

14:40.22
Raúl Alejandro Espino
I really fall in love with that because my tsis professor really he he works for one of the biggest hospitals in Panama as human resources leader director. So I kind of said. He he showed me that you can. You can be a corporate psychologist and still work in direction of human resources and he has like a very cool background because I find it very and interesting to apply the knowledge of corporate or.

15:14.82
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are.

15:15.16
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Organizational psychology to the area of human resources I Bet you do know that we do have like kind of a correlation of that world of the human resource world but we kind of tend to like put it more in the front of of administration. Maybe.

15:32.64
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay.

15:34.30
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Or um, but I do feel like if you separate yourself from the kind of only administration side recruiting side which is the the things that I’m kind of learning more now because my experience is more on the organizational.

15:43.84
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
You.

15:52.78
Raúl Alejandro Espino
And instead of the industrial side but I do feel like I had a lot of tools to make everything better right? because I was I look myself as a scientist especially because I love psychometrics. So.

15:53.21
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are.

16:01.67
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, yeah.

16:10.83
Raúl Alejandro Espino
A lot of psychologists tend to see tests as something secondary I kind of did the opposite and became like a personality psychologist like I was so in love with the big 5 that I I started to do work also in a clinical setting.

16:15.76
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Who.

16:30.49
Raúl Alejandro Espino
As a professional orientator like I help kids understand the difference between the careers and their personalities I did added tests like career code. Maybe you have heard of that one and and the big 5 I got a bunch of and I did apply the big 5 and I standardize it for.

16:42.58
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, okay, yeah, yeah.

16:49.81
Raúl Alejandro Espino
And I’m my population. So I kind of had that in my back pocket always and I love doing that one on one I Love it and well that’s kind of the theme that separated me maybe from the other psychologists in in my setting you could say.

16:55.22
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Ah, so cool. Yeah yeah.

17:07.20
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Yeah, very very cool. Um here in the us if I were to go out on the street and ask the next 10 people I meet what ios psychology is probably.

17:13.15
Raúl Alejandro Espino
O 2 3.

17:23.11
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Realistically maybe one would have a guess and the other nine would have no idea what I was talking about That’s my guess I wonder what would happen. Um, if you did the same thing in in Panama or or maybe some of the other countries that you worked with you know, like. Argentina Chile Paraguay and so on is is the profession known among ordinary people or is it very obscure.

17:54.52
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Well if I would take a statistical guess I will say that maybe 20 like 1 in 20 could actually give you that answer? um because well psychology especially in Latin America country and I could say.

17:56.33
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Is. E.

18:10.99
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Especially in Panama is it’s ah we we’re a very small country right? So we have probably 1 career of each right? So in other bigger countries like Argentina like Chile. Also so you can actually study a bachelors in occupational psychology like.

18:21.25
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

18:28.20
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay.

18:29.83
Raúl Alejandro Espino
You have your bash specialized in that and well in Peru in Ecuador. They also have that I have also been there a few times and in Panama we we don’t you kind of have to build your own career. You kind of have to pick one and then something to specialize yourself.

18:46.96
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

18:49.47
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Because in in this setting people don’t really understand anything that has to do with corporate psychology. They usually see you either as a human resources or as a clinical psychologist Even ah I’m not a clinic on psychologist. But.

19:01.10
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, yeah.

19:07.28
Raúl Alejandro Espino
They kind of see it that way because people they don’t really involve themselves into the details unless you’re actually studying and even if you’re actually studying that I know a lot of people that graduated from Psychology and really don’t know how to apply that to a corporate setting and.

19:23.44
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are.

19:26.22
Raúl Alejandro Espino
That’s why when I started teaching I tried to imply like add that to my University I’m a master where I graduated to I also did a lot of ah cooper relation like I did the conference on psychometrics and. On Corporate Psychology and how we can differentiate ourselves from other psychologists other professionals like human resources majors or maybe and just general psychologists and even thought people usually like correlate psychology with.

19:52.17
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are.

20:03.86
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Right.

20:04.56
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Mental Health and only ah and actually like maybe applying test. We have a lot of tests that you know are not really stistically viable. You could say well like probably wasak test and you know that like be.

20:18.65
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, yeah, um, yeah, the projection test.

20:23.42
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Drawing and you know all that kind of cute stuff that I Actually yeah which I don’t I don’t I Actually don’t find anything wrong with that May may have a place but it’s not a scientific method and that’s what I kind of really love to involve myself into and. A lot of people in psychology probably study psychology because they don’t like the sciences and you know so it’s not that easy. Um, and I do love the sciences. So Maybe that’s one of the aspects that actually.

20:51.40
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Ah.

21:01.40
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Make me kind of have to be like learn myself like I have to do it my own way because find my own tools right.

21:09.57
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Yeah, very very interesting stuff. Um, you talked about doing your own way finding your own tools. Um, and you talked about you know, standardizing the big 5 for Panama and some other work I wonder how much of the research literature.

21:16.51
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Me.

21:27.54
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Can you access in Spanish Um, you know when you look at you know the kinds of articles that you’re looking at now for your masters or or other research articles that you’ve used in your work. Do you find that there’s a large body of research that’s in Spanish or do you find that you’re mostly relying on your English language skills.

21:47.33
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Well one of the things that actually helped me like working in a multinational setting since I was very involved with people from other countries like like you said Argentina and ParaYUrowide is that I got to talk with a lot of different people.

21:47.49
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
For reading research.

22:06.38
Raúl Alejandro Espino
That were involved probably in that area but also not so I kind of learned a bit from different countries as well. When I did my research I did have the advantage of being very good at English So if I wanted to find something. I’ll probably find it in English first because I know it will be into finding Spanish Maybe I’ll find 1 or 2 I’m not saying that you cannot find it. You can always find um, but unfortunately the equality is not the same. The standards are not the same um, a lot of.

22:25.96
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are. Yeah, cool.

22:44.81
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Now these scientific articles you find are not really that well done. But that’s just my opinion I would say um, but in Spanish you even have like a lower bar but it doesn’t mean and are good ones. Um I have found a lot of good ones. Um.

22:56.70
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are.

23:04.11
Raúl Alejandro Espino
But they’re not that common as you can find easily in bunch of all the research tools you can find in English and also how I applied everything that I did I usually could find all the tools that I needed in English easily and then since I’m. Good at translating I could use it in my setting but you you can find yes but if you only know Spanish like most for example, most of my students they were not that good and at English or most of my colleagues were also not that good at english.

23:34.13
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Are.

23:41.94
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Um, it was a little difficult for them to find so many tools. Um because of the language barrier. But yeah you you can find and there are very good ones I’m very good researchers I’m very good occupational psychologists and very good psychologists in general but I would say it’s. Yeah, it’s way more difficult even if now we can also say that most of these social sciences are also kind of like not the same quality and maybe maybe they used to be um, but you can find everything and I would say.

24:14.26
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

24:18.61
Raúl Alejandro Espino
That I do love reading research but I usually find it first in in english.

24:22.94
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay, yeah, I’ve noticed and and I wonder if it’s I Wonder if it’s a genuine slipping of standards or whether it’s just the proliferation of low-quality journals.

24:38.14
Raúl Alejandro Espino
The.

24:40.18
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
That has led to that because I know what you mean I have found articles where I scratch my head and I wonder like how could this possibly have gotten through any kind of peer review. Um.

24:43.84
Raúl Alejandro Espino
This is not correct. Yeah.

24:51.36
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Especially from doctors right? because whoa I’m like and ah because if you do our research and then you dedicate for 5 years of your life to a research doctorate research and then you find now that who you are not very good. You could say. And it’s not correct I mean what are you gonna do like you lose a lot of years. So I don’t know. Maybe there’s a kind of bias there or kind of I have no idea i’m.

25:10.44
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, yeah.

25:19.32
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Yeah, like a sunk cost bias. You know if you’ve put in all that time in a field. Even if you’re not very good at it. You’re probably not going to turn back and and try a new profession. Um, yeah, it’s.

25:30.55
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Exactly.

25:34.80
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Yeah, it’s baffling. Um I noticed a couple of of really key similarities between your experience and my experience in the United States so most people um, similarly here I think have um.

25:49.81
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
When they hear the word psychologist or psychology. They immediately think of mental health and when they hear you know that you’re a psychologist that works in business. They imagine that you have you know? ah a consultation room somewhere and people are laying down on couches on their lunch breaks and telling you about their problems.

25:54.40
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Yeah, he.

26:03.95
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Yeah, yeah.

26:09.50
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, the sort of distinction between I O and human resources is also very much a thing here. Um, and I’ve noticed at least on social media. There are a lot of Io psychologists that are that are very quick to point out that they don’t work in human resources. Um, as if you know that’s that’s.

26:15.12
Raúl Alejandro Espino
And.

26:29.90
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
A really problematic thing I’ve worked in on human resources teams for for most of my career as a practitioner and they’re some of the best people I know so I’m I’m not in that camp. But I wonder if there is some kind of ah stigma around human resources in.

26:29.49
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Right. You to?? yeah name.

26:47.26
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
In central America the way that there might be in the us and the stigma I’m referring to specifically is the idea that like human resources pretends that they care about you as a person but they really don’t they’re just there for the company that kind of thing I wonder if that’s a widespread misconception.

27:02.87
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Well I really think you are on the right point on that one because at least in Panama and human resources seems to be really disconnected from psychology may. You can see in the job openings like either human resources baschad or psychologists like they they put it like it’s the same and it’s not really the same It’s ah I listen the bachelors um a lot of the the careers. Are very clinical like very clinically focused so we don’t it’s really, um, like the the areas of the occupational side are very lacking. So I don’t know. For example I think we should learn a beta about the legal side of like.

27:46.12
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

27:51.56
Raúl Alejandro Espino
When you hire someone and all those aspects and those are things that I really didn’t learn in the in my psychology bachelors but I guess kind of like um, we we got like 4 different aspects of psychology like community psychology clinical educational.

27:58.50
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Sure yeah.

28:11.60
Raúl Alejandro Espino
And then the corporate psychology side but I do feel like the the 1 lacking the most is the the corporate one. But what you said is very important because if you see the distinction of human resources and how they learn in there. Their career. They do a lot of like ah more it’s more comparable to maybe ah ah, minister like business administration kind of ah bachelors instead of a psychology kind of bachelors you could say and then.

28:40.48
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, me.

28:47.25
Raúl Alejandro Espino
The the aspect that I feel is really touchy is the evaluation side like it’s It’s not the same being an evaluator like I actually studied that for a long time and like someone from human resources can just put a software and and you know it gives you all the.

28:56.50
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

29:06.26
Raúl Alejandro Espino
The the results. But how can you actually interpret like interpret that in a real useful and maybe professional way like um I could say that’s something that I could like put my my food in but other than that. You You do are more involved in the corporate Side. You study like something related to human resources because at least in my country.. The psychology part is very clinical and we do a lot of psychopathology and we do a lot of evaluation in the. Well in both sides like projective and then a little bit of psychometrics. But and what I study my my postgraduate was another University The bachelors was way more focused on the corporate side because we were in the human development like ah bracket.

29:47.74
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um.

30:00.83
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay.

30:02.15
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Right? You could say there’s like a school and in the my other University we were under the social not the health sciences right? like with nursing and nutrition and and medicine and you know they put us with them and the other one they put us with with the more.

30:11.51
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Okay, yeah.

30:20.95
Raúl Alejandro Espino
More business kind of of of of careers right? So I would say that that actually influence a lot on how the the bachelors is built like the curriculum is built right? So it is a difference. Yeah.

30:33.52
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Yeah, absolutely well this has been absolutely fascinating and I’ve learned a lot can I close things out with another fun question if I find myself in Panama someday which I would like to do.

30:45.31
Raúl Alejandro Espino
So sure, go ahead.

30:53.30
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
What is the thing that I need to eat.

30:57.60
Raúl Alejandro Espino
That’s a very good question. Well I will recommend you to go to Sabores de charrio and you can eat ah like a fried um fish with ah planting like fried plantines.

31:02.40
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, okay.

31:14.10
Raúl Alejandro Espino
Patakcones call it. It is my favorite food like and you can have a se visia and a really cold beer and that’s heaven. Yeah, you love it. So just let me know I would tell you.

31:14.46
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Um, yeah.

31:22.82
Ben Butina, Ph.D.
Ah, sounds good. Absolutely fantastic I would love to do that someday and if I do I will definitely tell you roll. Thank you. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the show.

31:35.55
Raúl Alejandro Espino
My pleasure Ben and let’s do this again sometime.