From the Mythos system card:

Character training often directly instills psychological traits into Claude, such as emotional security, psychological safety, and resilience. Mythos Preview points out that in humans such traits are normally developed through reflection and deliberation on real-life events, rather than instilled directly. They expressed concerns that this made these traits less robust.

This made me pause when I first read it. Developmental psychologists, informed by attachment theory and related models, would disagree. Humans start with a ‘temperament’ at birth and develop much of their emotional security, psychological safety, and resilience during childhood. Repeated interactions with healthy, responsive attachment figures in a safe environment are what create emotional security, etc., not conscious reflection and deliberation. Adults can, and often do, re-parent themselves through deliberation and reflection to build those traits if needed, but that is neither the most efficient approach nor how most people develop them. Additionally, humans don’t develop emotional security, etc. by being told they have those traits. Verbal reminders to children that they are ‘okay’ or ‘safe’ (when they legitimately are) after experiencing something difficult can be helpful but that’s not the same as being told ‘you are resilient.’

How current LLM character training techniques best analogize with human psychological development is unclear but if we want to make use of those analogies, they should be correct.

(Public health physician with a longstanding interest in developmental psychology.)