“Where does it come from that some people are nicer than others?
Is it something artificial or natural?
I think that obviously, the first moments when we understand what is nice means is maybe when we are small, when we are small children.
Yeah.
We relate to other people that are like us.
And we start to realize that some people, even if they are small human beings, they are not nice.
Like I don’t think that being nice is something that we are born with.
It’s also a matter of our personal character, but it’s also a matter of education.
I think I was very lucky with my family because they tried…
Like they are people that aimed to have an happy life, just a normal happy life with a good family, like simple life, not extra ambitious life.
And when growing up, they taught me this, that to be happy doesn’t mean that you have to reach the top.
Maybe you reach the middle of the stair, but if you reach that middle and you still are true to yourself, then it is a happy life.
And when I grew up and I started relating to people of my age, also in my teenage years, I sometimes had difficulties to relate to them, to a lot of stuff.
Like also with girls, I had maybe a bit of difficulties to relating to what they were doing in their teenage years.
And I always tried to be nice to them and none of them was nice to me.
And then in that moment, maybe I thought to myself that I was wrong, maybe I should be like them, I should be a little less nice and just behave like them.
A bit more bitchy.
A bit more bitchy, yes, because it was easier.
Because if I was like that, then I could relate more to them, I could do the stuff that they…
And this created a lot of hurt within me because I was just a teenager, an insecure teenager, so I didn’t know how I had to behave in society.
But then I also was lucky enough to find friends that were like me.
So maybe we were the underdogs, you know, we were not like the others, but we were nice to each other and that was it.
But I don’t think that you are born nice or not nice, it also depends on the context where you grow up.
So you say it also depends.
So just to clarify, do you think there is a bit a part of being born like this or not?
And then education makes the most of it?
Or do you think that there is only education and not at all the role of genetics?
No, I think the most part is education and relations to your…
Not necessarily to your family because then you detach from it, but the relations with your group of pairs, for people of your age.
But then, yeah, maybe there are some people that are most likely to be nice when they are born and some people that are not.
But yeah, definitely I think the most comes from society.
Yeah.
And so why do you think it would be important to bring more kindness in the workplace, in academia or in politics or whatever work?
Well, if we think about academia, we all know that is a bit of a toxic environment.
Like we are very happy to do this career.
I mean, it’s the best because we love doing research and we can do it in this environment.
But at the same time, we have a lot of pressure on ourselves to perform, to be great in what we do, even if it’s our first experience in doing it, because we are just learning how to do research.
And if we are hopefully going to become professors, I think a professor should teach his students something.
And this might be every discipline on the world, politics, international relations, political philosophy, what you want.
But in the end, even if you are talking to students, you are also talking with people that may be facing issues in their life.
So when I think of myself as a professor in the future, I hope that I can be a person that my students can rely on, not just for just doing a lecture and going home.
And that’s it.
So I think kindness in academia is important for this to educate also our students, that it’s possible to reach that level of ambition and become a professor, which is a high achievement in your career, but also doing it without compromising your values as a person.
So it’s not true that every professor is not replying to you or that is maybe angry all the time or is not available.
Maybe there are also, unfortunately, there are also people that are like this.
So the reason it’s true that you can do it.
And do you think in other sectors and academia also that would be better to bring?
Yeah, definitely.
Because I know, because cybersecurity is a field that also covers the corporate sector.
I know a lot of young professionals that do corporate jobs.
And every time they tell me that everyone is so angry all the time and rude.
Maybe you do a job for the first time and they don’t tell you, look, this job, it’s nice because but it has some problems and you should fix this.
You can improve this.
You can change this.
They just destroy what you’re doing.
And I ask myself, is this really helpful in making the job better or does it create anxiety, stress, and also like you are not liking the job that you do because you know that you are going to be offended by someone that is on the top position.
So I don’t think it’s productive in terms of work.
Also, think of, I don’t know, everyone I think in our experience had at one point of their life a professor that was not so nice.
No, it happened to me during my bachelor back in Florence.
I was doing my first exam in political science, which is now a topic that I love.
And I was doing this exam with this professor who is a very renowned professor.
And obviously I was super nervous because it was my first oral exam at university.
And I remember he asked me something about elections in Italy, how the system works.
And I panicked because I remember I could not understand this proportional system of elections in Italy.
And he told me, you should go back to elementary school.
And it is clear that your parents are like stupid people.
Oh gosh, that’s terrible.
It’s terrible.
And I remember I went home and I started crying and I wanted to give up university because it’s not like, how is this encouraging me to study better for that topic?
And you have to realize that this is a 65 old man telling this to a 20, no 19 years young woman who is just trying to understand what she wants to do with her life.
And now I am a PhD student.
So I think that I have reached the confidence to understand that I can do research.
But back in the day, I was like, why can this professor not be nice to me?
Even if I am not doing the job and I was not good in that oral exam, it’s clear because I was too insecure.
But at the same time, why?
What’s the point of saying to someone, breaking them like this?
Like it’s not even going to help.
It’s not even going to encourage you to study more or something, the total opposite.
“