What is social intelligence and why is it worth developing it

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The ability to connect with people is just as important as a sharp mind.

What is social intelligence and what is its peculiarity

Social intelligence is knowledge, skills and abilities that help a person to successfully interact with others. The ability to understand the behavior of other people and your own, to act according to circumstances - these are the components of this concept.

This concept itself is broader than what is called emotional intelligence, which is understood as the ability to manage your emotions and empathize with other people. Rather, such a skill can be considered a component of social intelligence, since the ability to empathy - to recognize one's own and other people's feelings - is an important part of communication.

Social intelligence is weakly associated with the general mental development of a person. When we interact with others, we inevitably value them and ourselves. However, people usually do not understand the criteria of these assessments, and when they try to formulate, the assessment itself changes. Thus, intuition and personal qualities are of great importance in social intelligence.

In fact, social intelligence is an indicator of how much a person understands people and everyday situations. In ordinary life, such skills are called tact and common sense. However, there is no generally accepted definition of social intelligence, and its structure and place in the human mind have not yet been fully developed. For example, some interpretations also include the ability to evaluate oneself from the outside.

The concept of social intelligence as the ability to understand people dates back to 1920. The then President of the American Psychological Association (APA) Edward Lee Thorndike used Thorndike E. L. Intelligence and its uses. Harper's Magazine, along with two other types of intelligence:

• mechanical, or technical (the ability to handle objects and equipment);
• abstract (the ability to understand ideas and symbols).

Thorndike also considered Thorndike E. L. Intelligence and its uses. Harper's Magazine social intelligence is the key to success in life and meaningful behavior in situations where you need to make a healthy decision.

Later this idea was developed by Gordon Allport, who developed the theory of personality traits, Joy Guilford, who created a model of the structure of intelligence, and Hans Eysenck, the author of the factor theory of personality structure.

The social intelligence hypothesis has become the basis for many entertaining concepts. Robert Strenberg's theory of investment creativity, for example, says that creative people invest in an idea that, once developed, will pay dividends to them in the future.

Why is developed social intelligence useful?

Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Psychology Dmitry Ushakov writes that in the modern world the division of labor is growing more and more, and therefore, achievements from individual ones are increasingly turning into collective ones. And in order to achieve success, today it is no longer enough to be just a professional in your field. You also need to be able to maintain connections with people, promote your ideas in society, and not just create them. For example, not be afraid to put forward bold proposals and be able to explain complex things in simple words. In this regard, social intelligence becomes an important element of self-realization.

In fact, this means that the inability to maintain social contacts negates even the sharpest mind. Great examples of such personalities are Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory or Sherlock Holmes from Sherlock.

There is also an opinion that the higher our level of social intelligence, the more objective we are in relation to ourselves and others.

Thus, a person with a high level of social intelligence is one who can maintain a conversation with anyone, is tactful and competently chooses words, knows how to listen, understands formal and informal roles. He is also good at detecting the real motives of other people and "picking the keys" to different types of personalities.

People with developed social skills feel more confident, know what they want out of life, and more easily endure the blows of life. This is largely facilitated by the fact that they do not experience difficulties in communication and easily establish social ties.

How to develop social intelligence

To assess the level of social intelligence, the test developed by Joy Guilford is most often used. After passing it, you will understand whether you need to develop your communication skills and what work you have to do.

In general, a person develops social intelligence skills throughout his life from the experience of communication, success and failure. The period of childhood is especially important in this regard. A large investment of energy in the study of abstract and distant disciplines (for example, algebra) at a young age can lead to the fact that the child does not develop skills for communication with peers. This may make it difficult for him to find friends, and may become a target of ridicule.

Informal (extracurricular) communication with adults and role-playing games with peers (“daughters-mothers,” for example) are considered useful for the development of social intelligence in children under 7–8 years of age.

If you didn’t become sociable as a child, don’t despair. As well as general intellectual level (IQ), you can improve your social intelligence (SQ). However, for this you have to change your behavior and attitude towards the environment, which will require a lot of effort.

To get started, just take a closer look at those with whom you communicate. Learn to listen and, most importantly, understand what is being said to you, as well as form your own opinion about it. Work on your speaking skills. To do this, analyze words, facial expressions and gestures (your own and those of your interlocutors), work on mistakes, find those whom you can consider as an example for yourself. It will not be superfluous to work on your emotional intelligence.

Also try to get more social experience. Try to notice how you behave in certain situations and how you can fix what you are not happy with. For example, learn how to deal with anxiety if the anticipation of any more or less important conversation makes you shiver. Analyzing your own successes and failures is your best assistant in this matter.

Not everyone is obliged to have a highly developed social intelligence. We are all different: someone loves to be in the spotlight, and someone prefers to keep contact with people to a minimum. Nevertheless, certain social skills like the ability to explain and listen, react to obvious falsehoods and lies are useful in personal relationships, and at work, and in society.