Social intelligence

Capacity to know oneself and to know others
Social intelligence is the ability to understand one's own and others' actions. Social intelligence is learned and develops from experience with people and learning from success and failures in social settings. It is an important interpersonal skill that helps individuals succeed in all aspects of their lives.

The original definition of social intelligence (by Edward Thorndike in 1920) is "the ability to understand and manage men and women and boys and girls, to act wisely in human relations". It is thus equivalent to interpersonal intelligence, one of the types of intelligence identified in Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, and closely related to theory of mind. Social scientist Ross Honeywill postulates that social intelligence is an aggregated measure of self and social awareness, evolved social beliefs and attitudes, and a capacity and appetite to manage complex social change. Neuropsychologist Nicholas Humphrey believes that social intelligence defines who we are as humans. An updated definition coined by Nancy Cantor and John F. Kihlstrom in 1987 is “the individual's fund of knowledge about the social world." In 2006 Eleni Andreou described social intelligence as being similar to "social skills and competence". Social intelligence and interpersonal intelligence were previously believed to be closely related, however, the subjects diverged into two distinct fields of study. Other authors restricted the definition to concern only knowledge of social situations, perhaps more properly called social cognition (or social marketing intelligence, as it pertains to trending socio psychological advertising and marketing strategies and tactics). According to Sean Foleno, social intelligence is a person's competence to optimally understand one's environment and react appropriately for socially successful conduct. These multiple definitions demonstrate a lack of consensus on the operational definition of social intelligence. In psychology, Social Intelligence is a critical subset of human intelligence centered around two core components: social awareness and social facility. Social cognition refers to the capacity to understand and empathize with others’ emotions and perspectives, while social facility pertains to the ability to behave effectively in social situations.

The social intelligence quotient (SQ) is a statistical abstraction, similar to the ‘standard score’ approach used in IQ tests, with a mean of 100. Scores of 140 or above are considered to be very high. Unlike the standard IQ test, it is not a fixed model. It leans more toward Jean Piaget's theory that intelligence is not a fixed attribute, but a complex hierarchy of information processing skills underlying an adaptive equilibrium between the individual and the environment. Therefore, an individual can change their SQ by altering their attitudes and behavior in response to their social environment. Since people with low SQ scores may not have skills necessary to communicate with customers and/or co workers, they are most successful with minimal customer interaction, smaller groups, or independent work. People with SQs over 120 are considered socially skilled, and may work exceptionally well in jobs that involve direct contact and communication with other people. The George Washington University Social Intelligence Test is one of the only ability measures available for assessing social intelligence. It was created in June 1928 by Dr. Thelma Hunt, a psychologist from George Washington University. It was originally proposed as a measurement of a person's capacity to deal with people and social relationships. The test assesses social abilities like observing human behavior, social situation judgement, name & face memory, and theory of mind from facial expressions.

Social intelligence is closely related to cognition and emotional intelligence. Research psychologists studying social cognition and social neuroscience have discovered many principles in which human social intelligence operates. Psychologists Nancy Cantor and John Kihlstrom outlined the kinds of concepts people use to make sense of their social relations (e. g., "What situation am I in?, What kind of person is this?, Who is talking to me? "), the rules they use to draw inferences ("What did he mean by that?") and plan actions ("What am I going to do about it?"). More recently, popular science writer Daniel Goleman has drawn on social neuroscience research to propose that social intelligence is made up of social awareness (including empathy, attunement, empathic accuracy, and social cognition) and social facility (including synchrony, self presentation, influence, and concern). Goleman's research indicates that our social relationships effect our physical health, and the deeper the relationship the deeper the impact. Effects include blood flow, breathing, mood such as fatigue and depression, and weakening of the immune system. J. P. Guilford was the first researcher to approach the problem of social intelligence from the measurement viewpoint. He developed a test of social intelligence, and suggested that the social intelligence is a unit that does not depend on common intellectual factor, but relates to the comprehension of behavioral information.