Applied Social Intelligence

It may be tempting to think of a socially intelligent person as

someone who knows how to organise and act at parties. Perhaps you

associate the term ‘social intelligence’ with the wisdom in Dale

Carnegie’s classic self-help tome, How to win Friends and Influence

People. While this wisdom still applies today, more recent research

in this field has greatly expanded our understanding of social

intelligence.

So what is social intelligence?

As early as 1920, EL Thorndike (cited in Kinga and Istvan, 2012)

defined social intelligence as the ability to understand and act wisely

in human relations.

Our social intelligence pertains to our interpersonal relations and

is comprised mainly of two components:

• Social awareness – what we sense about ourselves and

  others.

• Social facility – our expression of/reactions to these

  observations.

The first component, social awareness, consists of primal

empathy, attunement, empathic accuracy and social cognition; whereas the

second, social facility, is made up of synchrony,

self-presentation, influence, and concern (Goleman, 2006).

Zirkel (2000) operates from the premise that social intelligence is

closely related to personality and behaviour. Those with social

intelligence are fully self-aware and also understand their environment.

This enables them to control their emotions and make insightful

decisions about their goals in life. Zirkel’s model centres on the term

‘purposive behaviour’ – deliberate action taken after the evaluation of

one’s environment, opportunities, risks and goals.

So, what do we do with this social intelligence

then?

Social intelligence is useful in many ways. It assists in the

creation of a sense of identity for the individual, it emphasises

self-management and interpersonal skills, and it focuses on thinking and

resultant behaviour within social contexts.

Furtner, Rauthmann and Sachse (2010) have shown that social

sensitivity and emotional expressivity are important, whereas emotional

regulation seems of negligible importance, to self-leaders. Yet

self-leaders are especially effective in regulating their thought and

behaviour patterns. It seems, then, that social sensitivity and

emotional expressivity create regulated emotions – so that it is not

necessary for the socially intelligent to consciously work on

controlling their emotions.

This does not mean, however, that you should leave your emotions to

regulate themselves. Becoming a self-leader does not happen overnight.

Eventually, you will regulate your emotion so effortlessly that you

won’t even have to think about it but, for now, you must consciously

work on it. You must also practise being appropriately expressive,

sensitive and reactive to your social environment (i.e. external

orientation, interpersonal views). Self-leaders get ahead in life

because they are socially intelligent and emotionally expressive in

interpersonal situations.

Interestingly, Sorjonen, Hemmingsson, Lundin and Melin (2011) have

found that people accustomed to a high societal standing tend to be more

socially intelligent and educated than those used to a lesser social

status. This becomes particularly evident during times of social

repositioning. This jarring discovery appears to lay waste to the claim

that hard work and the quest to be deserving of merit are not the sole

factors determining human achievement. To overcome our societal

inequalities, we must build social skills and the ability to interact

with people at higher levels in society. We all respond more positively

to socially intelligent people. Becoming socially intelligent will

afford you more opportunities to get ahead in life.

This begs the question:

“How do socially intelligent people behave?”

In the search for an answer to this question, certain experiments

were done with chat robots. These experiments found that, when the

robots gave positive feedback in conversations, people perceived them to

be friendlier. Furthermore, mimicry on the part of the robots increased

people’s perception of them as intelligent (Kaptein, Markopoulos, Ruyter

and Aarts, 2011).

Some obvious conclusions may be drawn from these findings. When you

are friendly and give compliments, others will feel more positive toward

you. You also sound smarter when you listen to and work with the ideas

of other people. It is always important to operate with the other

person’s point of view in mind when you are attempting to direct an

outcome. When you behave in a socially intelligent manner, you are more

likely to get an acceptable outcome for both parties.

Hampel, Weis, Hiller and Witthoff (2011) have contributed to this

changing perspective by showing that being more anxious decreases your

social perception and memory. So, if you want to remember the

conversation and the names of the people, be less stressed about it.

This allows you to start more meaningful conversations that increase

your likelihood of remembering what is happening. This applies to more

than just names – in general, people will pick up on your anxiety and

this will affect the outcomes of interactions.

Implications for performance management

Another shocking discovery in this field relates to the ideas of

praise as reward, and reward as incentive. It has been generally

accepted that reward is an important part of social interaction; that

you should liberally dole it out if you want other people to do what you

want them to do. Increasingly, however, research is testing this

assumption. As it turns out, the use of extrinsic motivation/rewards to

foster ‘desired’ behaviours is, more often than not,

counter-productive.

Deci and Moller (2005) draw on a range of studies in observing that

people who receive extrinsic rewards for performing certain tasks are

actually less inclined to perform those tasks than people who do not

receive such rewards. Reward has repeatedly been shown to undermine

intrinsic motivation and diminish people’s sense of self-determination

and autonomy. By contrast, the use of other positive feedback has been

found to enhance engagement in tasks.

This research clearly highlights the dangers of simply assuming that

generic praise and rewards build teams and improve teamwork. A

thoughtful approach is needed in the use of praise and rewards lest they

create division.

This has massive implications for performance management systems and

may explain, finally, why they often fail and why values-based

organisations are more successful than those with structured job

descriptions. It also clarifies why people tend to disengage from

conversations focused on money or external rewards, viewing them as

lip-service designed to placate them. Understanding what drives people

allows us to employ social intelligence in the workplace and direct the

efforts of staff and the organisation as a whole.

Keating, Harper and Glew (2011) suggest a framework for reflecting on

how social intelligence can be used to remove toxic elements from a

workplace. This starts with self-reflection around areas such as

empathy, and looking at how each of us as a leader acts and reacts in

the workplace.

Empathy

• Do you understand what motivates other people, even those from

  different backgrounds?

• Are you sensitive to others’ needs?

Attunement

• Are you attuned to others’ moods?

• Do you listen attentively and think about how others

  feel?

Organisational awareness

• Do you appreciate the culture and values of the group or

  organisation?

• Do you understand social networks and know their unspoken

  norms?

Influence

• Do you persuade others by engaging them in discussion and

  appealing to their self-interest?

• Do you get support from key people?

Developing others

• Do you coach and mentor others with compassion, and personally

  invest time and energy in mentoring?

• Do you provide feedback that people find helpful for their

  professional development?

Inspiration

• Do you articulate a compelling vision, build group pride, and

  foster a positive emotional tone?

• Do you lead by bringing out the best in people?

Teamwork

• Do you solicit input from everyone on the team?

• Do you support all team members and encourage

  cooperation?

Social intelligence and intercultural

interactions

Wawra (2009) shows that social intelligence is also critical in

intercultural situations. Social neuroscience demonstrates the

importance of non-verbal communication and emotions for satisfying human

interactions in general. Emotions are more crucial in communication

encounters where the participants do not share the same cultural

background.

Culture makes it more difficult to interpret the other person’s

non-verbal communication and emotions correctly. In an intercultural

encounter – just like in any other interaction between humans – we can

trigger emotions in our conversation and vice versa through our verbal

and, above all, non-verbal behaviour, without being aware of it. Yet

those emotions may unintentionally influence the outcome of such

interactions. In the end, it depends to a great extent on our emotions

whether the outcomes of intercultural negotiations will be perceived as

successful or not. When negative emotions outweigh positive ones, this

will usually result in unsuccessful, unsatisfying and unrewarding

encounters. But the more that positive emotions outweigh negative ones,

the more successful, satisfying and rewarding intercultural

communication will be.

An important contribution of social neuroscience to intercultural

communication research is its revelation that emotions are much more

important in intercultural encounters than has been recognised so far.

Emotions are at the heart of intercultural negotiations and are not a

peripheral aspect. With more businesses now embracing cultural

diversity, it is an important time to become educated on how to be more

culturally aware.

Conclusion

All of these tools and strategies apply to the workplace, where

having ‘virtual’ meetings from behind computers, with many distractions,

diminishes productivity as it is a method by which to hide behind our

own social fears.

The process of becoming more socially intelligent involves

investigating what motivates, drives and influences people. Consulting

the volumes of literature on the topic is a great place to start. Here,

you will find valuable insights into what motivates people and may

challenge some of your traditional conceptions of what applies to

management.

Once you get to understand others and yourself better, you can start

shaping your own social intelligence and use this competency to achieve

your individual goals as well as those of the collective.

References

Deci, E.L. and Moller, A.C. 2005, ‘The concept of competence: A

starting place for understanding intrinsic motivation and

self-determined extrinsic motivation’, in Elliot, A.J. and Dweck, C.S.

(Eds.), Handbook of Competence and Motivation, New York, NY:

The Guilford Press, pp. 579–597.

Elliot, A.J. and Dweck, C.S. (Eds.), Handbook of Competence and

Motivation, New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Furtner, M., Rauthmann, J. and Sachse, P. 2010, ‘The socioemotionally

intelligent self-leader: examining relations between self-leadership and

socioemotional intelligence’, Social Behavior & Personality: An

International Journal, 38(9), 1191-1196.

Goleman, D. 2006, Social Intelligence, the New Science of Human

Relationship, London: Hutchison.

Hampel, S., Weis, S., Hiller, W. and Witthöft, M. 2011, ‘The

relations between social anxiety and social intelligence: A latent

variable analysis’, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 25(4),

545-553.

Kaptein, M., Markopoulos, P., Ruyter, B. and Aarts, E. 2011, ‘Two

acts of social intelligence: the effects of mimicry and social praise on

the evaluation of an artificial agent’, AI & Society,

26(3), 261-273.

Keating, R., Harper, S. and Glew, D. 2013, ‘Emotional intelligence

dilutes the toxins. (Cover story)’, Industrial Engineer: IE,

45(6), 30-35.

Kinga, S. and István, S. 2012, ‘Relationship between social

creativity and social intelligence, and their cognitive correlates’,

Transylvanian Journal of Psychology, 13(1), 39-62.

Sorjonen, K., Hemmingsson, T., Lundin, A. and Melin, B. 2011, ‘How

social position of origin relates to intelligence and level of education

when adjusting for attained social position’, Scandinavian Journal

of Psychology, 52(3), 277-281.

Wawra, D. 2009, ‘Social intelligence’, European Journal of

English Studies, 13(2), 163-177.

Zirkel, S. 2000, Social Intelligence: The Development and

Maintenance of Purposive Behavior. The Handbook of Emotional

Intelligence, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.