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Dear Readers, This week, I discuss social intelligence. This week’s Trio-of Thoughts: Aphorism or quote: In just a few short words, we are triggered to think deeply and philosophically about our lives. This week’s lesson. Activities for the week to improve your critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and free thinking power.
THOUGHT 1 AN APHORISM ABOUT THIS WEEK’S LESSON “Social intelligence is the ability to recognise and understand the emotions of others and ourselves, and to guide our social interactions accordingly.”
— Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships (2006)
THOUGHT 2 SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE Social intelligence is the degree to which one is conscious enough to observe, interpret, evaluate, and respond to social patterns. It involves the ability to know oneself and others and use that knowledge to operate socially. If you can recognise social patterns as data and information, you can apply what you see as knowledge to help you make well-thought-out decisions. Over time—and I believe time is very necessary, as nothing good can be done fast—you will learn to refine this process. It will become an automatic and exquisite cognitive skill. A process that can help you is what I call ‘The Method: observe > interpret > evaluate > apply’. The whole cycle should be practised with reflexivity—repeat it often, and over time, you’ll refine your skill. Reflexivity means recognising how your personal history and emotional biases shape the way you interpret any situation. It’s the act of pausing to ask yourself, “How are my past experiences or feelings influencing what I see here?” As you begin to practise The Method better and better, you can, with sophistication, comprehend the unspoken rules of any setting—home, work or community—helping you to adapt your behaviour, or adapt your environment, to achieve your goals. In order to succeed in any environment, you need to understand it first. Some people may think this is too dry and inhuman to view social interactions as data, and the language I use will not suit everyone. Perhaps it is true that I could come up with something better and more universally relatable, but for now, I can only share where I am in my journey of understanding. To expect all human ideas to match your cognitive style or life-positioning is futile in every sense. It is up to the individual to decide which information they read is useful for them to apply in their life. That in itself is critical analysis. The approach needs to fit—although you need to be open to new ways if your strategies are ineffective, or at least make sure to refine them. The Duality of Duality vs Non-Duality Social phenomena have a dual and non-dual persona. Non-dualists don’t like this very much, and dualists don’t like the non-dual explanation very much! It is better to think non-dually in this case, as duality and non-duality both have their place. By using The Method, I am thinking deeply about the meaning of human experience almost every time. I think about its duality and its non-duality. I had to do this or I would have caved in to my emotional vulnerabilities. Over time, this practice has made me not only able to recognise when to use logical intelligence but also to develop a depth of emotional intelligence which serves me consistently, both internally and externally. You should subjectively aim to develop confidence in the dual skills of logic and emotion. I do not believe there is any other way. It is a dynamic spectrum (non-duality) but also duality (right and wrong): yin and yang, chaos and order, good and bad, life and death. While non-duality offers a profound liberation in the non-division of all things, in the practical sense, we do need a way to make sense of and apply actions for everyday life. For example, if nothing is distinct or “non-dual,” how will you decide what to eat, whom to trust, and when to rest? However, when we are too rigid, we focus on what is totally right and totally wrong. When lines are far too rigid, we lose sense of the complexity of the transient human experience. Ultimately, both non-dual and dual thinking matter: Dualistic level for everyday social life, so you can think, plan, name, judge, and act. Non-dual level for internal philosophical and spiritual insight, so you can see the deeper unity behind all those judgements and avoid getting stuck in rigid, polarised thinking.
Subjective Awareness As your social intelligence activist, I advocate that you need to learn subjectively why you are and why you think the way you do. So many factors reduce the potential for social intelligence. Mainly, it is the degree to which we believe or hold on to ideas that are either incorrect or unhelpful. We must know how to assess the reliability of information and apply it in a useful way. Our brains store almost every event we have ever experienced in our (un)consciousness. This includes all of our experiences—good and especially bad—and our unexplored insecurities lie dormant until triggered by some external experience. In my work, I teach people to evaluate how their choices affect—and are affected by—their environment, and through this process, we identify what internal biological factors may contribute to these choices. Usually, these dormant stored emotions are triggered in us by engaging with others in our social setting. This triggering is usually the only way we can be alerted to an internal problem. We now know that something requires attention. Our social health is dependent on our ability to attend to our internal health. I advocate for the use of social triggers to alert you to attend to yourself. Analyse the feeling and emotion behind it; think about whether it is something you need to work through for your benefit or if you need to adjust the environment. *If you are unable to self-manage the trigger and if you think you are experiencing a mental health risk, please seek professional help. My approach is to get you to think about all of these factors, understand them about yourself, and then begin the real power you have to make high-level, self-beneficial social decisions. Strong social decisions increase your psychological health, and psychological health increases your social decisions. This is the real social power. You may apply these skills in different scenarios and spaces. For example, you might use a different set of rules to be socially effective at work than the rules you use to be effective at home. Many things block social awareness—environment and culture, politics, education, personality, biology, health, etc. These factors all contribute to our biases and influence what we “see” and what we “can’t see.” Assessing ourselves as well as assessing our environments is equally important. Patterns Through Narratives With time, I’ve learned that the fastest way to “figure things out” is by observing social patterns closely: people’s stories and the bio-psycho-social outcomes of their repeated actions. Those actions shape bodies, minds, and environments for better or worse. Usually, it takes years of careful attention before you can turn those patterns into reliable data to guide wise decisions. Children, of course, lack that maturity; they depend on parents who can assess the world intelligently. When parents pass on their own biases and flawed thinking, those patterns simply repeat generation after generation—until someone intervenes. The less experienced you are at recognising patterns, how they interconnect, and what they may mean, the less likely you are to make socially effective decisions. It is simple logic: the more experience you have, the better you will be. That is also relevant to the act of thinking! When you’re young or inexperienced, you are naïve. You lack the longitudinal data to discern patterns, processes, causes, and effects—that’s why we rely on the wisdom of those who’ve lived longer. Everyone is capable of social intelligence, and you can start by observing and reflecting on: Is someone wealthy but unhappy and unhealthy? Do they enjoy good health and happiness but struggle financially? Are they clever and successful in one social setting but terrible in another?
Thinking about why will sophisticate your understanding of how social dynamics work. This is social intelligence practice. So, I suggest you try to practise The Method as you see things that you are interested in thinking about. Observe > Interpret > Evaluate > Apply And don’t forget the Three R’s: Reflexive. Repeat. Refine. Be thoughtful as you reflect on ideas and social phenomena. Please remember to relax. There is nothing worse for you than rigidity. THOUGHT 3: ACTIVITY Practice The Method and work through the reflective questions I provided in the body of the lesson today. Read through the references below, and please explore one of these books at the very least to learn about social intelligence from the perspective of those who study it. Readings If you want to read more on the idea of social intelligence, here are some formalised academic references as a start from my end. At the same time, remember, you can contribute knowledge and simultaneously come to your own innovative conclusions about the/your social world. You have plenty of social experience (data) to draw from. Daniel Goleman (2006) In Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, Goleman synthesised decades of neuroscience and psychology to show how our brains process social interactions, empathy, and rapport-building.
Howard Gardner (1983) In Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Gardner identified interpersonal intelligence, very close to social intelligence, as one of the core human capacities for navigating relationships.
Edward L. Thorndike (1920) First coined the term “social intelligence” in his paper “Intelligence and Its Uses,” defining it as the capacity to understand and manage people. Click here for paper: ‘Intelligence and Its Uses’.
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