Social intelligence

There are various types of intelligence, hence, the Theory of multiple intelligences. Living in a society in which special skills - in particular social abilities - are needed to build and maintain the community, humans have evolved specific competencies to allow them to survive and reproduce. As society became more complex, these intellectual competences became more sophisticated. This competence is social intelligence and can be defined as the intelligence that lies behind group interactions and behaviours. This type of intelligence is closely related to cognition and emotional intelligence, and can also be seen as a first level in developing systems intelligence. One specific interest in studying social intelligence is in applying it to robotic systems and artificial animals (commonly known as 'animats' and 'agents'). The discipline of social intelligence enhances the field of artificial intelligence with a variety of theories from system theory, adaptive systems, simulation, game theory, biologically inspired algorithms, software agents, etc. Application examples of social intelligence are social robots, the swarm intelligence paradigm, action selection and the foraging procedure.

More generally, research psychologists studying social cognition and social neuroscience have discovered many of the principles according to which human social intelligence operates. In early work on this topic, 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 and what kind of person is this who is talking to me?”), and the rules they use to draw inferences (“What did he mean by that?”) and plan actions (“What am I going to do about it?”)

In 2005, business writer Karl Albrecht proposed a five-part model of social intelligence in his book Social Intelligence: the New Science of Success, presented with the acronym "S.P.A.C.E." - 1) Situational Awareness, 2) Presence, 3) Authenticity, 4) Clarity, and 5) Empathy.

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).

Psychotherapy often involves helping people to modify their patterns of social intelligence, particularly those that cause them problems in their interpersonal relations. Some efforts are also underway to use computer-based interventions to help people develop their own social intelligence. Paul Ekman, for example, has created the MicroExpression Training Tool, to allow people to practice identifying the brief emotional expressions that flit across people’s faces. The website MindHabits.com offers a research-based software program with which people learn to modify their mind habits, focusing attention on positive social feedback and inhibiting attention to the social threats and rejections that can cause stress. Other interventions, for example to help autistic individuals develop social perception and interaction skills, are also in development.