Chapter 28 - Social Intelligence

Summary

Defining social intelligence seems easy enough, especially by analogy to abstract intelligence. After an initial burst of interest in the George Washington Social Intelligence Test (GWSIT), work on the assessment and correlates of social intelligence fell off sharply until the 1960s, when this line of research was revived within the context of Guilford's Structure of Intellect model of intelligence. Social intelligence played little role in Sternberg's early componential view of human intelligence. Social intelligence has always played a role in the assessment of mental retardation, autistic spectrum disorders, and moral reasoning. Although the social intelligence view of personality diverges from the psychometric approach to social intelligence on the matter of assessment, it agrees with some contemporary psychometric views that intelligence is context-specific. Social intelligence is part of a larger repertoire of knowledge by which the person attempts to solve the practical problems encountered in the physical and social world.