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Character Education
Book Review: "Social Intelligence," by Daniel Goleman
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Daniel Goleman is best known for his bestselling and groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence. In that book, Goleman maintained that there was a set of traits—“some may call it character”—that set some people apart from others and allowed them to achieve more professionally and personally. This was “emotional intelligence”. It had to do with relating well to other people, having the social skills and self-control to enlist others’ aid and support and hence to perform optimally where technical expertise and intelligence quotients fell short.
Social Intelligence is, of course, closely related to emotional intelligence. Its main distinction from Emotional Intelligence is, as Goleman states, is that in 1995, when Emotional Intelligence was published, brain research had not reached the acmes of understanding it has now reached. What was more, whereas emotional intelligence dealt mainly with the personal, social intelligence deals with the interpersonal—that fascinating array of interactions with others that affects how we feel mentally, emotionally, and even physically. It also affects how teachers are able to motivate students, employers, workers, how marriages can be sources of nurturance and mutual support and how to raise children in a family.
Modern brain research supports the thesis that humans are social beings, hard-wired to live and work together, and that those who possess, develop and employ the skills needed to bond with others are those who will prosper in health, wealth, happiness, and effectiveness. Goleman says that brain research suggests that people “catch” emotions from one another—emotions are transmitted brain to brain through subtleties of expression, speech and mood and that we affect one another more than we know, even alterating the very structure of the brain and our physiological responses and health in long-term relationships. Thus the study of social intelligence is enormously important.
The first example Goleman gives of social intelligence is that of a group of American soldiers in Iraq paying a visit to a cleric to enlist his aid in distributing relief supplies. The local populace feared the well-armed soldiers. They were afraid they were going to arrest their cleric or profane their mosque. A mob quickly surrounded the soldiers. One can imagine what would have happened should a soldier, threatened by a gesture, shot off a gun.
No one got shot and no one got hurt. In fact, the mob encounter ended amicably due, Goleman says, to the social intelligence of Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Hughes, who gauged the myriad social factors involved in record time and implemented a series of steps designed to defuse the situation: he ordered his men to kneel on one knee, point their weapons at the ground, and—most importantly—smile. Since a smile is a universal expression of friendliness, the confused Iraqi people began to smile back. The reverential posture and the signal that the weapons were not to be used also reassured them. Some of the now peaceably departing Iraqis even dared to pat the soldiers on the back. What could have been an ugly incident of resounding personal and international repercussions turned into a positive one because of the leader’s instinctive social intelligence.
Social intelligence, says Goleman, is “interpersonal radar” coursing through neural circuits at lightning speed and affecting the neural circuits of others through even minute facial expressions. We may call it a gut level reaction, instinct, intuition or other names, but the human brain is programmed to respond to others. We are social beings, and our social interactions affect our heart rates, general well-being, and even our immune systems.
Social intelligence is significant to teachers who are trying to motivate students, employers who want to retain employees and increase production, marriage partners, parents, and everyone else who interacts with other human beings in significant ways—that is, all of us. Goleman even cites examples of how waitresses and clerks sometimes uplift their customers through social intelligence, making us feel better after having made a transaction at the supermarket than we might feel talking with a family member with whom we are in conflict.
Social intelligence is everywhere, and there is a name for the new scientific study involving brain research: social neuroscience. These are the neural dynamics of human interactions—what takes place in the brains. MRIs assist scientists in seeing which parts of the brain “light up” and how during social interactions.
For instance, the voice of an old friend will light up certain parts of the brain (and doctors now know that those with good social and familial support networks recover faster from illness or surgery than those with few or no supportive networks). A man’s brain will secrete dopamine—a feel-good pleasure chemical—when an woman he finds attractive meets his eyes.
The social brain relates to, influences, and is influenced by the internal state of the people we are with. Indeed, the brain is significantly refashioned in its neural pathways by sustained interaction with significant others. Our relationships form us—foir good ir ill, depending upon their quality.
Fortunately, for those negative personal relationships we might have, knowledge of all this provides the power to change.
Human brains are preprogrammed to interlock—a band of musicians playing well together will register more inter-brain activity than activity between the left and right lobes of their own brains. What is more, emotions spread from person to person—at times, Goleman says, like a virus. What is more, the human brain has a strong detector system for insincerity.
Knowing all this should be a spur to wanting to develop better character in order to have more positive interactions and impact the psychological and physical health of others and ourselves in a good way. Fortunately, as Aristotle said, character is developed by acting as if the traits are already there. “We become courageous by acting courageously.”
In the case of social intelligence, there are things we can learn from social neuroscience to apply to our relationships, improving them and improving ourselves at the same time. The brain, for instance, triggers a smile in someone in return for a smile. Even a picture or movie of a smiling person will trigger at least a minute change in facial muscles, the beginning of an answering smile.
People who surround themselves with happy faces at work may be on to something—as the happy faces automatically trigger a smile mechanism in the person who views them, and the smile on that person’s face triggers a smile on another, etcetera.
Good emotions also can spread like a virus, Goleman says. In fact, the brain seems predisposed to prefer and recognize people with happy faces over people with gloomy or angry ones. The brain is primed for positive interactions, making positive relationships more the norm than negative ones. Nature, says Goleman, is on the side of positive relationships.
A calm person in a tense situation can help bring about calm in others. If we cultivate calm responses to tense situations in our characters, we can become peacemakers. Social intelligence—the passing of minute messages and responses to others—will transmit what we are inside to others, having, we hope, a good effect.
Goleman points out that altruism can be “caught” from others around us. He recounts an experience he had in New York City one day, after recently completing an article on how many homeless people in New York City were actually mentally ill. His research had sensitized him to the plight of the homeless, and when he encountered an inert body of a homeless man on the subway steps, he alone, among hundreds of passersby, stopped to help. Many people simply stepped over the man’s body to catch their trains on time.
Then the miracle of social intelligence occurred. As Goleman stooped to show concern, a small group of people gathered around the unconscious man. It was as if Goleman’s compassion had given them permission to give in to their own. Within a few minutes, the man was sitting upright, eating food and water others had rushed to buy for him and waiting for an ambulance one of these Good Samaritans had arranged to have called for him.
Such is the human brain. It is so wired for good relationships with others that even witnessing an altruistic act on the part of another gives us a strong mental lift and urges us to move forward in our own altruism. This is an international phenomenon, from Jersey to Japan, where people report a deep feeling of reinforcement and joy from watching a tough and anti-social looking gang member rise to offer his seat to an elderly gentleman. Everyone witnessing such an event is moved, and moved to perform more acts of altruism themselves.
The telephone company has as its jingle “We’re all connected” and it is astoundingly true. Human beings react and respond to one another wherever one goes in the world, and with remarkable similarities.
We are socially attuned to one another, if and especially when we are not focused on ourselves. Goleman says, “Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others,m our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection—or compassionate action.”
Encouraging news for character builders—the brain, Goleman says, is “preset for kindness.” Harvard researcher Jerome Kagan, he quotes as saying, “Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy and to be rude, aggressive, or violent…they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture—especially toward those in need.”
Humankind is a “social animal”. In fact, Goleman tells us, brain studies show that our brain’s favorite default activity—what it does in its downtime—is ruminate over our relationships. Thinking about our relationships is our brain’s favorite TV show, Goleman states. When we have to turn our attention to a task that engages our mind, the TV show shuts down, only to be resumed as soon as the brain has a little down time to spare.
“Separation is the source of all anxiety,” said Erich Fromm, and Goleman concurs. We are anxious when separation or rejection looms—perhaps a remnant of the primitive brain, which knew that acceptance by others meant survival—but even though we do not need each other as desperately as we did in primitive times, we still need each other and separation or rejection hurts, badly, almost physically.
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