social intelligence
Typical characteristics of people with low social skills
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Most people are capable of successfully interacting and attuning to those around them. However, not everyone succeeds equally well. You can read here how you can recognize people with comparatively low social intelligence.
As social beings, people are highly dependent on communicating with other people, understanding and coming to terms with them. In this respect, most individuals have the ability to achieve these things – but it is not equally pronounced in all people.
In the 1920s, the American psychologist Edward Lee Thorndike was one of the first to use the concept of social Intelligence used to describe how successful, adept, and wise an individual is in dealing with those around him. In the 2000s, Daniel Goleman, also a psychologist and science writer, wrote a book called “Social Intelligence,” which continues to shape our understanding of the term today.
While socially intelligent people usually don’t attract attention when we are together or we find them to be more pleasant and likeable, people with a low level of social skills can stand out here and there – for example with the following characteristics.
Characteristics of people with low social intelligence
1. You are not listening properly.
For many people with a comparatively low social intelligence, this is related to a low level of interest in their fellow human beings – and the associated inability to listen carefully. Those affected are usually above-average self-centered, their thoughts and feelings revolve mainly around themselves. In order to take in how others are doing and what they have to say, people with low social skills often lack the necessary mental capacity and patience in addition to their interest .
Anyone who repeatedly looks at their mobile phone during a conversation or points to the next table or other signs of being distracted, who frequently interrupts to talk about themselves, or who does not respond to any questions or reactions to what has been said, thus fulfills clear criteria of a poor listener – and shows a typical feature of low social intelligence.
2. They are not aware and are not ashamed when they behave inappropriately.
Social intelligence enables us, among other things, to perceive non-verbal signals and to sense the mood and feelings of our fellow human beings. People with low social skills usually have a hard time with it. As a result, those affected often do not notice when, for example, they talk too much or behave inappropriately in some other way. They joke at the wrong moments and then get angry at the others and their lack of a sense of humor when no one is laughing – instead of feeling ashamed and questioning themselves.
3. You are easily offended.
People with low social intelligence often only have a weak awareness of the fact that different people have different interests and perspectives and that this is one of the reasons why things don’t always go according to their ideas. If they cannot get their way, they feel disadvantaged, if someone doesn’t agree with them, they see it as a personal attack.
Socially marginally intelligent people usually live with the basic feeling that other people want them badly and are more hostile and competitive towards them than in solidarity and humanity. Because of this, they tend to be suspicious and quick to react very emotionally.
4. For them there is only black and white.
While as humans we need to draw boundaries and use categories to organize our thinking and imagination, as a species we exemplify one of life’s principles of success: diversity. As individuals, we not only differ in our hair color, size and smell, but also in what we like, what word we choose for a wire-haired dachshund, why we cry or laugh and who we love – and tomorrow we can in all these points suddenly tick differently than the day before yesterday. We are diverse and changeable in so many ways that we constantly remind ourselves that our categories can only be dynamic entities with no sharp boundaries that we are best ever willing to expand.
People with low social intelligence usually do not see this diversity and changeability. They are usually very radical in their judgments and vehemently stick to their categories. Again, this is one reason they have trouble compromising and genuinely caring about those around them.
Sources used: Spektrum.de, soft-skills.com, blog-neuronation.com, hackspirit.com