Social Intelligence in the Age of Digital Disconnect

by Gregory Allen Butler

Social intelligence impacts you even when you're not aware of it. You can walk into a room full of frowning people and consciously not even be aware of their expressions. But your brain picks it up and your emotional state is impacted. You inexplicably start feeling down. Or perhaps you have had a stranger make your day with just a few words of kindness. You might have been depressed for days and a few words changed it all. Words engender feelings and feelings are powerful. Feelings affect biological changes, affecting hormones, heart rate, circulation, breathing and the immune system. Interactions with others can have us feeling happy, confident and uplifted or sad, insecure and depleted.

People who are smiling are more likely to uplift our mood than those with a frown. When we smile, it helps us feel better and it helps others feel better.

I have a friend named Bob who told the story of how he was working at the registration desk at an Eastern spiritual retreat center when one day a man came in and said, "You're going to burn in Hell." Bob looked up and said, "I was having a beautiful day until you came in and said that. Why did you have to ruin it?"

Then the man realized the impact he had and he said, "I'm sorry."

To be lacking in social intelligence is to be lacking in cognizance of how our presence impacts other people, both negatively and positively.

Last night I received an e-mail from our daughter Kamilia who is going to school at the University of Maryland, telling me that she had just learned about Williams Syndrome, a rare "disorder" that about one in every 7500 people are born with. I was not familiar with it either. A one-sentence generic description of a Williams Syndrome person would be that they have a limited IQ, sometimes bordering on mental retardation, but an amazing heart quality. But a closer look will reveal that they are very good at expressing themselves with gestures. They smile. They love to hug people. They have great empathy. If they see someone crying they will cry too, as they feel other people's pain. They also have a facility with music. In short, they have a lot to teach others about social intelligence.

Social intelligence impacts each and everyone of us everyday. It determines how we interact with others, has a great bearing on our success in relationship, and it has a bearing on how successful we are in our careers. All of these have a bearing on how happy we are.

If you go to the store, there are transactions taking place beyond the buying and selling of products. There are emotional transactions. If the person waiting on you is smiling, friendly, and helpful, then a positive change will take place in your feelings. You'll feel relaxed, happy and maybe even inspired.

On the other hand, if the person helping you is frowning and grumpy, another type of emotion will be transferred to you. And you will pass it on to the next person you interact with. Emotions have a very contagious quality. And it's amazing how quickly they can affect people.

Daniel Goleman, in his recently published book, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, tells us how we are biologically wired to be social creatures. "We are wired to connect," Goleman says. "Neuroscience has discovered that our brain's very design makes it sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup whenever we engage with another person. That neural bridge lets us affect the brain-and so the body-of everyone we interact with, just as they do us."

He emphasizes that our emotions are contagious. Everybody knows it is important not to stand too close to someone who has a cold, but the same precautions also need to be applied to not getting too close to someone who is personifying gloom and doom. It is as contagious as a cold and Vitamin C isn't going to help.

The understanding of social intelligence adds a new dimension to how we live our social lives. It gives us an understanding of how fragile we are. In our relationships, we have a responsibility to nourish each other. With our gestures, our smiles, our attention, our empathy, we have a multitude of opportunities to nourish. We also have a multitude of opportunities to weaken each other with toxic energy, with frowns, with a lack of eye contact, with inattentiveness, with a lack of caring, and with a disregard for how the other person might be feeling.

Why isn't this stuff taught in schools? Think about how our society could evolve if social intelligence was more often cultivated in children as they go through school. The purpose of an education is to give people an opportunity to be successful. But if they don't learn how to care about others no one is going to care about them. If a person never develops empathy no one will ever give him or her trust.

It is a lack of social intelligence that leads children to tease and mock other children This in turn develops toxic energy for everyone connected to either child. The killer of the 32 students at Virginia Tech was laughed at and teased in high school and college because of his awkwardness. Anger about this treatment kept building up inside him until he exploded into his fit of rage and violence. That is the extreme of toxic energy.

If our society could cultivate social intelligence in our educational system it would reduce polarization, conflict, racism, stress and hatred. The children would be happier and more successful. When people become conscious of their impact on other people, it increases the depth of the connection. Empathy becomes awakened.

Social intelligence equates with presence. When we are fully in the present moment, attentive, actively listening, engaged in conversation, we have presence. When we become lost in thought and don't pay attention to what is being said to us, we have no presence. This communicates to others whether we care about them, value them, or if we are bored by them and could care less.

The bottom line is that social intelligence is about connecting with people. The better we do that, the more successful and happy we are.