I think that test is kinda BS too, but I was reluctant to say lest I sound sour grapey. I doubt the test scores accurately predict how well a person is at reading a room, for instance. We typically have access to mulitipe lines of evidence. Tone of voice. Content of speech. Full facial expresion. And more importantly, context. I’d be worried if someone couldn’t figure out could that I’m angry given that I’m shouting at them for just wrecking my car. That would be much more indicative of a social disability than not picking out the subtle nuances.
The few socially awkward people that I deal with are people who simply don’t know when they have overstayed their welcome when talking to me in my office. Indeed, my rubric for distinguishing “social adept” and “social inept” is pretty simple. If you never make me want to stab myself in an eye when you’re talking to me, then you’re one cool mofo. I don’t care how bad you smell or how many boogers you openly eat. So personally, I’d value a test that would help people identify how well they are at detecting disinterest. Seems to me this woud be much more important to know than how well one is at identifying emotions from the eyes.
My standard matches yours. It may seem like the bar is low, but when I consider how frequently I encounter people who do off-putting things because of an inability to see themselves through other people’s eyes, I think it’s fair way of judging who is reasonably smart in this area and who is not.
My guess is that the test measures something interesting, but it’s far from a complete measure of social awareness, and awareness is only one component of “social intelligence”. I’m still shocked I got as high a number as I did, though!
It just occurred to me some degree of social obliviousness is probably a good thing. Especially if you belong to a stereotyped and stigmatized minority.
If every time you walked into a room full of strangers, you were sensitive to their thoughts about you and could read negative thoughts in their facial expressions and gestures, that would be a lot of distracting noise for you to put up with, to put it lightly. It would be much better for your sanity if the subtle narrowing of the eyes, folding of the arms, or tighting of voice were nonverbal cues that soared over your head, because otherwise you might be too self-conscious and afraid to put yourself out there. When you think someone dislikes you, it’s hard not to let yourself respond to them in kind. People who are acutely attentive of their social environments are often chameleons; they radiate the feelings that they receive from others.This can create a negative interaction loop–in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Look at how these white folks are looking at me. Yup, just what I thought. Prejudiced bastards all of em.”
“Look at the black chick over there. Bad attitude, much? They are always like that.”
Social blockheads have an advantage because they tend to be themselves regardless of how others in their immediate presence behave. So they are spared the negative interaction loop that socially attentive people might find themselves trapped in.
Monstro, it might be to your good fortune that you’re not an expert in reading people, as it has allowed you to not let the bad snap impressions of others interfere with your professionalism and competence.
It’s funny to me that every socially imperfect person I personally know has a SO. They also talk about having friends. They are all employed. They seem to be doing quite well for themselves…so this leads me to wonder just how important social competence really is. If you’re so socially disabled you have a specific medical diagnosis, that’s one thing. But if you’re simply bad at reading a room, or you talk a little too loud, or you don’t laugh at every joke? I can’t see how this will hurt you THAT much provided you have other skills to offer the world. Which pretty much everyone does.
I was just telling a coworker (who is having problems with our boss) that our boss is proof that you don’t have to have great people skills to be a manager. He’s got a beautiful family and a beautiful wife and a high-paying, successful career. And yet he’s lousy with people. His own boss visibly dislikes him. But damned if he’ll ever realize any of this. Which sounds like a GREAT life to me! Sign me up!
It also seems to me that the people who beat themselves over the heads the most for being social inept are the ones that are doing OK for themselves. Because people like this tend to be conscientious and cautious. It’s the people who don’t recognize how badly they come across that are just one bad joke away from getting punched in the face or fired from their job.
I have no idea how I got a 33 out of 36 on that test, because maybe a half dozen of those seemed to show no emotion whatsoever. Hell, sometimes I picked my answer by a process of elimination on what it obviously was not. Hmph.
Very valuable. A high social intelligence can save you from humiliation and alienation, make your life a lot less stressful and help you get what you want in life. I wish to god I had had a higher SI and EI back when I was a teen and in my 20s. IQ is vastly overrated compared to SI and EI.
This is very, very true. If you can’t navigate the real world with its business rules, social rules, levers of influence, etc. then even good ideas can and will go nowhere while bad ideas created by people who do understand those rules will get ahead. There are a lot of unspoken rules of social interaction, the media, corporations, etc that are needed. Recently I have been undergoing psychotherapy to help me deal with some issues, and I’ve found some really good therapies. When I asked a therapist ‘why is this not more well known’ she told me most therapists have very poor business skills. So it didn’t matter if the idea worked or not, the fact that they lack the business skills to take it into the real world limited their success.
Personally I wish I had higher EI and SI, but I am by nature an introvert who lives inside his own head. It is hard for me to make eye contact with someone unless I am comfortable with them. I’ll never have any sense of style or fashion. My dating life is and will be barren. I have known people who ridiculed me behind my back and it took me years to figure it out. On the whole, I’m safest if I just keep my social network limited and exclusive, part of EI is accepting your limitations. I do not always know how to spot dangerous people and keep them out of my life. Nor do I always understand all the unspoken rules.
On another note, some people who think they have great social skills do not. Extroverts can be some of the most obtuse, clueless, offensive, boring people around.
I got damn lucky, IMO, because I got 35 out of 36, and felt like about a dozen or so, I could have easily have picked another choice for it. Took a screen pic of it. Sort of felt like I was guessing on quite a few which is why I’m surprised. I was expecting my score would have been around low twenties. It also didn’t show me which one I missed. I also used an on-line dictionary to make sure I fully understood what a few of the words meant, without that, I think I would have missed a few more.