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 impact the brain—and so the body—of every­one we inter­act with, just as they do us.

You can read more from the pro­logue of Daniel Gole­man’s new book Social Intel­li­gence. A review on Amazon.com reads:

… Our reac­tions to oth­ers, and theirs to us, have a far-reaching bio­log­i­cal impact, send­ing out cas­cades of hor­mones that reg­u­late every­thing from our hearts to our immune sys­tems, mak­ing good rela­tion­ships act like vitamins—and bad rela­tion­ships like poi­sons. We can “catch” other people’s emo­tions the way we catch a cold, and the con­se­quences of iso­la­tion or relent­less social stress can be life-shortening. Gole­man explains the sur­pris­ing accu­racy of first impres­sions, the basis of charisma and emo­tional power, the com­plex­ity of sex­ual attrac­tion, and how we detect lies. He describes the “dark side” of social intel­li­gence, from nar­cis­sism to Machi­avel­lian­ism and psy­chopa­thy. He also reveals our aston­ish­ing capac­ity for “mind­sight,” as well as the tragedy of those, like autis­tic chil­dren, whose mind­sight is impaired.

Social intel­li­gence is one of the eight mul­ti­ple intel­li­gences pro­posed by Howard Gard­ner. It involves the inter­per­sonal skills involved in cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing social rela­tion­ships with other peo­ple. In highly inter­con­nected, com­plex soci­eties, these skills become quite impor­tant for sur­vival and success.

Social and exec­u­tive level skills like per­son­al­ity, moti­va­tion, the abil­ity to plan and fol­low a process with sev­eral steps, the abil­ity to orga­nize actions over time, social graces, and the abil­ity to behave appro­pri­ately for the social sit­u­a­tion reside in the frontal lobes of your brain – the last part of the human brain to evolve, and the part of the brain that makes humans so uniquely human. Dam­age to the fron­totem­po­ral area can cause these social skills to suf­fer, even if other apti­tudes improve with dimin­ished high level control.

Other links:
Take a sur­vey from MITA to help deter­mine clues to your strongest intel­li­gences
Ned Herrmann’s Whole Brain Model for think­ing
Edward de Bono’s think­ing strate­gies
Exer­cise your frontal lobe
Another clas­sic brain puz­zle
Learn­ing and teach­ing strate­gies for dif­fer­ent intelligences

Be Socia­ble, Share!

•