Social intelligence of persons with different levels of emotional stability

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State Institution «South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University after K.D. Ushynsky», Odessa

Social intelligence of persons with different levels of emotional stability

Babchuk Olena Hryhoriivna

Candidate of Psychological Sciences

Associate Professor, Head of the Department

of Family and Special Pedagogy and Psychology

Abstract

social intelligence emotional arousal

This article examines the features of social intelligence in people with different levels of emotional stability. Social intelligence has always been considered an object of great importance for psychologists: it does not matter in which context it is considered - theoretical or practical. However, it cannot be interpreted based on the general theory of intelligence. Social intelligence is a person's ability to understand and predict the behavior of other people in various life situations, as well as to be able to recognize feelings, intentions and emotions regarding their verbal and non-verbal qualities. The analysis of the literature shows that the relationship between social intelligence and emotionality is considered in the context of different approaches. Thus, in the first, the structure of emotional stability includes an intellectual component, in other approaches, emotionality acts as a component of the structure of social intelligence. Emotional stability is a personality trait that ensures the stability of emotions and emotional arousal under the influence of various stressors. It depends primarily on the characteristics of the individual, perfection, type and character of the course of her mental and practical activity, the quality of the methods used by her to purposefully regulate her emotional state. At this stage of the research, we are solving the task of studying the features of social intelligence in people with different levels of emotional stability. The psychodiagnostics complex consisted of: «Scale of emotional stability» (H. Eysenck); «Social intelligence» (J. Gilford). As a result of the correlation analysis, significant relationships between indicators of emotional stability and indicators of social intelligence were revealed. The method of aces made it possible to distinguish two groups of people, the first - with a high general level of emotional stability, the second - with a low general level of emotional stability. Thanks to the qualitative analysis, psychological characteristics were given to individuals with different levels of emotional stability.

Keywords: personality, social intelligence, emotional stability, emotional stability, level of emotional stability

Бабчук Олена Григоріївна кандидат психологічних наук, доцент, завідувач кафедри сімейної та спеціальної педагогіки і психології, Державний заклад «Південноукраїнський національний педагогічний університет імені К.Д.Ушинського», м. Одеса

Соціальний інтелект осіб з різним рівнем емоційної стійкості

Анотація

У даній статті розглядаються особливості соціального інтелекту у осіб з різним рівнем емоційної стійкості. Соціальний інтелект для психологів завжди вважався об'єктом великої ваги: все одно, в якому контексті розглядати - теоретичному чи практичному. Проте він не піддається трактуванню, спираючись на положення загальної теорії інтелекту. Соціальний інтелект -- це здатність людини розуміти та передбачати поведінку інших людей у різних життєвих ситуаціях, а також вміти розпізнати почуття, наміри та емоції щодо їх вербальних та невербальних якостей. Аналіз літератури показує, що зв'язок соціального інтелекту та емоційності розглядається у контексті різних підходів. Так, у першому, до структури емоційної стійкості входить інтелектуальний компонент, у інших підходах, емоційність виступає в якості компонента структури соціального інтелекту. Емоційна стійкість - це така властивість особистості, яка забезпечує стабільність емоцій та емоційного збудження під впливом різних стресорів. Вона залежить насамперед від особливостей особистості, досконалості, виду та характеру перебігу її розумової та практичної діяльності, якості використовуваних нею способів цілеспрямованого регулювання свого емоційного стану. На цьому етапі дослідження ми вирішуємо завдання вивчення особливостей соціального інтелекту у осіб з різним рівнем емоційної стійкості. Психодіагностичний комплекс склали: «Шкала емоційної стабільності» (Г. Айзенк); «Соціальний інтелект» (Дж. Гілфорд). У результаті кореляційного аналізу було виявлено значущі зв'язки між показниками емоційної стійкості та показниками соціального інтелекту. Метод асів дозволив виокремити дві групи осіб, перша - з високим загальним рівнем емоційної стійкості, друга - з низьким загальним рівнем емоційної стійкості. Завдяки якісному аналізу надано психологічні характеристики особам з різним рівнем емоційної стійкості.

Ключові слова: особистість, соціальний інтелект, емоційна стійкість, емоційна стабільність, рівень емоційної стійкості

Formulation of the problem

The actualization of scientific and practical interest in the phenomenon of social intelligence reflects the awareness of the need and importance of abilities for effective social cognition and successful social activity in the modern world.

The isolation of social intelligence as a special field of psychological research is due to the relative autonomy, complexity and ambiguity of this phenomenon, which determines the success of social cognition and interaction with others. It includes cognitive processes that are related to the reflection of social objects - a person as a partner in communication and activity, as well as a group of people; the ability to recognize and manage one's own emotional reactions and the emotions of others; the ability to directly influence one's social environment. As a cognitive component of interpersonal communication, social intelligence provides self-knowledge, self-development, social learning, the ability to predict and plan the development of interpersonal interactions, find a common language with others, and is a coherent group of abilities that determine a person's social adaptation.

The approach of researchers to the problem of social intelligence can be seen in the literature from the beginning of the 20th century. Such foreign scientists as E. Thorndike (1920), G. Allport (1937), J. Gilford (1959), G. Eysenck (1995) and others were engaged in the study of this phenomenon.

In 1920, E. Thorndike was the first to introduce the concept of «social intelligence» into psychology, which, in his opinion, was «the ability to understand and manage people, the ability to act wisely in interpersonal relationships».

Later, a number of well-known psychologists contributed to defining the meaning and interpretation of this concept. Thus, according to H. Allport, social intelligence is a special «social gift» that ensures smoothness in relations with people, the product of which is social adaptation, not depth of understanding (Allport, 1961). It should be noted that H. Allport was the first to pay special attention to interaction with people, and the personal qualities identified by him reflect the interaction of certain social abilities for a better understanding of another person.

H. Eysenck pointed out that social intelligence is the intelligence of an individual, which is formed in the course of his socialization, under the influence of sociocultural conditions (Eysenck, 1995).

In our opinion, the concept of social intelligence developed by J. Gilford deserves close attention. He was the first to develop a reliable test for measuring social intelligence, considering the latter as a system of intellectual abilities independent of the factor of general intelligence. The possibility of measuring social intelligence arose from the general model of the structure of intelligence by J. Gilford (1965). Social intelligence, as well as general intellectual level, can be described in the space of three variables: content, operations, results. J. Gilford singled out one operation - cognition - and focused his research on behavioral cognition. This ability includes six factors:

Recognition of the elements of behavior - the ability to distinguish verbal and non-verbal expressions of behavior from the context (an ability similar to distinguishing «figures from the background» in Gestalt psychology).

Recognition of classes of behavior - the ability to recognize common properties in some stream of expressive or situational information about behavior.

Cognition of behavior relationships - the ability to understand the relationships that exist between units of information about behavior.

Knowledge of behavior systems - the ability to understand the logic of the development of integral situations of human interaction, the meaning of their behavior in these situations.

Recognition of behavior transformations - the ability to understand the change in the meaning of similar behavior (verbal or non-verbal) in different situational contexts.

Cognition of behavioral outcomes is the ability to predict the consequences of behavior based on available information (Gilford, 1965).

Analysis of recent research and publications

Considering social intelligence as an integral ability for a person to know the peculiarities of his own mental state, reactions and the mental state and reactions of others, the researcher G. Geranyushkina [1] considered its composition as a three-component structure, which includes: 1) the level of potential abilities (cognitive and emotional components); 2) the level of relevant abilities (the ability to predict the consequences of behavior, perceive non-verbal expression, understand verbal behavior, predict the logic of the development of complex events; 3) effective level (communicative and organizational components). Thus, we can see in the researcher's work the first attempt to highlight the various components of this integral ability.

According to O. Lunyova, social intelligence is «an independent type of intelligence that ensures intelligent behavior in social interaction based on the integration of the results of social cognition, personal characteristics and self-regulation of social behavior» [2]. The author considers social intelligence from the standpoint of a person's personal characteristics, and considers it a social- personal construct that ensures a person's interaction with other people and groups.

An interesting view of social intelligence is presented in his work by D. Rostovikh [4], who distinguishes three different contents of the category «social intelligence»: a general characteristic of human intelligence in general, since it is the result of the influence of culture and cannot arise outside of it; a specific type of interaction of the social mind and social judgment in the conditions of a certain type of culture; the sphere of the spiritual life of society, which is a system of individual intelligences united to solve a common social task or problem. Among the functions of social intelligence, the author considers it necessary to define the following: 1) epistemological (cognitive); 2) accumulative; 3) communicative; 4) management; 5) regulatory and coordinating; 6) regulatory and value; 7) prognostic; 8) heuristic; 9) problem-constructive; 10) social-reflexive (identification); 11) rationalization function; 12) function of social inheritance. That is, in the works of the researcher, we see an attempt to expand the understanding of social intelligence to a generally human characteristic, which is inherent in a person as a social being.

The above indicates the variability and ambiguity of approaches to understanding social intelligence, making it difficult to carefully study it. At the same time, in the modern sociocultural environment, there is a need and expediency for a comprehensive study of the conditions for the formation of social intelligence, as well as the development of programs for the activation of its development. Of course, it is important, first of all, to define the concept of «social intelligence» based on the presented conceptual approaches. From our point of view, social intelligence is a relatively stable set of psychological formations manifested in subject-subject relations, which ensure the productivity of interpersonal interaction and the success of social adaptation. Another more significant aspect of social intelligence is the selection of its constituent components. Apparently, social intelligence as a complex psychological formation is determined by both natural and social factors. It seems justified to analyze this phenomenon through the prism of individual variables. For example, instrumental and stylistic variables, determined to a greater extent by natural features, depending on the expression and combination of properties of the nervous system and temperament, can be considered through such components as ergicness and aergicness (dynamic characteristics), which determine the energy, activity or lethargy and passivity of the interaction in subject-subject relations; stubbornness and fatigue (emotional variables) are manifested in the process of relationships and contribute to the productivity of interaction; internality and externality (regulatory components), which allow to keep the interaction partner in focus.

As for socio-situational characteristics, they can be realized during interaction through such variables as socio-centric and egocentric motivation, subject-personal and subject-communicative reflection, meaningfulness and awareness of subject-subject relations.

The analysis of the literature shows that the relationship between emotionality and social intelligence is considered in the context of different approaches. Thus, in the first one, the structure of emotional stability includes an intellectual component characterized by the degree of expressiveness of intellectual emotions that determine the cognitive activity of an individual in terms of self-organization and self-regulation of behavior [6]. Cognitive activity is a person's inherent curiosity, direct interest in the surrounding world, what activates the subject's cognitive activity. It directly depends on the development of cognitive interest, which has a number of features: a) intellectual orientation, the desire to get to know the object of study more deeply; b) a conscious attitude to the subject of one's interest; c) emotional coloring of the search for truth; d) voluntary effort. An indicator of the formation of the intellectual component of emotional stability is a «high» level of cognitive activity.

In other approaches, emotionality acts as a component of the structure of social intelligence (Ushakov, 2004; Bashirov, 2006; Savenkov, 2006, etc.).

The purpose of the article - research of social intelligence of persons with different levels of emotional stability.

Presenting main material

As a pilot study, there was a study of the features of social intelligence in people with different levels of emotional stability. The problem of studying emotional stability is very relevant, because today in modern psychological science there is no single approach and unambiguous definition of this concept. The organization of theoretical positions on the given problem will make it possible to highlight various interpretation options regarding the understanding of the nature and mechanisms of emotional stability of the individual. Most often, when talking about emotional stability, we are talking about the level of internal experiences, which is determined by the intensity, flexibility, lability, and meaningfulness of a person's emotional processes. A critical analysis of a significant number of scientific works of a theoretical and empirical nature indicates a wide variety of definitions and interpretations of the concept of «emotional stability». First of all, the study of emotional stability is based on the principle of interaction and mutual influence of mental processes. Based on the fact that various mental processes are involved in supporting, strengthening, weakening, inhibiting, etc. each other, emotional stability is interpreted as a person's ability to manage his own emotions that arise during the performance of activities (Maryschuk, 1984; Mileryan, 1974; Platonov, 1986; Schwartz, 1980, etc.).

In his research, L. Malgina [3] considers emotional intelligence as a means of forming the intellectual abilities of an individual. It says that emotions as a mental reflection in the form of a direct biased experience of life phenomena and situations arose in the process of evolution as a means, they are the content of the emotional stability of the individual. Intellectual activity is carried out with the help of thinking, memory, perception, which are the highest mental functions of the individual and are the basis of intellectual abilities, the formation of which occurs indirectly. Therefore, emotional stability can be used as a means of indirectly forming the intellectual abilities of an individual.

It is also worth mentioning the approach to the study of emotional stability, which is based on the fact that emotional stability is considered as a complex mental formation that is the result of the integration of certain mental processes and phenomena. Based on the principle of interaction of emotions, will, intellect and physiological organization in relation to activity, the phenomenon of emotional stability is an integrative property of the individual that optimally ensures the successful achievement of the goal of activity in a difficult emotional situation. Also, emotional stability is considered as a personality trait determined by dynamic and meaningful characteristics of emotional processes. Among the dynamic characteristics, the intensity, lability, and flexibility of emotional processes are considered, and among the meaningful ones - the types of emotions and feelings, their intensity. An important aspect of this direction of studying emotional stability is the clarification of the content and level of detection of emotions and feelings in difficult and extreme conditions. Aggravation, strengthening of moral feelings allows a person to overcome fear, confusion, hopelessness. Among the determinants of emotional stability, researchers mention those emotions and feelings experienced by a person in difficult situations and extreme conditions, his emotional attitudes; previous emotional experience.

The research was conducted on the basis of the State institution «Southern Ukrainian National Pedagogical University named after K.D. Ushinsky». The research sample consisted of 70 people - students of the South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University named after K.D. Ushinsky. The «Social Intelligence» method (J. Gilford) was used to study social intelligence. The Emotional Stability Scale (H. Eysenck) was used to study emotional stability.

Based on the analyzed scientific works, we find that scientists consider emotional stability as a synonym for emotional stability. For example, R. Cattell [7] considered the concepts of emotional stability and emotional stability as synonymous, characterizing an emotionally stable personality as an individual with a strong «I», and an emotionally unstable one - with a weak «I». At the same time, an emotionally stable person is defined as a strong, resilient, emotionally balanced, even phlegmatic person who looks at things soberly. This is a communicative, open, hard-working, realistic, emotionally mature person who knows how to manage the situation, has permanent interests, and avoids difficulties. The scientist noted that such a person can be emotionally rigid and not sensitive enough. Thus, emotional instability is characteristic of neuropsychologically unstable, restless people who are subject to feelings, have a changeable character in relationships, and in difficult situations they are characterized by neuroticism and instability in interests, frustration. Such individuals are not sociable, shy, easily upset, lose their balance, often yield, do not enter into arguments, they are characterized by hypochondria and quick fatigue. Researcher O. Chebykin [5] notes that an emotionally stable person is characterized by a specific combination or set of psychological and psychophysiological qualities. The researcher proved that a person's emotional stability is determined by a certain set of psychophysiological and other parameters. As such, all the structural components of personality appear in his works, namely: orientation, experience, mental processes, neurodynamics, temperament, character and abilities.

Previously, we conducted a correlation analysis, the results of which established the specificity of the relationship between indicators of emotional stability and indicators of social intelligence. The indicator of emotional stability revealed a positive connection at the 1% level only with the indicator of social intelligence (expression group). This connection can be characterized by sensitivity to non-verbal expression, which significantly enhances the ability to understand others. The ability to read the non-verbal signals of another person, to realize them and compare them with verbal ones, according to A. Pease, is at the basis of the «sixth sense» - intuition.

The next step of our research is the construction of profiles of social intelligence in representatives of different levels of emotional stability.

The level of expressiveness of emotional stickiness was determined as follows. First, the «raw» scores obtained on the scales of the technique were converted to percentiles. The range from 0 to 25 was considered a range of unexpressed values of the indicator corresponding to a low level of emotional stability; from 25 to 50 - a range of weakly expressed (low) values; from 50 to 75 - a range of sufficiently pronounced values; from 75 to 100 - a range of pronounced values of indicators of emotional stability. So, individuals with a general indicator of emotional stability in the range of 0-25 percentiles formed a group with a low level of emotional stability EC- (n=10), individuals with a general indicator whose values are in the range of 75-100 percentiles formed a group with a high level of emotional stability EC+ (n=6).

Therefore, according to the results of our research, individuals with a high level of the general indicator of emotional stability are able to predict the consequences of behavior, are able to predict the further actions of people based on the analysis of real situations of communication (family, business, friendship), predict events, based on the understanding of feelings, thoughts, intentions coparticipants in communication. Their predictions may turn out to be wrong when they deal with people who behave in unexpected, atypical ways. They know how to clearly build a strategy of their own behavior to achieve the set goal. Also, they are able to accurately assess the state, feelings, intentions of people by their non-verbal manifestations: facial expressions, postures, movements. Such persons, most likely, attach great importance to non-verbal communication, pay a lot of attention to nonverbal reactions of communication participants. Sensitivity to non-verbal expression significantly enhances the ability to understand others. They have the ability to read the non-verbal signals of another person, understand them and compare them with verbal ones. They have difficulties in analyzing situations of interpersonal interaction and, as a result, do not adapt well to different systems of relationships between people.

A group of individuals with a low level of emotional stability poorly understands the connection between behavior and its consequences. Such people can often make mistakes (including illegal actions), get into conflicts, and possibly even into dangerous situations, because they incorrectly imagine the results of their actions or the actions of others, are poorly oriented in generally accepted norms and rules of behavior. They have a high sensitivity to the nature and nuances of human relationships, which helps them quickly and accurately understand what people say to each other (speech expression) in the context of a specific situation, specific relationships. Such people are able to find the appropriate tone of communication with different interlocutors in different situations and have a large repertoire of role behavior (show role plasticity).

Conclusions

According to the results of the correlation analysis, the specificity of the relationship between indicators of emotional stability and indicators of social intelligence was established. With the help of the «aces» method, subjects with certain manifestations of emotional stability were selected. Qualitative analysis made it possible to provide psychological characteristics of persons with a high and low level of emotional stability.

References

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