Abnotivity as the characteristics of social intelligence of a teacher

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Abnotivity as the characteristics of social intelligence of a teacher

Ivashkevych Eduard, Dr. in Psychology, Professor, Professor

of the department of General Psychology and Psychodiagnostics,

Rivne State University of the Humanities

Rudzevych Ryna, Ph.D. in Psychology, Assistant Professor, Assistant

Professor of the Department of Psychological and Medical and Pedagogical Basis of Remedial Work, Kamianets-Podilskyi National Ivan Ohnenko University

Abstract

The purpose of our article is to maintain abnotivity as the characteristics of social intelligence of a teacher, to show its main qualities.

Methods of the research. The following theoretical methods of the research were used to solve the tasks formulated in the article: a categorical method, structural and functional methods, the methods of the analysis, systematization, modeling, generalization. Also in our research we used empirical methods, such as statement study and molding experiment. With the aim to diagnose the level of the development of social intelligence of teachers we used the test of J. Gilford and M. O'Sullivan "Research of Social Intelligence", adapted by O.S. Mykhailova (Гилфорд & О'Салливен, 2021).

The results of the research. In the paradigm of the process-activity approach we consider social intelligence as practical thinking of the individual. In such a way we define social intelligence as a practical thinking activity. Analyzing the structure of cognitive activity, we characterize practical activity, including thinking activity as purely situational one. Reflecting on the characteristics of practical thinking, we emphasize that this type of thinking is no less complex in its structure than theoretical thinking. At the same time, it is noted that there are different forms of thinking activity, which determine the level of the formation of the person's social intelligence.

Conclusions. The process-activity approach is proved to emphasize the connection between social intelligence and professional orientation of the individual. In particular, studying the professional thinking of a teacher, we single out the structural component of "abnotivity", the main components of which are: social intelligence, creativity and motivational-cognitive component. Our experimental research showed that teachers with a high level of social intelligence were more objective in evaluating creatively gifted students; teachers with a low level of social intelligence were not capable of an adequate, objective assessment of the creative potential of a pupil (or a student).

Key words: abnotivity, social intelligence, process-activity approach, professional thinking, professional orientation, creativity, motivational-cognitive component.

Абнотивність як характеристика соціального інтелекту вчителя

Introduction

The analysis of psychological literature (Гончарук, & Онуфрієва, 2018; Mykhalchuk, & Kryshevych, 2019) makes it possible to distinguish the most substantiated theoretical concepts and definitions which in one or another way determine the social intelligence of the person. Consequently, in different concepts social intelligence is characterized as a system of intellectual abilities that is directly responsible for the knowledge of the person about behavioral information.

Thus, according to the concepts of these authors, social intelligence is directly related to the knowledge of human behavioral information and it was defined as a system of intellectual abilities and characteristics of the person (Arbuthnott,& Frank, 2000). Particular attention deserves the concepts which define social intelligence through the system of cognitive properties, according to which the effectiveness of communication depends on communicative, cognitive and vital competencies of the person (Rezaei, & Mousanezhad Jeddi, 2020), a great success of human processing of social information (Lawson, & Leck, 2006).

Within the definitions of social intelligence, which are in psychological literature, procedural and activity approach actualizes the problem of social intelligence from different positions: with regard to the structure of social thinking (Mykhalchuk, & Ivashkevych Ed., 2018); in the context of situations of interpersonal interaction (Ishkhanyan, Boye, & Mogensen, 2019); taking into account the social development of the individual (Heino, Ellison, & Gibbs, 2010); in terms of the person's professional activity (Nowak, Watt, & Walther, 2009); in relation to the communicative competence of the individual (Ramirez, & Wang, 2008).

In the paradigm of the procedural-activity approach, scientists (Pimperton, & Nation, 2010) describe the concept of “social intelligence” in the system of social development of the individual. The scientists believe that the formation of personality is the result of a complex combination of processes of socialization and individual social development of personality (these processes are closely related to social learning, to the accumulation of individual experience of social behavior and communication by a person, to the development of one's personal attitude towards existing in a given society social roles, with the formation of personal norms and beliefs, etc.). The scientists understand social intelligence as the ability to predict the complex relationships depending on a certain social sphere, on the sphere of communication and social interactions. At the same time, the authors note that the level of the development of general intelligence is not directly related to the level of the development of social intelligence. A high IQ is a necessary, but far from determining, so called condition for social development of an individual, which, after all, in no way determines social development. In experimental studies, scientists (Pimperton, & Nation, 2010) describe some main cases when people with a high IQ level had rather low social intelligence, which was accompanied by their inappropriate behavior.

Other scientists (Stephens, & Rains, 2011) have similar views, drawing their peculiar attention to numerous examples that clearly demonstrate that people who have a high level of education, achievements in science, etc., can be completely helpless in social situations of interpersonal interaction. Scientists (Stephens, & Rains, 2011) identified three components in the structure of human social intelligence: logical, practical and social intelligence. The first two components reflect the sphere of subject-object relations, and the last ones - subject-subject relations.

Similar to scientists' (Stephens, & Rains, 2011) conception, S.A. Rains & C.R. Scott (Rains, & Scott, 2007) consider social intelligence as an integral intellectual ability that ensures the success of communication and social adaptation of a person, the ability to predict people's behavior in various spheres of the person's life, to recognize the intentions, feelings and emotional states of individuals by characteristics of non-verbal and verbal expressions.

As part of the experimental project “Intellectual Potential”, scientists (Key-DeLyria, Bodner, & Altmann, 2019) proposed their own conception of social intelligence, which was based on empirical data on the correlation of general and social intelligence. The analysis of the obtained empirical results allowed scientists (Key-DeLyria, Bodner, & Altmann, 2019) to single out an integrative indicator of the person's intellectual potential, which was labelled by the scientist as “the integrity of the intelligence”. According to the researcher, so-called “holistic intelligence” includes the following components: general intelligence, which is understood as the ability to solve problems at the subject-object level; social intelligence, which is defined as the ability to solve problems at the subject-subject level; reflection - this indicator captures the balance of the development of various qualities of intelligence.

We think, that social intelligence is a system of cognitive characteristics of the individual. It consists of three basic components: social-perceptive abilities, social imagination and social technique of communication. So, the effectiveness of subject-subject communication largely depends on the formation of social intelligence. Social intelligence is considered as a certain cognitive component of communicative competence, which is defined as the ability of the individual to accept the position, point of view of another person, to predict his/her behaviour, to solve various problems arising between subjects of dialogical interaction effectively.

Also, we propose the definition of social intelligence in the connection with the paradigmatic analysis of “life competence”, which involves the acquisition by a person of the skills to develop the strategies of the activity, to plan prospective actions that the subject must achieve as a result of a clearly formulated goal, the ability to draw conclusions based on successes or failures when making future plans. In such a way social intelligence is considered by us as a certain cognitive competence that allows people to perceive events, objects and subjects of the surrounding world with a great degree of surprise and maximum benefit for themselves. According to our prediction, the cognitive substructure of an individual's psyche is defined by us as a set of declarative and procedural knowledge (which, at the same time, refers to factual knowledge). So, we can name the main content components of social intelligence, such as: the ability to solve practical tasks, the ability to verbally perceive and reflect the surrounding reality, social and communicative competence. Also, we think, that social intelligence is a system of mental abilities of the individual that are directly responsible for processing socially significant information for the person.

So, the problem of our article is quite actual. The purpose of our article is to maintain abnotivity as the characteristics of social intelligence of a teacher, to show its main qualities.

Methods of the research

The following theoretical methods of the research were used to solve the tasks formulated in the article: a categorical method, structural and functional methods, the methods of the analysis, systematization, modeling and generalization. Also in our research we used empirical methods, such as statement study and molding experiment. With the aim to diagnose the level of the development of social intelligence of teachers we used the test of J. Gilford and M. O'Sullivan “Research of Social Intelligence”, adapted by O.S. Mykhailova (Гилфорд, & О'Салливен, 2021).

At this stage of the empirical research 395 teachers of secondary schools of different regions of Ukraine and 8 directors of these school participated in the experiment. At the beginning of the research we formulated the hypotheses that the level of the development of social intelligence of the teacher of secondary school will depend on the professional category (which he/she has; the category will show the degree of professionalisms of the teacher), the type of discipline of this teacher (to which cycle of disciplines belongs this or that subject), and (it is the main) from the psychological type of the personality and from the gender characteristics of the person. For the convenience of describing the results of the research (hence the description of those results that have or do not have a statistically significant difference among representatives of different groups), all respondents were distributed by large and small experimental groups. So, when the results of respondents within a single large experimental group had a statistically significant difference, they were described separately, taking into account their formation within small groups; in the case when there was no such difference, the results of all respondents were described in the paradigm of one large specially formed group. In such a way, all 403 respondents were divided intothe following groups:

1) S group - 103 teachers of the 3-rd and the 2-nd categories (professional experience is from 5 to 10 years, the age is up to 30 years). This group includes: 56 teachers of secondary schools No 5, 15 of Kamianets-Podilskyi, 23 teachers of Shpanivska and Alexandria secondary schools of Rivne region, 24 teachers of secondary schools No 45 and 96 in Odessa. In turn, all teachers of this group were divided into subgroups, depending on the discipline they teach:

- S1 group includes 34 primary school teachers (4 teachers of which are men and 30 ones are women);

- S2 group includes 35 teachers of teenagers who teach the natural sciences and humanities (17 teachers of which are men and 18 ones are women);

- S3 group includes 34 teachers of senior pupils of the physical and mathematical cycle (17 teachers of which are men and 17 ones are women);

2) N group includes 108 teachers of the 1-st category (professional experience is from 10 to 15 years, the age is from 30 to 35 years), among them there are 47 teachers of secondary schools

No 5 and 15 of Kamianets-Podilskyi, 30 teachers of Shpanivska and Alexandria secondary schools of Rivne region, 31 teachers of secondary schools No 45 and 96 of Odessa. Teachers of N group were divided into such micro-groups:

- N1 group includes 39 primary school teachers (all of them are women);

- N2 group includes 37 teachers of teenagers who teach the natural sciences and humanities (among them there are 17 men and 20 women);

- N3 group includes 32 teachers of senior pupils of the physical and mathematical cycle (16 of them are men and 16 are women);

3) M group includes 110 teachers of the highest category (professional experience is from 15 years and more, age is from 35 years old and older); among them there are 55 teachers of secondary schools No 5 and 15 of Kamianets-Podilskyi, 22 teachers of Shpanivska and Alexandria secondary schools of Rivne region, 33 teachers of secondary schools No 45 and 96 of Odessa. Teachers of M group were divided into such micro-groups:

- M1 group includes 26 teachers of primary school (all of them are women);

- М2 group includes 42 teachers of teenagers who teach subjects of physical-mathematical cycle (there are 22 men and 20 women);

4) P group includes 74 teachers-methodists and eight directors of secondary schools (their professional experience is 3540 years, age is 40-47 years old), among them there are 32 teachers of secondary schools No 5 and 15 of Kamianets-Podilskyi, 13 teachers of Shpanivska and Alexandria secondary schools of Rivne region, 29 teachers of secondary schools No 45 and 96 of Odessa. This group also includes 8 directors of secondary schools (among them there are directors of schools, noted above, and also the director of Zdolbuniv schools No 5 and 7 of Rivne region). Teachers of P group were divided into such micro-groups:

- P1 group includes 13 primary school teachers (all of them are women);

- P2 group includes 30 teachers of teenagers who teach the natural sciences and humanities (among them there are 12 men and 18 women);

- P3 group includes 31 teachers of teenagers and senior pupils of the physical and mathematical cycle (among them there are 15 men and 16 women);

- P4 group includes 8 directors of secondary schools (among them there are 4 men and also 4 women).

The distribution of teachers into groups and micro-groups was carried out using the method of randomization (technology of pair design), which allowed us to equalize the number of men and women in each micro-group (except for micro-groups, which included primary school teachers, because there were no men among this category of teachers). With the aim to diagnose the level of the development of social intelligence of teachers we used the test of J. Gilford and M. O'Sullivan “Research of Social Intelligence”, adapted by O.S. Mykhailova (2021).

Results and their discussion

This stage of the experiment has the aim for studying the level of the development of social intelligence of teachers who teach the natural sciences and humanities (S2, N2, M2, P2 groups). We describe the features in the indicators of social intelligence of teachers of the natural sciences and humanities, which were identified at the stage of empirical research.

Thus, according to Subtest No 3 “Verbal Expressions” (Гилфорд & О'Салливен, 2021), which determines the ability to understand the significance of such verbal reactions of people depending on the context of the situation, the rates of women in all groups were slightly higher than the ones of men. Thus, 34.25% of men and 40.96% of women were diagnosed with the high level of “verbal expressions” in S2 group; in N2 group with high results for this subtest were 30.95% men and 41.16% women, in M2 group there were 33.12% of men and 42.68% of women.

In general, the data obtained was indicated that women (teachers of the natural sciences) were more sensitive to the nature and various manifestations of human relationships and they were able to show considerable role of flexibility in the situations that were arisen. This may be explained by the fact that education in the paradigm of “love” (passion) for the natural sciences contributes to the development of women's style aimed at emotional sensitivity, communicative compatibility. Men, on the contrary, are encouraged to develop the ability to hide and suppress their feelings, that is, emotional restraint, competition, activity, the ability to control the situation are encouraged.

The subtest “Stories with additions” diagnoses the level of the development of the ability to predict the development of a social situation depending on external circumstances. There is a slight tendency towards higher indicators of social intelligence of women, but there is no significant differences in the indicators of social intelligence of men and women at high, medium and low levels, which have been established. We can note that the subjects who performed the tasks of this test equally well, had indicators of a high level of development of social intelligence, such as: 65.14% of men and 63.17% of women of S2 group; 62.49% of men and in 64.02% of women - group N2; 61.25% of men and 60.58% of women - M2 group; 65.11% of men and 60.34% of women - P2 group. Also, there is no statistically significant difference in the results of men and women at medium and low levels of the development of social intelligence according to the 1st subtest “Stories with completion” (results at these levels do not exceed 20% for both men and women), which indicates a philological training of teachers of the natural and humanities cycle, because respondents with a high level of the development of social intelligence according to this subtest are able to extract the maximum amount of information about people's behavior, they are able to understand the language of non-verbal communication, express quick and accurate judgments about other people, successfully predict their reactions in given conditions, show farsightedness in the relationships with others, which contributes to their successful social adaptation.

So, teachers with a high level of social intelligence are usually successful communicators. They are characterized by contact, openness, tact, benevolence and cordiality. A high level of social intelligence is associated with a great interest in solving social problems, by the need to influence others and it is often combined with a high level of organizational pupils' skills development. All the listed personal qualities characterize teachers of humanitarian professions. This, in our opinion, largely explains the high results obtained by both women and men on the subtest “Stories with additions” of middle and senior teachers of the science and humanities cycle.

For the subtest of the “The Groups of the Expressions”, which measures the factor of knowledge of different classes of behavior of people, namely the ability to logical generalization and the allocation of common essential features in various non-verbal reactions, the teachers of the disciplines of natural sciences and humanities did not receive very high (or better, mediocre) results. At the same time, with a high level of the development of social intelligence there is a statistically significant difference in the results of men and women, which is diagnosed at the level of reliability p<0.01. So, women are better than men in evaluation the states correctly, in feelings and intentions of people for their nonverbal manifestations: facial expressions, poses and gestures. The high results for this subtest are characterized for 30.09% of men and for 41.92% of women in the S2 group; for 29.92% of men and 42.16% of women in N2 group; for 31.06% of men and 42.18% of women in M2 group; for 31.48% of men and 42.14% of women in P2 group.

The results of the average level of the development of social intelligence according to the 2^nd subtest “Groups of Expressions” were diagnosed in 41.75% of men and 32.74% of women of S2 group; in 47.34% of men and in 37.80% of women of N2 group; in 48.60% of men and in 38.24% of women of M2 group; in 41.36% of men and in 32.84% of women of P2 group. The difference in the results between men and women at the average level is also statistically significant according to the Student's t-criterion at the level of significance p<0.01. Teachers with average and low level indicators focus more on the verbal content of messages in the process of communication and may make mistakes in understanding the meaning of the words of partners of communication because they do not take into account (or incorrectly take into account) accompanying non-verbal reactions. A low level of the development of social intelligence of teachers of the natural and humanities cycle was diagnosed in 28.16% of men and 25.34% of women of S2 group, in 22.74% of men and in 20.04% of women of N2 group, in 20.34% of men and in 19.58% of women of M2 group, in 27.16% of men and in 25.02% of women of P2 group. The difference in the results between men and women on the low level of the 2^nd subtest “Groups of Expressions” is insignificant according to the Student's t-criterion at the p<0.01 and p<0.05 confidence levels.

According to the subtest “Stories with the addition”, which measures the ability of the person to recognize the structure of interpersonal situations in dynamics, there is a trend towards higher indicators of men. Thus, a high level of the development of social intelligence according to this subtest was diagnosed in 42.57% of men and 30.94% of women of S2 group, in 42.36% of men and in 29.28% of women of N2 group, in 44.68% of men and in 32.19% of women of M2 group, in 43.01% of men and in 31.24% of women of P2 group. The difference in results between men and women, who are the respondents of all groups, is significant at the p<0.01 level of confidence according to the Student's t-criterion. Respondents with the average level of the development of social intelligence, on the contrary, are slightly more among female teachers of natural and humanitarian cycle disciplines. Thus, in S2 group there is 44.24% of men with the average level of the development of social intelligence according to the 4^th subtest “Stories with the addition”, women - 49.05%, in N2 group - 38.63% of men and 48.25% of women were diagnosed, in group M2 - 38.31% of men and 42.65% of women, in group P2 - 38.89% of men and 47.68% of women. However, the difference in the results between men and women according to the average level of the development of social intelligence is significant according to the Student's t-criterion at the level of confidence p<0.01 only in groups N2 and P2.

This subtest caused certain difficulties for 13.19% of men and 20.01% of women of S2 group, 19.01% of men and 22.47% of women of N2 group, 17.01% of men and 25.16% of women of M2 group, 18.10% of men and 21.08% of women of group P2 (these respondents have a low level of the development of social intelligence), and this indicates that these teachers have difficulties in analyzing situations of interpersonal interaction and, as a result, are distinguished by a low level of adaptability to various relationships between people (family, business, friendship, etc.). In Table 1 we can see the results of primary school teachers according to the high level of their social intelligence development (in points, according to the results of factor analysis).

Table 1