Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

The opening anecdote relates a couple remembering their first kiss. They both felt mysteriously propelled toward one another, neither feeling that they initiated it. Goleman introduces a new neural system, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), positioned right behind the eyeballs, directly between the cortex (the “high road”), the amygdala (the “low road”), and the brain stem (the “lizard brain” that creates automatic response). This positioning means the OFC is capable of coordinating thought, feeling, and action almost instantaneously. Through interpreting the small movements of the eyes, face, and body and synchronizing mirror neurons and oscillators, it follows that both participants in the kiss would have felt a smooth coordination and shared spontaneity of action.

The second anecdote shares a professor’s decision to hire an assistant, the sole person he would spend his entire working day alongside. He recalls the decision not as a conscious, deliberative process, but as a split-second intuition: As he walked into the waiting room to call her in for her interview, he instantly felt his “physiology settle down” and knew from his body’s reaction that she was the right choice (65).

A third anecdote directly follows: In a university study, students spent around five minutes getting to know another student who was a stranger. At the end of that interaction, each student was asked to rate the likelihood of themselves and the other becoming friends. Nine weeks later, their predictions after just five minutes proved accurate.

Goleman introduces a new set of neural circuits known as “spindle cells.” Spindle cells are four times longer than other neurons and can thus communicate much faster. Spindle cells specifically connect the OFC to the limbic system, creating a “neural command center.”

Goleman describes an experiment in which two strangers (one of whom is an actor) are given $10 and instructed to split the money any way they can both agree on. The actor offers the stranger $2, final offer, keeping $8 for themselves. Most people, though offered the chance to be $2 richer than before, which is a net gain, still react with indignation. In fact, people often were willing to forfeit all money if that meant the perceived greedy stranger also received nothing. The experiment demonstrates the complex interaction between the “low road” and the “high road,” as human beings, in reaction to perceived injustice, form a long-game strategy to punish that unfairness, even foregoing reward to maintain a sense of parity in social interaction.

The opening anecdote tells the story of a 12-year-old boy confronted by a taunting classmate on the way to the soccer field. The boy calmly redirects the taunts and in fact gives his bully a compliment on his own soccer skills. The bully, surprised, reacts with a friendlier tone and offers to teach him some plays.

Goleman then quotes Richard Davidson, Neuroscience Lab Director at the University of Wisconsin, who says that “all emotions are social” (83). Goleman points out, though, that while emotions happen internally within one mind, social interactions provide new opportunities and risks as they happen. Goleman states that social intelligence has two parts: social awareness and social facility. Social awareness is itself comprised of four traits: primal empathy, attunement, empathic accuracy, and social cognition. Social facility depends on four attributes as well: synchrony, self-presentation, influence, and concern.

Primal empathy and synchrony, both “low road” operations, involve split-second emotional judgments, based on nonverbal cues, that determine whether we see another person as trustworthy or dangerous and that allow us to build rapport by synchronizing our body language with that of others.

Empathic accuracy and influence both mix “high” and “low” road capacities to gauge someone’s emotions correctly and then respond appropriately to shape the outcome of the interaction.

Attunement and concern both require sustained, full attention that prioritizes the receiver of that attention.

Social cognition and self-presentation, finally, also operate as “high road” capacities. Social cognition is a person’s conscious knowledge of how the social world works, while self-presentation is composed of the outward signs of that knowledge.