Nature of Social Intelligence of the Personality and its Basic Functions

Abstract

In the article it was shown that social intelligence in psychology is considered as the ability of a person to understand correctly his / her own behavior and the behavior of other people in the society. This ability is very necessary for a person to have an effctive interpersonal interaction and successful social adaptation. Social intelligence implements the functioning of cognitive processes associated with the reflection of a person as a partner in the processes of communication and activities. The main function of social intelligence is to predict the behavior of others. It is emphasized that each type of intelligence contains certain abilities of the personality to perform a certain type of the activities. In this case, for example, «linguistic intelligence» is referred to as «intelligence» by the authors, because it is a complex of integral education, which includes separate abilities to perform a certain type of the activity, and if we talk about a specialist in this sphere of the activity, his / her competences, we remind about the structure of the professional competence of the person. Thus, guided by the narrow sense of understanding the word «intelligence», we distinguish: social intelligence; technical intelligence; artistic intelligence; information intelligence. Thus, the functions of social intelligence of the person are the understanding of other people, adaptation to the requirements of the society, knowledge of the behavior of social subjects, cognitive and behavioral functions, functions of understanding the actions of other people and their influence on them, understanding themselves and modeling behavior in accordance with their needs, goals and abilities, the ability to express spontaneous judgments about other people, to predict the behavior of other people, the functions of adapting to life situations, solving practical problems and situations of everyday life, function of social adaptation, functions to solve problems at the subject-subjective level, self-organization of intelligence, socialization in the society, internalization of social norms and rules, the choice of corresponding reaction in interpersonal interaction, as well as the function of «ensuring adaptability in conditions that constantly predict the formation of a program of successful interpersonal interaction», «planning and forecasting of interpersonal events of the social environment», «motivational function», «the function of social competence», «self-development», «self-cognition» and «self-studying». All these functions can be combined with such generalized functions as cognitive-evaluative, communicative-value, and reflexive correction. At various stages of the performance of the leading function is one of the functions of social intelligence. In particular, the cognitive-evaluative function prevails at the initial stage, while the other two functions create positive conditions for the implementation of the 0xFB01rst one. Achieving the goals of cognitive activity to a large extent provide a communicative and valuable function. The reflexive correction function is essentially aimed at actualizing the strengths and qualities compensating for weak and ine0exFB00ctive features and actions.  Such functions of social intelligence of the person are manifested in their subordination and interconnection.