How Socially Intelligent Are You?
Reading people, getting on with them, and knowing how you come across
Some people walk into a room and know within minutes who is in charge, who is annoyed and what not to say. Others are warm and easy company but miss half of what is going on. A team in Norway found that this kind of social intelligence breaks into three parts: understanding people, handling social situations and noticing the effect you have. They do not always come together, and the weakest one tends to explain the awkward moments you remember most.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about how things usually go, not about your best or worst social day. If you are not sure, think about what the people who know you would say.
What it measures
The three parts of the Tromsø scale: social information processing (reading intentions and unspoken rules), social skills (feeling at ease and adapting in company) and social awareness (noticing how your behaviour lands). It differs from emotional intelligence, which centres on emotions, from empathy, which is feeling with someone, and from self-monitoring, which is about adjusting the image you project.
Based on: Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale (Silvera, Martinussen & Dahl, 2001)
Possible results
Reading people
Understanding what others want, feel and intend, often before they say it.
Social skills
Feeling at ease with people and adapting to new social situations.
Social awareness
Noticing how your words and actions land on the people around you.
Common questions
Is social intelligence the same as emotional intelligence?
They overlap, but the focus differs. Emotional intelligence centres on recognising and managing emotions, including your own. Social intelligence is broader about situations: reading intentions, understanding group dynamics and adjusting your behaviour to them. The idea is also older - the psychologist Edward Thorndike described it in 1920.
Can social intelligence be improved?
The skills part clearly can. Social ease grows with practice and exposure, and awareness improves when you get honest feedback from people you trust. Reading others also sharpens with experience of many kinds of people, though some variation between individuals seems to stay fairly stable.
Does a high score mean I am manipulative?
No. Social intelligence is a capacity, and like any capacity it can be used to help or to exploit. Most people who read others well use it to be tactful and considerate. What makes someone manipulative is the intention, not the skill, and this test says nothing about how you use yours.
Sources
- Silvera, D. H., Martinussen, M., & Dahl, T. I. (2001). The Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale, a self-report measure of social intelligence. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. doi:10.1111/1467-9450.00242
- Gini, G. (2006). Brief report: Adaptation of the Italian version of the Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale to the adolescent population. Journal of Adolescence. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2005.05.003
An honest note The items are Quinthea's own wording adapted from the Tromsø Social Intelligence Scale, so scores are not comparable to the published norms. Like any self-report, it measures how socially skilled you believe you are, which matches performance tests only modestly. The scale was built with Norwegian samples, and social rules vary between cultures. This is not a diagnosis; if social situations cause you real distress, a psychologist can help.