Social Intelligence

Learning Objective

Students will understand the meaning of this character strength to then apply it in their lives.

Mục tiêu học tập

Học sinh sẽ hiểu được ý nghĩa của điểm mạnh tính cách này để áp dụng vào cuộc sống.

What Does This Character Strength Look Like When Applied?

Definition: The ability to connect with other people. I play and work well with others.

“Social intelligence is as important as IQ when it comes to happiness, health, and success. Empathetic people are less likely to experience anxiety, depression, and addictions later in life. They are also more likely to be hired, promoted, earn more money, and have happier marriages and better-adjusted children.” (Character Lab)

Motto: "I am aware of and understand my feelings and thoughts, as well as the feelings of those around me."¹

Two Components of Social Intelligence>

Relationship skills: The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help.

Social awareness: The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical expectations for behavior, and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports systems.

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Active Listening: Are you a good communicator? What does it mean to be a good communicator? One big part of being a good communicator is being able to listen - yes, to listen actively. To listen actively means using your body, words, and emotional intelligence to show that you are listening. Let's go through the steps of active listening.

1. Pay Attention - Body language counts! Whether you are standing or sitting, turn your body to be directly in front of the person you are listening to. You might lean slightly in a bit to show your engagement. Your eyes are on the eyes of your partner. Make sure that there are no distractions around you. This means that no cell phones are in sight! Your face is neutral or showing welcoming features, as in a smile. You are not showing facial expressions that might communicate that you are judging the other person.

2. Share Back What You Hear - Concentrate on what your partner is saying. They can send much more information than what the words say! But start small by simply sharing your understanding of what you think you are hearing. It looks like this. Person A - I am going to see my grandmother tomorrow. She has been sick. Oh my, I am really worried about her. What will I say to make her feel better? You - So you are going to see your grandmother tomorrow. It sounds like you are worried about her.

3. Don't Judge or Offer Advice or "Sugar Coat" - One of the biggest mistakes we make as listeners is thinking that we need to fix the other person's troubles or make them feel better by downplaying their intense emotions. It isn't your job to say, "everything will be OK or here is what you should do." the reality is that most of us want someone to listen to us! This means sharing what we hear and possibly helping to label the shared emotions. This part takes practice and helps the speaker better engage their emotional intelligence to help themself. In the end, your active listening will give your partner validation and help them figure out what to do if some action is needed.

4. Be Patient and Present - Again, your only responsibility is to be an active listener unless the other person thinks about doing something to harm themselves or others. Then you would need to contact a responsible adult to intervene. Part of being a good listener is allowing your partner to think and for you not to talk very much. It is OK to have paused when neither of you is speaking. Stay focused in the moment, and don't try to switch topics or worse; start talking about yourself. ;)

These four steps come from the article "What Is Active Listening?". The article contains much more information that you can hopefully translate into Vietnamese.

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What it Looks Like and How to Encourage:

• Having mutually beneficial relationships

• Experiencing empathy in how to respond to others

• My relationships give me a boost

• The people in my life help me be my best

• Acknowledge interpersonal efforts and skills in yourself and others

• Help connect the character strength of gratitude with self-understanding and friendships

• Build self-awareness to then focus on awareness of social scenarios

Unpack the Strength²:

• What does the strength look like in action?

• What does this strength feel like in action?

• When and where can you use it?

• What is the "shadow-side" of this strength?

Điểm mạnh tính cách này trông như thế nào khi được áp dụng?

Learning Activities (Choose from the Following)

1. Components of Social Intelligence - Work with a partner to make meaning (unpack) of your teacher's information about two components of social intelligence. Once you build your understanding, list what skills a person needs to have robust Social Intelligence. Goal> To recognize that there are several skills needed to use your social intelligence effectively.

2. Practice Active Listening - One of the most important social interaction skills is being a good and active listener. Review the information provided by your teacher or at the top of this web page on active listening.
   

You are to do the following:

• • Work with a partner to develop at least three social interactions (scenarios) between two people. You could choose from the categories of being a positive, exciting share, a neutral non-emotional share of factual information, or a negative situation in which uncomfortable emotions are shared.

  • Act out as many of your scenarios as you have time for. Take turns being the speaker and listener.

  • Reflection - Respond to the following questions once you finish acting out the scenarios. What did it feel like to be listened to? What worked for you in being an active listener (what were the easy parts)? What was difficult in being the listener?
    

Goal> To understand and practice the skill of active listening.

3. Sharing Time - The class decides to share their learning about the Components of Social Intelligence or Active Listening, or you decide to share both. Have a class discussion on your learning. You can start by responding to the following.

• • Even seemingly simple social interactions can be complex. True or False? Explain your thinking.

  • What do you think are the most important relationship and social awareness skills? Explain your thinking.

  • Where and when are opportunities for you in and out of school to be an active listener?
    

Goal> To further deepen understanding of how complex and challenging it is to predict how people respond to social situations.

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1. Personal Strength Spotting - Work with a partner to share one or two examples from your life when you engaged the character strength of social intelligence. You used your communication skills (remember that listening is a communication skill) to show your understanding of the other person's words and possibly emotion(s). We cause this "acknowledgment," which means that you showed the other person that you understood what they were trying to communicate and what you think their emotion(s) were. This is often shown by being an active listener who says, "it sounds like you are saying ----- and possibly feeling ---- right now." Goal> To deepen your understanding of how we use our social intelligence strength in interactions with others.

2. Strength Spotting - Work with a partner to share one or two examples from your life when you saw someone else engaging the character strength of social intelligence. Goal> To deepen your understanding of this character strength through personal reflection.

3. Sharing Time - Each partner decides which example of "strength spotting" they would like to share with the class. Then share it with the class. We will do lots of strength spotting in ourselves and others! Goal> To deepen your understanding of this character strength through the social connection of sharing while expanding your vision to see even more examples of beauty in your environment.

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Let's create a Character Card!

1. Decide whether you want to use paper and drawing pencils or if you want to use technology.

2. The ultimate goal is to create cards for all 27 character strengths, so decide on the card size for this and your future creations.

3. You decide on the layout of your card. Think about having sections that contain a picture of the strength, a definition, and ways to exercise the strength in real life.

4. Create your card and save it to your growing collection.

5. Share your card with a partner or the whole class.
   

Goal> To deepen your understanding of this character strength by engaging your spatial and artistic skills. To also exercise your character strength of CREATIVITY!

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Taking Action: Use the WOOP goal-setting system to plan to engage this character strength more often in your life. It can be helpful to work with a partner to complete the WOOP worksheet to coach and support each other to reach your goal. Goal> To exercise this character strength more often with intention in your life! To also exercise the character strength of PROACTIVITY!

Hoạt động học tập (Chọn từ những hoạt động sau)

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Hãy tạo một Thẻ nhân vật! Mục tiêu> Để hiểu sâu hơn về sức mạnh của nhân vật này bằng cách tham gia vào các kỹ năng nghệ thuật và không gian của bạn. Để cũng thực hiện sức mạnh SÁNG TẠO của nhân vật của bạn!

1. Quyết định xem bạn muốn sử dụng giấy và bút chì vẽ hay bạn muốn sử dụng công nghệ.

2. Mục tiêu cuối cùng là tạo ra các thẻ cho tất cả 26 điểm mạnh của nhân vật, vì vậy hãy quyết định kích thước của thẻ cho việc này và các sáng tạo trong tương lai của bạn.

3. Bạn quyết định bố cục của thẻ của bạn. Hãy suy nghĩ về việc có các phần chứa hình ảnh về sức mạnh, định nghĩa và các cách để rèn luyện sức mạnh trong cuộc sống thực.

4. Tạo thẻ của bạn và lưu nó vào bộ sưu tập ngày càng tăng của bạn.

5. Chia sẻ thẻ của bạn với một bạn kh.. và / hoặc cả lớp.

I Want To Learn More

• Social Intelligence video

Tôi muốn học nhiều hơn

• (chúng tôi sẽ cần xem liệu có tài nguyên nào bằng tiếng Việt có thể giúp học viên tìm hiểu thêm về thế mạnh này không)

¹ Niemiec, R. M., & McGrath, R. E. (2019). The power of character strengths: appreciate and ignite your positive personality. Cincinnati, OH: VIA Institute on Character.

² Embedding Character Strengths. Institute of Positive Education. With permission.

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