Name: Abhishek Agrawal PRN: 12020941031

Book Review of Social Intelligence The New Science of Human Relationships by Daniel Goleman
About the Author
Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. As a science journalist Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year-and-a-half, with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 40 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries. Apart from his books on emotional intelligence, Goleman has written books on topics including self-deception, creativity, transparency, meditation, social and emotional learning, eco-literacy and the ecological crisis (taken from the authors website).

Introduction
This book deals with the social aspects of intelligence, i.e. how our brains work when we are in groups. The social brain refers to the neural mechanisms that coordinate our interactions as well as thoughts and feelings about people and our relationships. The social brain is the only biological system in our bodies that continually influences and in turn becomes influenced by the internal state of the people we are with. All other biological systems mainly regulate their activity in response to signals emerging from within our body. Social intelligence deals with the interpersonalthat fascinating array of interactions with others that affects how we feel mentally, emotionally, and even physically. It also affects how teachers are able to motivate students, employers, and workers, how marriages can be sources of nurturance and mutual support and how to raise children in a family.

Emotions are Contagious

The starting point in his argument is that human beings are designed for sociability and that our emotions are contagious, in much the same way as some illnesses. The reason for this is what neurologists call mirror neurons. These are cells in the brain that react subconsciously by imitating (or mirroring) the neurons in another person. In this way, our brains are able to emulate the physical and chemical state of another person, thereby creating a more empathetic understanding of them. The most obvious illustration of this is when someone yawns and triggers yawning in other people around them. Have you also noticed that you are far les likely to yawn in response to another person if you do not like them?

High Road & Low Road

Goleman describes how the brain provides two routes into it, what Goleman describes as the high road and the low road. The high road runs through the neural system that works more methodically and step by step, with deliberate effort. The low roads circuitry operates beneath our awareness, automatically and effortlessly.

Name: Abhishek Agrawal PRN: 12020941031

How can a brain be influenced

The social brain relates to, influences, and is influenced by the internal state of the people we are with. Indeed, the brain is significantly refashioned in its neural pathways by sustained interaction with significant others. Our relationships form usfor good or ill, depending upon their quality. Fortunately, for those negative personal relationships we might have, knowledge of all this provides the power to change. In the case of social intelligence, there are things we can learn from social neuroscience to apply to our relationships, improving them and improving ourselves at the same time. The brain, for instance, triggers a smile in someone in return for a smile. Even a picture or movie of a smiling person will trigger at least a minute change in facial muscles, the beginning of an answering smile. Good emotions also can spread like a virus, Goleman says. In fact, the brain seems predisposed to prefer and recognize people with happy faces over people with gloomy or angry ones. The brain is primed for positive interactions, making positive relationships more the norm than negative ones. Nature, says Goleman, is on the side of positive relationships.

Components of Social Intelligence

Social intelligence has two components: A) B) Social awareness Social facility

Social awareness includes: 1) 2) 3) 4) Primal empathy: Feeling with others, sensing emotional signals. Attunement: Listening with full receptivity Empathic accuracy: Understanding another persons thoughts, feelings and intentions Social cognition: Knowing how the social world works.

Social facility includes: 1) 2) 3) 4) Synchrony: Interacting smoothly at the verbal level Self-presentation: Presenting ourselves effectively Influence: Shaping the outcome of social interactions Concern: Caring about others needs and acting accordingly.

Humankind is a social animal.

In fact, Goleman tells us, brain studies show that our brains favorite default activitywhat it does in its downtimeis ruminate over our relationships. Thinking about our relationships is our brains favorite TV show, Goleman states. When we have to turn our attention to a task that engages our mind, the TV show shuts down, only to be resumed as soon as the brain has a little down time to spare.

Name: Abhishek Agrawal PRN: 12020941031 Separation is the source of all anxiety, said Erich Fromm, and Goleman concurs. We are anxious when separation or rejection loomsperhaps a remnant of the primitive brain, which knew that acceptance by others meant survivalbut even though we do not need each other as desperately as we did in primitive times, we still need each other and separation or rejection hurts, badly, almost physically.

Part wise summary of the book PART I Wired To Connect

Our brains are wired to make connections with other people. Even deeper than that, our interactions with others shape our behaviour again and again in subtle ways. A simple example of this is the fact that how people interact with us alters our self-image, but it goes far beyond that. We often subtly emulate the behaviours we see other people taking on in various situations, trying these behaviours on for ourselves. Thus, if we associate with people who have good behaviours in a wide variety of situations, our repeated viewing of these behaviours begins to affect who we are and how we act.

PART II Broken Bonds

Obviously, theres a negative side to this. When people treat us poorly, we begin to reduce our own self-image. When we lose someone, we can feel lost ourselves. The social bonds that break in our lives can break us. The key to getting past this is improving our understanding of other people. Others are mortal. They feel pain. They die. They make mistakes. They have their own goals and dreams. Its not necessarily a poor reflection on us if the goals and dreams of someone else do not involve us, though it can be a sign that we need to improve some aspect of ourselves. Thats all about self-improvement, though, not self-loathing.

PART III Nurturing Nature

Goleman takes on the nature versus nurture question here and argues that, while our nature does form some aspects of who we are, much of who we are is formed by the people around us and the interactions we have. For instance, if someone is rather antisocial by nature, the best way to overcome that isnt by just saying Well, its my genes, its by associating with people who find social interaction to be easy. The best approach you can take is to be honest and open with yourself about your flaws and make a point to seek out others that can, through social intelligence, help you overcome those flaws. Find friends that bring out the best in you.

PART IV Loves Varieties

Obviously, these concepts relate deeply to love and committed relationships. Relationships are the end result of a large number of social encounters, and people who are in relationships often powerfully shape each other in more ways than they realize. Most married people will tell you that the flow of their married life, even when theyre without their partner, is different than the flow of their previous single life.

Name: Abhishek Agrawal PRN: 12020941031

PART V - Healthy Connections

Goleman argues that stress is almost entirely a social phenomenon because it indicates on some level that we feel were letting others down. The healthiest relationships we have the ones that lack stress are often the strongest ones we have. Think of your closest friends, for instance, or your spouse. Healthy connections (the ones that do not provide us with stress) are incredibly valuable in our life because they allow us to make deep connections and learn an incredible amount.

PART VI Social Consequence

A healthy life is one that finds a happy medium between stress and boredom. In either extreme case, were unproductive and often unhappy. The key is to find situations and relationships where were neither bored nor stressed out. This applies in almost every situation in life, from having a dinner with acquaintances to working on a project in the workplace. A stressed-out person simply does not perform well, nor does a bored person. Thus, if you want to succeed or want the people around you to succeed, you need a warm and enjoyable environment. Often, thats one filled with people that you have (or can have) positive interactions with. Shared positive interactions create the kind of stress-killing that leads to success.

Applications of Social Intelligence

When applied to various fields, social intelligence leads to better health, learning and happiness. Effective parenting building the neural circuitry of the child for high empathy and social intelligence via providing a secure base for the childs emotional growth. Encourage interaction through play. Promotes curiousity and learning. Healthy aging nurturing a healthy social network even after the death of ones spouse has shown benefits to mental health and longevity Healthcare compassion in medical treatment. Doctors treat patients as I You versus I It. Respect dignity of patients. Schools creating a secure base for learning, encourage peer support (vs bullying) by encouraging group project work Prisons reduce recidivism by teaching inmates trust and communication skills (social intelligence) via teambuilding, sharing of stories, mutual mentoring, caring and peer moral support

Implications of Social Intelligence

Goleman sounds the warning that technology is causing a social disconnect in society, characterized as a social corrosion, a creeping disconnection email, web, game, video, iPod reduce the quality of human interaction. People live in a virtual meta-world. Goleman warns against social engineering as it treats humans as a I It rather than a I You leading to social disconnect. Capitalism and economic models are hyper rational, ignoring the low road of human behaviour and intrinsic happiness. A lot of rich countries have unhappy people. Bhutan has the highest Gross National Happiness. Goleman advocates the concept of social communities, in schools, prisons, families, neighbourhoods, workplaces as a means of combating this social disconnect. This human connectedness will overcome prejudice and discrimination as the Them becomes Us through empathy and compassion. This will overcome hatred and violence and promote healing and forgiveness. Social intelligence is essential for our health,

Name: Abhishek Agrawal PRN: 12020941031 happiness well-being and sense of humanity (optimal human existence), by tapping on the social brain. Social intelligence and social epigenetics, is in fact an issue of survival. We must love one another, or die our primal empathy being natures mechanism for group survival.

Conclusion:
Life becomes truly worth living only when we have happiness and fulfilment. Good quality relationships are one of the strongest sources of such feelings. Resonant relationships are like emotional vitamins. Nourishing relationships are considered the single most universally agreed upon feature of the good life. By developing social intelligence we can interact with people around us more effectively. That calls for greater awareness about ourselves and control over our emotions. The book is absolutely packed with anecdotes and stories that illustrate the points Goleman is making, which makes for a very engaging read. However, the question I never really got an answer to is so what? The book is really good explanation, in laymans terms, of what neuroscientists have been working on for some years. It does attempt to answer the so what question in short sections with titles such as healing relationships, the socially intelligent leader and the marital battleground. However, while each of these sections could probably justify a book in their own right, Goleman devotes most of the space to yet more stories and anecdotes, many of which seem to become rather familiar and repetitious. Overall it is a book that I enjoyed reading, but which I found too long given the points it was seeking to make. If you enjoyed Golemans Emotional Intelligence, I am sure you will enjoy this book just as much. However it is a book that I would only recommend to people who are particularly interested in the subject and who love anecdotes.