Social Intelligence of Adolescents: A Study of Himachal Pradesh Ruchi Thakur, Shubhangana Sharma and Raj Pathania Department of Human Department, CSKHPKV, Palampur 176 062, Himachal Pradesh, India E-mail: ruchithakur26@gmail.com KEYWORDS Age. Gender. Adolescence. Social Intelligence. Kangra District ABSTRACT This study was to find out the social intelligence of adolescents and the correlation between ecological variables and social intelligence of the respondents. A study was conducted in Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh. Two blocks namely Panchrukhi and Bhawarna were randomly selected. Four schools were selected from each block. Survey was done on 200 adolescents falling in the age group of 13-19 years under each block. Social Intelligence was assessed by Social Intelligence Scale. The results of the study revealed that most of males and females respondents were with optimistic social intelligence dimensions such as patience, co-operativeness and confidence. Contrary to this, high percentage of males and females respondents showed negative response of social intelligence dimensions such as recognition of social environment, tactfulness and sense of humour. But, males and females respondents showed an affirmative relationship with memory. A significant correlation was found between social intelligence dimensions and ecological variables of respondents. INTRODUCTION Intelligence most often refers to practical problem-solving ability, verbal ability, social competence, and effective adaptation to ones environment and to new situations and change within it. “Social intelligence is the ability to understand and manage men and women, boys and girls, to act wisely in human relations; it is equivalent to interpersonal intelligence, it deals with knowledge of social situations and more properly called social cognition.” Thorndike (1920) also believed that intelligence is an un- formed factor because we can’t judge some- body’s abilities by considering just his intelli- gence. Thorndike (1920) believed there are three kinds of intelligence: Social intelligence, Con- crete intelligence, Abstract intelligence. Accord- ing to Thorndike’s definition of social intelli- gence, an intelligent person is the one who has the ability to understand the others and to make a good relationship with them (Thorndike 1936 cited in Shoja Heidari 2009). Howard Gardner (1993) states that his intel- ligences recognize multiple facets of cognition and attempt to acknowledge people’s different strengths and styles, creating a definition of in- telligence that is broader and more applicable to the “plurality of intellect” (Gardner 1993). Ini- tially, Gardner identified seven intelligences: lin- guistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intra-per- sonal. Gardner states that traditional schooling is not always appropriate for students’ particular distributions of intelligences. Albrecht (2005) defines social intelligence (SI) as the ability to get along well with others while winning their cooperation. Social Intelli- gence is a combination of sensitivity to the needs and interests of others, sometimes called your “social radar,” an attitude of generosity and con- sideration, and a set of practical skills for inter- acting successfully with people in any setting. Social Intelligence provides a highly accessible and comprehensive model for describing, assess- ing, and developing social intelligence at a per- sonal level. Dealing with social situations de- pends upon the person’s ability. Socialization of the child starts when the child is born. So the present study has been undertaken with the fol- lowing. Objectives 1. To assess the social intelligence of adole- scents. 2. To find out the factors affecting the social intelligence of adolescents. METHODOLOGY The study was conducted in Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh. Two blocks namely Panchrukhi and Bhawarna were randomly se- lected. Four schools from each block were se- lected randomly from the list of schools. A list of schools adolescents in this school belonging to age group of 13-19 years was procured. Samples of 200 adolescents from blocks were selected. The data were collected between October 2009 © Kamla-Raj 2013 Stud Home Com Sci, 7(3): 161-166 (2013)