ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the development of social intelligence with insights from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and other fields. It offers a conceptual model for engagement in social worlds intelligently based on five fundamental principles that serve as catalysts to social development: humanization, connection, cultivation, integration, and mindfulness. The chapter argues that these five catalysts could form a foundation for social intelligence training, and distinguish such training from training in other areas of intelligence or interpersonal skills. It describes the benefits of social intelligence for creative thinking, problem solving and collaboration, which, in turn, generate positive outcomes for organizations in areas of innovation and business performance. The chapter considers how effective development of social intelligence can lead to improvements in creativity, problem solving and collaboration. It provides research evidence for these outcomes with special attention to experimental work on cognitive psychology, recognizing also that much work has been accomplished in areas like leadership and human resources development.
