2.5 Emotional vs. Social Intelligence
The fourth principle of interpersonal communication addresses effective from non-effective communication. Emotional and social intelligence as explained by Smith (2019), in Communicating at Work, play a role in becoming effective in communication.
People who lack social intelligence, perhaps because they may have missed opportunities to develop conversational skills in their formative school years, come off as awkward in face-to-face conversation. They typically fail to interpret correctly nonverbal cues that say, “Now it’s your turn to speak” or “Okay, I’m done with this conversation; let’s wrap it up.” It can be difficult to interact in such situations because you may feel like you must do most of the work to moderate the conversation. Like any other type of intelligence, however, social intelligence can be developed through an understanding of the principles of good conversation.
Social Intelligence incorporates unspoken rules to cooperate and get along with others, especially in conversation. This includes reading nonverbal cues so that you know:
- How and when to initiate conversation
- When it is your turn to speak and when to listen to keep a conversation going
- What to say and what not say
- How to say what you mean in a manner that will be understood by your audience
- When and how to use humor effectively and when not to
- How and when to end conversation gracefully
Emotional intelligence (EI) like Social Intelligence, involves being a good reader of people in social contexts, being able to distinguish different emotions, and knowing what to do about them regarding others and yourself. Strong EI means knowing how a person is likely to react to what you are about to say and adjusting your message accordingly and then adjusting again according to how they react. Those who lack emotional intelligence can often be difficult to work with and offensive, often without meaning to be.
This section is adapted from Professionalism, Etiquette, and Ethical Behavior in Communication at Work – Simple Book Publishing (2nd ed.) Copyright © 2025 by Jordan Smith licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
