Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B000IU3WY8 | Format: PDF
Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships Description
Emotional Intelligence was a phenomenon, selling more than five million copies worldwide. Now, in
Social Intelligence, Daniel Goleman explores an emerging science with startling implications for our interpersonal world. Its most amazing discovery: we are "wired to connect", designed for sociability, constantly engaged in a "neural ballet" that connects us, brain to brain, with those around us.
Far more than we are consciously aware, our daily encounters shape our brains and affect cells throughout our bodies. Our reactions to others send out cascades of hormones that regulate everything from our hearts to our immune systems, making good relationships act like vitamins, and bad relationships like poisons. Here, Daniel Goleman explains how we can use our astonishing capacity for "mindsight" to answer some of life's most essential questions: Is there a way to raise our children to be happy? What is the basis of a nourishing marriage? How can business leaders and teachers inspire the best in those they lead and teach? How can groups divided by prejudice and hatred come to live together in peace?
Goleman's heartening news is that humans have a built-in bias toward empathy, cooperation, and altruism, provided we develop the social intelligence to nurture these capabilities in ourselves and others.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 12 hours and 7 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: September 13, 2006
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000IU3WY8
I heard an interview with Daniel Goleman on NPR and thought this book sounded fascinating. Goleman explained that research into neuroscience was exploding, and that researchers had recently discovered biological, chemical and structural aspects of the brain that correspond to fluency in social interactions. When people strongly connect in social situations, the chemical activity in each person's brain actually synchs up with the other participants'. This causes a ripple effect throughout the body, causing greater and greater physiological connections. A person with high "social intelligence" has this effect to a much greater degree than others; an charimatic person can affect the physiology of a crowd of hundreds or even thousands. Goleman claims that such research will have a profound effect on the theory of social interactions and interpersonal relationships.
Unfortunately, the ten-minute interview was much more interesting and informative than the book. After making that basic point in the first five pages in the introduction, Goleman wanders incoherently from topic to topic, with no attempt at all to structure a cohesive argument or to draw any overarching conclusions from the material he discusses. Instead, each chapter consists of a series of only loosely related anecdotes that supposedly correspond to one research study or another. Goleman makes no attempt to explain the connections between these subsections or to thread them together into a coherent whole. Indeed, the entire book consists almost entirely of a series of examples, but Goleman never explains what the examples are supposed to be illustrating.
I found it impossible to read this book straight through.
I read a book a day, and have for 30 years. I sometimes read a book looking for that one scintillating page, sometimes it's just a paragraph, in some books only a sentence. I begin by reading the inside cover of the book. I then scan the preface, and turn to any random page usually deep in the book. I start to read. Whether something strikes my fancy or not, I turn to another page somewhere else in the book. I probably look at five pages this way. Within those five pages, I can tell if I am going to like this book.
With Goleman's Social Intelligence, every page was fascinating. I literally had difficulty putting it down. This whole book is jam-packed with fabulous and interesting information on topics, which I feel are important to all of us as human beings. Some of this material has been covered in other places in other ways. When Goleman covers it, it seems so fresh.
His work seems to indicate that as human beings, we are DESIGNED FOR SOCIALIBILITY. Our emotions are CONTAGIOUS. Now there's a thought I have never thought about. You can catch a cold; we all know that. What I didn't know is that I could literally catch somebody's emotional state.
Yes, I know that classically trained psychoanalysts go through "transference issues" with their patients. That's not the point. What about being in a room with a group of very down people, and your soul picks up on it and accommodates them by making you depressed. This is what Goleman is writing about, and he gives example after example. The difference is that the author uses the phrase, "TOXIC PEOPLE".
I have been fortunate in many of the friendships I have formed through the years. One of my friends is among the brightest people on earth. He is categorized as Mensa, Mensa, the top 1% of 1% of geniuses on earth.
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