CAMBA, VERONICA T.

SOCIAL INSIGHT THEORY

CLG201M APRIL 11, 2016

Operational Definition of Terms

Social Insight the combination and interaction of physical, cognitive, and socioemotional factors to produce an understanding of the self and other people.
Intuition our instincts about people that is a manifestation of our social insight.
Personality our impression or expression of skills, traits, preferences, characteristics
and behaviors according the interplay of the 3 types of social insight. It is dynamic
but relatively stable over time. Our most distinctive characteristics at a given time
can be determined by the strongest type of social insight that we have, and also by
the number of people who identifies or affirms those traits.
Foresight the ability to predict outcomes
Multiple Intelligences Based on the theory of Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg, it
provides a way to assess the level of social insight that people have
Human Nature.
Experiences that have a profound effect in our lives can prove to be the most
satisfying. One of these are social relationships, especially when we interact with people
who changes the course of our lives or who teaches us things that inspires novelty and
excitement. Social intelligence can be seen as a strength in navigating the social world
and one must move beyond assessing the actions and intentions of the people around
them and knowing who we can or cannot associate with (Hamlin, et al., 2007).
There are 3 factors affecting our social insight. These are our biological or genetic
data, physical/natural environment, and direct or indirect social experiences. Biological or
genetic data lays down the foundation for social evaluation and other social processes;
Hamlin, et al. (2007), from their research on morality and babies, suggested that social
evaluation is a biological adaptation. Physical/natural environment are the aspects in our
world that affect our daily lives that has no obvious social implications, such as interaction
with inanimate objects like water, land, or force of gravity. Direct and indirect social
experiences have everything to do with our interactions and learning from our self and
from other people.

The interplay of these 3 factors are the basis of activating and determining each of
the three types or stages of social insight, which are the following:
o Core Social Insight
o Perceptive Social Insight
o Productive Social Insight
Core social insight is characterized when we are focused on ourselves and cannot
move beyond our own desires or motives. It means that we have absent understanding
about how other people affect our lives and so we only focus on our own world. Activation
of the core social insight might lead to the evaluation of our experience, and we act or
make judgments based on our existing knowledge about ourselves. Moreover, when core
social insight is the primary thing governing a persons life, it might be considered by
others as psychologically unhealthy, like some adults who have delusional beliefs and
are completely out of touch with reality. The main goal of this stage is to understand the
self and to start forming social awareness.
Perceptive social insight is a broader type of social insight wherein there is social
awareness and people employ observant or interactive behaviour but interprets it for
personal use. This stage is characterized by passive absorbing of social information, for
example when we meet other people for the first time or a few times, we may have little
insight about them, and this perceptive social insight might help us act and make
decisions by utilizing our self-knowledge and the knowledge we have about people. Like
how we feel when we are subjected to strong emotions of other people, or how we
perceive the activities of people around us. The main goal of this stage is to understand
how the human behavior works and why they behave a certain way.
Lastly, productive social insight is when we are able to use social information and
apply it to others by reacting or proactively interacting with them. It means having a
sophisticated model of the universe and carefully discerning how to improve things. At
this stage we should a deep understanding of human and our society. It means that we
intelligently apply everything that we have learned about humans to our daily lives, to our
relationships, and to other life aspects such as work and education. The main goal in this
stage is to move outside of ourselves towards inspiring and affecting others, and leaving

a legacy. We should be able to utilize our genetic capabilities, environmental learnings,

automatic processes, and social awareness for strengthening our intuition and foresight.
If the primary strength of our personality is productive insight, we become active
controllers of our social environment, and instead of passively experiencing a situation,
we utilize our cognition or other factors in order to change or create a social environment.
For example, An individual has gained the deep knowledge that most people are
operating based on their core social insights, meaning they are mostly self-centered and
concerned only about themselves. In a situation wherein that individual needs to submit
a homework assignment to his teacher, the individual will use his productive insight to
create a homework that interests him and at that same time will interest the teacher, so
he can get a higher grade.
The primary goal is to have productive social insight.
Core Social
Insight
Perceptive
Social Insight
Productive
Social Insight

We can do this by first having a

significant

understanding

ourselves

and

physical,

cognitive

how

of
our
and

emotional processes affect our

lives. We then move towards
understanding other people by
being aware of body language,
human

behaviour,

and

the

natural laws of environment.

Productive social insight is achieved when we have a deep understanding of what the
human needs and being flexible and proactive enough to provide it. It also means we
have moved beyond ourselves in order to work towards producing a legacy that we can
leave for the society even if we are gone.
References
Gardner, Howard. 2000. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic.
Hamlin, K., et al. 2007. Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature 450, 557-559
Sigelman, C. & Rider, E. 2012. Life-Span Human Development, Seventh Edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning