In 1920, the American psychologist Edward Thorndike, defined Social Intelligence as the ability to understand and manage men and women whose main basis was the sense of empathy, the necessary ability to live and survive in this individualized world.
It is necessary to understand this concept, not about our relationships but in our relationships. This definition broadens the focus of social intelligence from a one-person point of view to a two-person perspective.
Expanding in this way the concept of Social Intelligence, allows us to understand what really happens when people interact and also to look beyond the narrow personal interest towards the best interest for others, with this the skills of empathy and concern for the other.
This has added to a conceptual confusion within the science of psychology, about which of the human abilities are social and which are emotional. In reality both domains intermingle, just as the brain's social property overlaps with its emotional centers. You cannot separate the cause of an emotion from the world of relationships, social interactions are what move emotions.
Social Intelligence allows people to develop the ability to tune in, to enter and understand the inner reality of the other. Psychoanalysts use the term "Intersubjectivity" to refer to this intertwining of people's inner worlds. The phrase "I-YOU" is a more lyrical way of describing the same kind of empathic connection. For Buber (1937), an author interested in the mystical and in philosophy, "I _ YOU" is a special bond, a tuned closeness found in the closest relationships.
En alemán la forma para “TÜ” que utilizó Buber es “Du”, es más intima, la palabra que utilizan los amigos y enamorados. Por otra parte, para el autor señalado, “TÜ” tiene una dimensión trascendental. La relación humana con lo divino, es la única relación “YO-TÚ”, que puede sostenerse indefinidamente a través de los tiempos, en esta humanidad imperfecta. Toda actividad humana, generada de las habilidades de la inteligencia Social, son aptitudes necesarias para salvar al planeta de las garras del individualismo, que permita construir un mundo mejor para la Sobrevivencia del hombre.
