Social skills - dealing with the other person

Being smart is fun, being strong is good. But even more important than both of these things is: Good dealing with yourself and with the other person.

Looking back

In the first article we have seen what emotional intelligence is: impulse control, perseverance, controlling emotions and being able to live in others.

The second article was about the insight into your own emotional life. It described how you can deal with emotions. What is self-understanding? Do you always have to suppress your feelings? How do you deal with fear or anger? In this third and final article it is mainly about dealing with the other person.

Insight into the other? first insight into yourself!

If you want to have an insight into the emotional life of other people, you first have to understand yourself. The basis of insight into the other is recognition of things that you also encounter in yourself. In addition, you can also learn a lot about someone else's behavior and feeling by looking around and studying books. But self-insight remains the basis.

Every relationship comes from emotional attunement. So if you want to enter into a relationship with someone, you will have to tune in to him or her. Tuning starts with looking and feeling what the other is doing. When you only talk about the things that occupy you and that interest you, you are not attuning to the other person. If there is already a relationship, it is a very one-sided relationship.

Emotions non-verbal

Emotions are 90% non-verbal. That means that only 10% of a message consists of words. The rest consists of non-verbal signals, such as posture, facial expression, tone and the like. This means that it is not so much about what is being said, but especially how it is said.

We are generally not so aware of the 90% of the signals that we broadcast. They are sent out unconsciously and also unconsciously received by the other. But they do determine how the message happens.

Women are more sensitive when it comes to absorbing emotional signals. That is why they are generally better able to connect with the world of experience and the emotional life of other people. It is not for nothing that the Israeli customs at the airport mainly ask women to question the passengers. They can recognize the best feelings of tension in people who try to keep something hidden.

There is hardly a relationship between intellectual abilities and emotional skills. Someone who can learn well does not have to be good at dealing with other people at all. It is true that intelligent people develop their skills more easily and apply better.

Role in daily life

Skills such as understanding what the other is doing are very useful in daily life. In the first place, of course, because you can go smoother with your fellow human beings. You can often prevent conflicts or solve them more easily when you know how the other person thinks and feels. In addition, in a large number of professions it is very important to feel what the customers want. If you, as the owner of a store, only think about your own interests, you will soon lose a lot of customers. If, on the other hand, you can think along with customers and advise them on their wishes, it is highly appreciated.

Especially in professions where people are treated and advice must be given, social skills come in handy. That speaks for itself.

Development of empathy

We call empathy empathy. Is that something that you have been put in the cradle or can you also teach it? The answer is encouraging: it is also easy to learn! Of course there are people who have an inborn sense for others. But having insight in the behavior and feeling of others can be very well developed. In the upbringing, you are already doing this in a playful manner: "What would Peter think about it if you take away his lego?" And: "Look how sad Marja is that you hit her."

Intimate moments are fundamental moments for children when it comes to the development of emotional life. In the earliest childhood, the foundation is laid of the way someone in his later life turns his feelings off or not. A child who expresses his joy and hears: "Do not be ridiculous!" Will come to think of it the next time - unconsciously - before he shows his feelings. Especially if such things occur regularly.

However, if parents deal with the emotions of their child in a positive way, such a child will learn that it makes sense to express feelings.

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