Social sensitivity: a basic ability to relate

As social beings, humans spend much of our time interacting with others. From the moment we are born and in all areas of our lives, socialization plays a fundamental role in our success and happiness. Nevertheless, Not all of us have the same expertise when it comes to interacting.. And this depends largely on our social sensitivity.

Well, communication goes far beyond words. The bulk of the message is transmitted through gestures, postures, intonation… elements, in short, more subtle and difficult to capture.. It is at this level where people with high social sensitivity have an advantage, as they have access to a greater amount of information.

What is social sensitivity?

Social sensitivity could be defined as the ability to pick up and perceive subtle signals in communication and respond appropriately to them. We are not talking about recognizing simple facial expressions, such as anger, joy or surprise. We refer to the ability to infer the deep implications of the situation.

The socially sensitive person has the ability to correctly decode the emotions and thoughts of others, even when they try to hide them. They even manage to infer the intentions and personality traits of their interlocutor; and they even understand the complexity of the relationship between two people they observe.

All of us, even at a minimal level, have put this skill into practice.. For example, when we make these types of statements:

“He didn’t say it, but it was obvious that he didn’t like the gift.”“He was hiding it, but he looked clearly angry.”“There was a lot of chemistry between them.”“The tension was palpable in the atmosphere.”

How does social sensitivity benefit us?

This skill is very useful in various areas. Socially sensitive people enjoy better personal relationships. They have a greater number of friends and these are warmer and more harmonious. Likewise, your family and relationship relationships are more balanced and rewarding.

They also benefit in the workplace, since They have an advantage when performing all those jobs that require quick and correct social perception.. They are great therapists, mediators and diplomats. And they are usually successful in sales and business.

For his part, “insensitive” individuals may encounter greater interpersonal difficulties, since they lose much of the relevant information. They may not be able to correctly capture hesitations, contradictions or facial expressions that provide extremely important data regarding what is happening socially.

However, this social insensitivity can manifest itself from two different aspects. On the one hand, there are those people who simply do not identify these subtle signals or do not pay them due attention. For another, There are those who sin by overanalyzing the situation. People who always believe that there is something beyond, that everyone is hiding something, who live by the motto “think wrong and you will be right.”

In any case, their decoding of other people’s emotions, thoughts and intentions are not correct. And, for the same reason, their interactions are of lower quality and less success.

Where does this ability come from?

In view of the importance of social sensitivity, it is worth asking why some people are more sensitive than others and if this can be worked on. Well, first of all, we have to take into account that it is a relatively stable trait. It depends largely on our particular idiosyncrasies and the environment in which we grew up.

For example, it has been detected that Those who grow up in less expressive families develop greater social sensitivity. On the contrary, growing up in an open family nucleus makes it unnecessary to enhance this ability to identify subtleties.

However, the number of different social contexts to which we are exposed also plays a relevant role. As well as our predisposition to catch the signals. Thus, It is possible to improve social sensitivity by opening yourself up to experiencing interactions with diverse people and environments.

This will help us create the habit of focusing our attention beyond merely verbal communication. As well as establishing associations between people’s behavior and their internal state. Developing your social sensitivity can be very useful to you, so we invite you to start putting these abilities into practice.

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