What is Social Awareness?
Social awareness is a skill that we all must work to build within ourselves. In a broad sense, it means having an awareness and understanding of the world around us.
This includes environments, cultures, communities, societal norms, problems, struggles, and all other areas that make up the social atmosphere in which we live.
One of the most prominent figures in the field of emotional intelligence is Daniel Goleman. He breaks emotional intelligence down into four subsects: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
In relation to emotional intelligence, social awareness is best defined as our ability to accurately understand the emotions of other people and empathise with them.
Empathy is a large component of effective social awareness, and something we will go into more depth later on in the article.
Social awareness is all about taking the focus off ourselves for a moment and beginning to think about those around us. This can be very difficult to do for some of us, especially if we are often wrapped up in ourselves and consumed by our own thoughts.
It requires suspension of selfishness and self-absorbed thinking in order to accurately identify and understand how those around us think and feel.
The easiest way for me to understand social awareness is by one simple word: consideration. It all boils down to taking a second to consider how our thoughts, emotions, and actions impact others. This is a large aspect of external self-awareness, which is why the two skills are often intertwined.
Taking all of these questions into consideration, as well as many others, can help ensure we will be acting in a socially aware manner.
But, however you best understand social awareness, the fact remains the same that it is an important skill to build within ourselves.
Why is Social Awareness Important?
We are social creatures, and we live in a world where relationships and social interactions play a large part in a successful life. This makes having the ability to understand the emotions of others incredibly important.
If we lack social awareness, then it can cause our lives to be much more difficult and full of friction.
It’s not that social awareness all of a sudden will make us a social butterfly, it simply means we will relate to our fellow man or woman in a more positive and meaningful way. We will have a better time understanding their struggles and what makes them joyful.
The ability to relate to others is significant in creating rapport and building strong bonds.
Key benefits you can expect from high social awareness.
Stronger Connections/Relationships
One of the key benefits of building social awareness is the strength of connections and relationships it provides. A lot of the time when we hear these terms, we automatically think in a romantic sense. Yes, social awareness improves these relationships, but it is not limited to the romantic world.
Let’s think about it in terms of sports. This is a world where relationships are king. Whether we are talking about landing a starting position on a team, getting signed to a team, or even being given an opportunity to try out, relationships play an important role.
If you lack social awareness, it can be difficult to form such relationships. However, if you learn to master social awareness, you can build strong, meaningful connections.
For instance, having the ability to understand and empathise with your coach can help you build a stronger bond with him or her. In turn, they will be more engaged in helping you improve and reach your athletic goals.
Social awareness helps to build relationships and this is good because you can gain something. However, that is merely a side effect. Building better relationships with your coaches, teammates, friends, or partners simply leads to increased fulfillment and a more positive interaction overall.
Conflict Management
Some conflicts are unavoidable and by trying to avoid conflicts altogether, we may only be further worsening the issue.
Sometimes conflicts are necessary, especially when a certain topic or concern needs to be worked through. What social awareness provides is better management when it comes to conflicts.
When we get into an argument, without a high level of social awareness, we often become defensive and firmly hold our viewpoint. However, this is not a very good way to work through any kind of disagreement.
All that will result from this type of interaction is further frustration and arguing. But, if you have high social awareness, then conflicts can be navigated and handled in a more positive manner.
This is due to the ability social awareness provides to take the other person’s point of view. If we can understand why they are upset, why they feel hurt, or why they think what they do, then we will have a better chance of coming to a compromise or agreement.
In this way, conflicts will be much healthier and will actually have a positive effect on your life and relationships.
Increased Positivity
The two previous benefits should shed light as to how social awareness increases our overall positivity.
It’s no secret that a positive life is a better-lived life. Anyone who used to sulk about and now lives more upbeat and positive can attest that it is a much better way to live (once you get over the initial addiction to that negative feeling).
When we are experiencing better relationships, as pointed out in the first benefit, it will be easier to be positive about certain situations. Continuing the example used regarding a relationship with your coach, having such a strong bond will improve your outlook.
You will feel more positive about your sport, your athletic improvement, and your ability to keep progressing to a higher level.
In line with the second benefit, better-managed conflicts will lead to a better feeling of positivity about your relationships and your life in general. When we are constantly in a state of disagreement, it can be difficult to see the bright side of any situation.
However, when we are able to navigate such situations more smoothly, it is much easier to see a positive light in our lives.
Less Discrimination
As we grow in social awareness, discrimination towards other people will decline.
Whether this is discrimination based on culture, race, class, or any other factor, being socially aware helps to eliminate such thinking.
The reason for this lies in empathy.
Understanding how another person thinks and feels makes it incredibly difficult to discriminate and think poorly of them. Once you get to know the inner-workings of someone, you look less at their external appearance and condition and view them more for their internal beliefs and emotions.
Also, having the ability to understand multiple perspectives makes discrimination difficult to hold onto.
Most of the time, discrimination is rooted in differing beliefs. We feel that the way we think is right and so naturally, the other persons must be wrong. And wrong typically means we view it as inferior.
Instead, when we exhibit high social awareness we can empathise and understand why someone else thinks and believes differently than we do. This does not mean we must then agree with them or adopt the same views, but we can appreciate them for their unique opinions and outlook on the world.