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Contributors:
  1. Shannon Hughes
  2. Julie B. Fishman
  3. Elisa Huerta

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Description: Although individual differences in the ability known as social intelligence, mentalizing, and Theory of Mind are important in social psychology, clinical psychology, organizational psychology, and other areas of psychological science, there are few validated measures of this capacity. Existing measures often involve complex verbal materials, focus on images of human faces, or are based on self-report judgments of one’s own competence. Here we describe the development and validation of a new measure of social intelligence: the Social Shapes Test (SST). The SST is inspired by the seminal work of Heider and Simmel (1944), Klin (2000), and recent applications of their work in social and clinical neuroscience studies of mentalizing and Theory of Mind. Each SST item consists of a short, silent video of 4–6 simple geometric shapes that are animated to simulate human social interactions, paired with an objectively scored, multiple-choice question. Based on three waves of validation studies, SST scores predict incremental validity in socioemotional ability beyond the effects of general cognitive abilities. Factor analysis results also indicate that SST scores are distinct from verbal ability, cognitive reflection, and abstract reasoning. SST scores are also less confounded by verbal ability compared to similar socioemotional measures and do not appear to vary based on sex, race/ethnicity, or current affect. With just 23 engaging items and a duration of about 10 minutes, the SST is a quick and easy way for researchers to measure social intelligence, alone or in combination with other established measures.

License: CC-By Attribution 4.0 International

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