Os autores informam que não há conflito de interesse.
João Sampaio de Almeida Prado, IBEP, IAGP, APM, ACESP, SPPAG
Presidente da Associação Brasileira de Medicina Legal e Perícia Médica de São Paulo, São Paulo-SP
Pietra Forcignano Ianelli
Universidade de Santo Amaro, Faculdade de Medicina, Santo Amaro-SP
DEAR EDITOR,
To develop the concept of social intelligence, we will start from a few others:
1- Pair concept: From the union of two people, an entity called a pair emerges. Pairs are entities in themselves that have capacities that individuals do not have separately because they are different. Pairs may or may not be smart.
In calling a pair smart, we are saying that it is better, more fit for life, than the individuals by themselves. This comes from the union of different brains and knowledge. The ideal marriage is the one that has the best contribution from both parties, i.e. to the extent that I do not understand a certain area of human knowledge and marry a woman who understands this, I become fitter, i.e. I am put into a better condition to survive within society, through her support, provided that she gives me the knowledge that I do not have and that I respect her abilities, do not keep on arguing because of vanity and do not keep on wanting to know more than she does, when she studied that subject for many years, and vice versa.
2- Protomental system: This is the group as a psychosomatic entity, i.e. an entity capable of thinking, solving difficulties or producing disease. In other words, it is the group as an entity; thus, from a union of several people, an entity emerges. The capacity of this entity is the sum of the individual capacities. Provided that there is collaboration, the capacity of the group becomes more than the sum of the individual capacities. If there is competition, the opposite will occur: the group will be less capable than the individuals. Hence, it is necessary to use capabilities intelligently in order to develop competence that constitutes applied capacity.
3- Cellular intelligence: Each individual’s own organism has cellular intelligence. The efficiency of the decisions made by the brain is directly proportional to the quality of the contributions of cells, i.e. their intelligence, cellular intelligence. This contribution is needed for the brain to make decisions, especially decisions that do not belong to the conscious brain, such as implementing hormone release in the blood or lung filling.
These decisions are always based on information that the brain receives from the body itself. If wrong information is given, wrong decisions are made. One example come from the contraceptive pill: when a certain hormone level is given to a woman, the information sent to the brain makes it think that she is pregnant, and so the brain does not send an order to make a new egg mature. In this case, the decision-making is based on information that depends on the hormone level that was administered externally. Mistakes can also be made because of false information provided through defects in the cells responsible.
The same thing happens in a group or in a society.
Each part has its function. If it is imagined that every cell in the body would function like a liver cell, for example, the organism would die because it would not have cells with the ability to breathe, etc….
Thus, there is a society that is the organism. Individuals are themselves societies.
When qualities are well applied such that, for example, I walk on my feet and pick things up with my hands, thus giving every part of my body the function that it is most suited to perform, things work well. However, imagine that I want to do the opposite, i.e. walk on my hands and pick things up with my feet: I might even be able to do this through stubbornness and a lot of sacrifice, but the performance will always be worse. This is the difference between intelligence and stupidity.
The same applies to society. Overall, this generates an entity that we can call an association or nation, but the important thing is to understand that this entity comes to have its own intelligence, its own capacity, which is the result of the contributions from each of the social cells. If doctors, lawyers and engineers do their own jobs properly, things go well. However, if through vanity engineers wish to medicate, lawyers wish to build and doctors with to advocate, this will complicate everything and things will not work well. Thus, a social organism with such characteristics will become sick.
The important thing is that intelligence should exist. Whether it will be well used is another thing. In other words, this intelligence is the sum of individual and group contributions, i.e. sectoral contributions, and it can be positive or negative
For our concept, we will call it intelligence or stupidity.
From this, the concept of social intelligence arises.
When society becomes more capable than its individuals or groups alone, it is being intelligent.
When it becomes worse, and this is due to competition, when individuals do not want to exercise what they are capable of doing but, rather, want to act through vanity or imposition resulting from a lack of recognition, so as to take on functions or positions that they are incapable of exercising, then competition has been established instead of collaboration. One person pulls the carpet from under the other person’s feet, so that the other person cannot remain standing, and the result is negative.
Social value is directly proportional to correct social inclusion, which cannot be achieved in a simplistic way, since certain functions imply diversified roles. We cannot fall into the error of overspecialization, either individually or socially, because life is a balance. For example: I do not see the need for the minister of health to be a doctor. This function requires more political capacity than medical capacity, if only because the medical experience of a psychoanalyst is totally different from the medical experience of an abdominal surgeon. Moreover, if the minister is a capable politician, and even if he did not get as far as completing high school but learned politics in the school of life, he will have the ability to gather and listen to the advice necessary to meet the needs of healthcare professions, taking into account their social inclusion. In other words, group work yields more than the sum of separate work when there is collaboration, and less when there is competition.
We are referring to competition in the sense of worship of being right, when one person wants to be more important than another person, by trying to despise their values or ability. When the importance of all people for the whole is not accepted, then each person begins to have the need to get in the way of other people so as to appear more important.
The importance of narcissism thus arises.
It is considered that there have been four major coups against human narcissism:
1 – The fall of the geocentric theory, when it was proven that our home, called Earth, is not the center of the universe.
2 – The evolutionary theory, which demonstrated that we evolved from other animals and were not created especially by God, as we like to think. This does not contradict in any way the existence of a creator God, but replaces the idea that we can get everything on a tray just by being human, with the idea that God created the means. Thus, what we are or what we can be, becomes the fruit of the way in which we use these means, i.e. we have to work with intelligence (including to develop our intelligence).
Darwin’s evolutionary theory has been proven, with the exception of the idea that evolution pursues an ideal model, considering that it has been demonstrated that we need the difference even to exist.
3 – The discovery of unconsciousness, with the consequent discovery that many of our decisions are out of the reach of our reason of which we are so proud.
4 – The discovery of the need to love since love represents a stimulus for life. When we do not love, we develop a slow form of depression that slows us down and accelerates our death. In other words, although we may like to think that we live in society because it is rationally better, the reality is that we need other people for our health as much as food. It is a physiological need and, therefore, when it is not satisfied, it generates disease. The only difference is the length of time over which non-satisfaction leads us to death.
The need to love is a psychoanalytical expression (also because when a psychoanalyst speaks of love, it is based on the four forms of love defined by Greek civilization and which includes agape or, in Latin, caritas – charity).
Here, we enter an update. The original work was registered at the National Library in 2004. In 2012, at the 18th International Congress of Group Psychotherapy and Group Processes, we put forward the fifth great coup against human narcissism. This study was awarded the distinction of the 3rd best poster, and thus gained acceptance and endorsement from the scientific committee of the congress. This allows us to change the number of major coups against human narcissism to a total of five.
What we propose is that to be intelligent, it is not enough for humans to have a device to think about, they need to learn how to use it. For this, it is necessary to overcome the narcissistic tendency to think that we are intelligent just because we have a brain. This proposal is based on a trio of previous works:
1) Previous works of ours, such as on the psychopathology of reason, which was presented at the 14th IAGP congress in Jerusalem, in 2000.
2) Works by Sigmund Freud and Wilfred Rupert Bion, specifically “Interpretation of Dreams” by Freud and “Thinking how to think with Bion”.
3) Argumentative theory, a study by Dan Sperber of the Jean Nicod Institute and Hugo Mercier of the University of Pennsylvania, in which they concluded that one of the major obstacles to human development is that we humans develop our intelligence not to search for truth but, rather, to seek arguments to convince others that our ideas are better than theirs, i.e. not to learn but to be right.
In this study, we classify being intelligent as having efficacious intelligence that is capable of reaching unapparent conclusions, i.e. through abstracting, since in terms of mnemic intelligence, computers have become more capable than humans.
Furthermore, as a result of observing some divergences regarding the Greek classification of love, in partnership with Dr. Eduardo Cunha de Farias, we developed a specific study. After three and a half years of researching among documents, we concluded that the great Greek masters classified love in 10 different ways: Pornéia, Pathé, Mania, Eros, Storgué, Sterguetron (paternal love), Philia, Ennoia (being willing), Kharis and Agape. The details are presented in a study that we registered in the National Library in 2016, under the name “Psychodynamics of the Greek Classification of Love – Its Correlation with the Fourth Great Coup against Human Narcissism.”
In reality, caritas (charity) comes from Kharis, which is the love from the most evolved to the least (Deus Caritas Est – encyclical letter of Benedict XVI), while Agape is the love between equals, the love of Christ, i.e. loving others as one does oneself.
Another important point is that the evolution of scientific knowledge already clearly leads us to the need to work in terms of medical cooperation in order to offer complete patient care. Update on April 24, 2021.
Through using more encompassing language, we can say that we need to feel socially useful. In other words, we need to do things for others or for them to participate. We also need to see our participation recognized.
Nature made us like this: there is deep intelligence behind it. Since we need to feel that our collaboration is valued (collaboration that is thrown in the trash is useless), it is necessary in developing social intelligence to recognize the importance of all sectors of society. Special attention needs to be given to individuals or sectors that have not had great access to culture, because it is culture that allows knowledge of the correlation between action and reaction over the medium and long term. These individuals have difficulty in perceiving their own importance and thus are at risk of undervaluing or overvaluing it, which then leads them towards delinquency.
When we entered medical school, we participated in electromyography tests, including using ourselves as guinea pigs. These tests enabled a great advance in physiotherapy since they made it possible to precisely identify muscle function. Twenty years later, I was directly benefited by this, in resolving a personal health problem. Thus, what I did through love of medicine and of other people ended up benefiting me directly.
It is part of social intelligence to think based on the concept of what and not why. Some time ago, we saw a report about a discussion in California. Some people wanted to cut the spending on healthcare and education of illegal immigrants, claiming that it was not fair that citizens’ money should be spent on non-taxpayers. Their view was very justifiable, but those who were in favor of maintaining the benefit claimed that if they did not give education and healthcare, criminality would erupt in a few years. It is not smart to be right and not think about crime.
Being intelligent both individually and socially implies thinking about the medium and long-term consequences of what we do. Here, it is important to differentiate intelligence from trickery. One is basically the antithesis of the other, because from the outset of this trickery, only immediate benefits are aimed at.
Nonetheless, only culture allows us to know the interactions between action and reaction over the medium and long term. Therefore intelligence alone is not enough. Intelligence allows individuals to understand that there are things that are beyond their knowledge and that therefore cultural understanding should be sought, in a responsible manner, i.e. not believing everything that they read or hear. Through acquisition of culture, individuals can become increasingly capable of learning alone to separate the wheat from the chaff, because the true culture is scientific, i.e. what works.
This is where intelligence directly enters into identification of true culture. We can define intelligence as the ability to think, as Bion teaches us in his magnificent work on thought. In fact, thinking does not consist of keeping on repeating words in one’s head but, rather, it consists of finding a way to solve difficulties and evolve to improve facilities.
Intelligence is also something that develops. Everyone was born with the same brain, except for those with inborn defects and also those who cannot develop due to food deprivation in early childhood, thus generating defects (what social stupidity it is to waste what they could have been!). Apart from these cases, the individuals who are most intelligent are those who have made the effort to develop.
It is also important to question measurement of intelligence through IQ tests. Studies conducted by leading-edge medical psychology researchers lead us to indicate that these tests are done in accordance with a specific mold of IQ that is associated with what is valued academically. In other words, if I develop my skills within an academic setting, it follows that I will do well in IQ tests, and this really is an indication of ability. However, if I am a street vendor, while I might be starving to death, another person who was considered deficient through these tests might be getting rich.
Based on this questioning, some studies have been developed especially in Israel, with major results relating to social inclusion of individuals who had been considered deficient through tests, and consequently with profit for all of society.
On the other hand, academic institutions that invested in adapting to accommodate disabled people have ended up seeing their academic success increase. This lead us to consider that respect for and coexistence with differences effectively increases social competence. In other words, this is an element of social and individual intelligence (Lou Brown).
In reality, respect for differences is intelligent, and unanimity is unintelligent. This is what happens in dictatorial governments: the dictator ends up surrounding himself with sycophants and remains unexposed to criticism. No matter how good the person may be initially, this situation ends up leading the country to failure.
In fact, with a certain degree of frequency, we see that politicians who are bitten by ambition become so accustomed to their immunity and powers that they do not take an epidemic seriously, as if the dengue mosquito, for example, was to make a distinction and stop biting high-ranking parliamentarians.
With regard to the importance of differences, which is the fundamental basis of modern democracy, Montesquieu expressed it thus: “A man who has power tends to abuse it”. Therefore, we need to have an administrative political structure with independence from the powers. Over time, this has become summarized as the three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. These powers, which are in essence parallel to each other, did not yet exist in Montesquieu’s days.
Regarding the concept of interdependence, it is healthy and desirable for interdependence to exist. I usually say to the person who I am analyzing that if you need me for you to be analyzed, I need you for me to be an analyst. There is no sense in doctors not having direct contact with patients, because they would lose their real ability to be doctors, even though they would still have their degree certificates.
We depend on each other, even to be ourselves. It is clear that certain individuals are more difficult to replace because what they do is the result of many years of preparation, but that is another story. It does not mean that this person is more important than someone else who has a simple activity.
In my own case, after 15 years of medical training, we created emotional education, a topic through which the aim is to prepare people for relationships. Twenty years after graduation, I registered my concept of Learning to be Slim, a treatment technique through which people are taught to be slim while still being able to eat at will. I needed to do a lot of studying and a lot of work, and I could only do this because someone planted the rice that I ate, reared the ox that became my steak and so on. Otherwise, I would have had to do these things to survive and I would not have created anything because of lack of time.
Putting matters in these terms fully demonstrates the equal importance of all people. This is not in the sense of having equal capabilities but, rather, because we want to have the same rights for all sectors. Situations of serious social pathological conditions would exist if students wanted to teach the teacher or liver cells wanted to produce thyroid hormone. These would be cancers, i.e. diseases that kill if they are stimulated rather than contained.
Treating unequal people as equals is nothing more than a way of distributing injustice (Prayer to young men – Rui Barbosa). Rather, we are equal in social importance.
Basically social intelligence consists of recognition of the social importance of all people and of working in society, so that each person can make a contribution, not a contribution of another person.
We need people who know how to grow rice so that the rice that we are going to eat can be produced, rather than getting medical classes from them. We need these people to plant the rice so that we can be doctors. There is a directly proportional relationship, in that we will be less able to act as doctors, the more that we have to go after producing our own food. Everyone has the same social importance.
True dialogue, which consists of the ability of two parties to talk without trying to impose their point of view on the other party or parties, is the greatest tool for the development of intelligence and social health.
In summary:
The concept of social intelligence is the ability to recognize the equal importance of all, whether individuals or entities, while respecting competence and limitations, for development of the social complex and improvement of all. This has the implication of stimulating individuals to do their work and give their best, in order to create a better whole.
Suggested reading
Freud, The interpretation of dreams, the unconscious.
Bion, Group Experience (Group Mentality) and Learning from Experience (Bion’s Theory on Thought)
Mercier and Sperber, The enigma of reason, “Behavioral and Brain Sciences” journal, edition of April 2011.
Lou Brown, Functional educational programs and inclusive education.
