The Validity of Tests of Social Intelligence.

The rationale underlying tests of social intelligence and some of the problems inherent in those tests are discussed. To measure social intelligence, paper and pencil tests were developed which were "situation free." These tests employed "stereotypic behavior of individual others." The stimuli used in the behavioral tests were photographs of people, artists' drawings, and cartoons. The types of responses were generally limited to marking on an answer sheet or writing a response. A series of tests for behavioral creativity that did not use paper and pencil, answer sheets, or writing were developed. Four types of performance tests were developed and administered to a sample of 30 people along with the paper-and-pencil tests. A new set of tests, approximately 25 to 30, was developed for behavioral production. Conclusions reached as a result of two validation studies are that people with high verbal intelligence don's need behavioral intelligence to perform well on the tests, and individuals with lower intelligence to perform well on the tests, and individuals with lower intelligence sometimes still achieved very high behavioral scores. Studies have also been done relating social intelligence to certain demographic variables. A study investigating the prediction of academic achievement correlated the behavioral-cognition tests with grades at a junior college; correlations of about .50 were found with achievement in various course grades. Three studies of the use of behavioral-cognition tests for predicting vocational success are discussed. Portions of the tests relating to factors of behavioral intelligence and factors of social creativity and their tests are provided. (DB)