What is Interpersonal Sensitivity?

Let's see what Interpersonal Sensitivity is and how it influences our relationships.

The term "Interpersonal Sensitivity" refers to a person's ability to identify the other person's feelings, thoughts, needs, expectations and personality and to respond accordingly. and, in this way, to respond accordingly.

Thus, we are talking about the accuracy in processing signals and behaviors of other people and identity characteristics of the personality, within which we can find sexual orientation. This facilitates the understanding of the intentions it has, as well as helps us to anticipate the needs and desires it has.

Characteristics of Interpersonal Sensitivity

Interpersonal Sensitivity (IS) is, from this perspective, an important social competence that consists in making inferences about the abilities, characteristics and states of other people based on their nonverbal signals.for which the meaning endowed to the previously observed nonverbal behavior is essential.

For Riggio, the ability to communicate nonverbally depends on the ability to regulate (manage), send (encode) and receive (decode) information correctly. Taking into account the above definitions, we could say that the last of these three aspects is the one that would correspond to IS, i.e., the ability to perceive this information.

SI, in turn, can be divided into Nonverbal Sensitivity, Emotional Sensitivity and Social Sensitivity.. The first includes reading signals of attitudes, intentions and interpersonal orientation (tastes, desires, etc.). The second focuses only on emotional signals and the third on global social information.

Interpersonal Sensitivity and Emotional Intelligence

Interpersonal Sensitivity is at the core of theoretical models of Emotional and Social Intelligence.It is understood that one must possess basic competencies in Sensitivity in order to be emotionally or socially intelligent. Thus, Mayer, Salovey, Caruso and Sitarenios and Cherniss included SI (emotional) as one of the defining elements of EQ.

In this way, IS is necessary for the development of a functional EQ insofar as affects the ability to perceive, interpret and respond to other people's emotions, having a great impact on emotional perception.having a great impact on emotional perception.

In this sense, there is evidence of the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and the IS perceived by the person and by peers, being this Sensitivity one of the ways by which Emotional Intelligence helps people to interact with others effectively. helps people to interact with others in an effective way..

Interpersonal Sensitivity and Empathy

Although at a theoretical level the concepts of Emotional Empathy and IS are related, their main difference lies in the fact that en empathy requires a certain degree of concern (emotional reverberation) for the state of the other person.The SI refers to the ability to read other people's nonverbal cues and make correct judgments about abilities, characteristics and states.

Thus, being empathic includes the ability to be interpersonally sensitive.However, being interpersonally sensitive does not necessarily entail being empathic.

How does Interpersonal Sensitivity affect us?

Sometimes conceptualized as a skill, it is central to proper social functioning. A clear example of this is that those children with higher IS are better valued by their peers at school.At the same time, having a highly sensitive teacher leads to an improvement in children's learning levels (Bernieri, 1991), as well as to lower social anxiety and better academic self-concept in pre-adolescents. In addition, low levels of sensitivity are associated with poorer personal and social adjustment in children.

According to Hoyle and Crenshaw, taking the NPBEA (The National Policy Board for Educational Administration) as a reference, in the context of education, possessing SI enables a person to perceive the needs and concerns of others, negotiate tactfully with others, work with others in emotionally stressful situations or conflicts, manage conflicts, obtain a sense of personal and social adjustment in children. or conflicts, manage conflicts, obtain appropriate feedback, recognize multicultural differences and relate to people with different backgrounds.

Also in the clinical population we found a relationship between social interaction difficulties and psychological adjustment with Interpersonal Sensitivity.. Specifically, certain psychopathologies such as major depression or schizophrenia are associated with problems in reading nonverbal cues in both children and adults.

In addition, Davis and Kraus found an association of high levels of IS with lower cognitive rigidity, greater internal locus of control, greater positive psychological adjustment, greater emotional empathy, higher levels of social intelligence, greater interpersonal trust, better relationships and greater self-control.

Thus, those subjects with high Sensitivity have more positive interpersonal relationships, being perceived as more available to others.They are perceived as more available in case their presence or help is needed, i.e., they are considered as better social support.

Hall, Andrzejewski and Yopchick found a positive association of IS with seven positive personality characteristics: empathy, affiliation, extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, tolerance and internal locus of control.

Likewise, this variable was positively related to a series of social competencies, among which socioemotional competence and relationship quality stand out. On the other hand, they found that IS is inversely related to some personality traits such as shyness or depression..

It also enables better functioning at the work and leadership levels, in addition to influencing high satisfaction of team members and their performance (Schmid Mast, Jonas, Cronauer, & Darioly, 2012).

As can be seen, IS is related to a series of psychosocial variables, social competencies and other indicators of positive adjustment that lead to greater health and prevent various psychological, social and physical problems.

Author: Borja Luque, General Health Psychologist and Sexologist at Vitaliza Psicología de la Salud.