Social Intelligence - Quiz

[regentrude]

Test how well you can read emotions of others just by looking at their eyes.

The ability to read the emotions of others is linked to "social intelligence" which, in turn, is linked to performance on team-based problem solving tasks.

 

http://kgajos.eecs.harvard.edu/mite/

 

 

It was interesting. I got 32 out of 36. Some I found rather difficult and had to guess; just seeing the eyes removes a lot of facial clues one would otherwise have available.

 

Have fun.

[Tita Gidge]

I tried, but the pictures aren't showing up. Maybe it's my browser.

 

Too bad, I was looking forward to it.

 

Social intelligence is relevant to how I earn my living :)

[Jen500]

Hmmm...I got a 32 also.

[FaithManor]

I wanted to try it but I guess we have some security settings that are interfering. My computer will not load a single picture!

 

Faith

[Guest submarines]

27, which is average. But I found it very difficult, and it gave me a headache.

[Jaybee]

28. I found this interesting. I generally read people very well, and expected to score a little higher.

[jrn]

30

[Heather in Neverland]

I got 33. It is interesting though, I have always been quite good at "reading" people but I really dislike group projects.

[4kidlets4me]

30. I found it difficult without seeing their whole face.

[regentrude]

I got 33. It is interesting though, I have always been quite good at "reading" people but I really dislike group projects.

 

 

I hate and despise group projects. I do not think that the ability to read people affects whether one LIKES group projects.

[UrbanSue]

I only got a 23! And I thought I was pretty good at this kind of thing.

[Candid]

Am I the only one that found those photos odd? The women in particular all seemed to have dated brows like 60s. Maybe I just don't spend enough time around people who wear makeup.

[Kathryn]

I thought the photos were odd too.

 

I got a 29.

[Matryoshka]

I got 32 out of 36. I'm a bit surprised I did better than average... and it was difficult without seeing their whole face. Especially the women who did not seem to have much of an expression at all...

[bethben]

25--but I am not as good reading people's thoughts. I'm not surprised.

[TeacherZee]

I got 34

 

One important part in my job is being able to read faces so...

[Pawz4me]

28.

 

I thought just seeing the eyes and not the whole face made it difficult, plus a lot of the emotions to pick from were *very* closely related.

[jhschool]

I got a 34 out of 36.

 

That was fun. I enjoyed it.

 

I wonder if the people were feeling the feelings or just making the face that goes

with the feelings.

 

Interesting.

[I talk to the trees]

33 here. I wonder which ones I misjudged!

[AlmiraGulch]

I got 27, but the entire project gets on my nerves.

 

Is this person irritated or annoyed?

Scared or frightened?

Indifferent or passive?

 

I'm reasonably certain most of us could tell if they were happy or sad, but the other descriptions were just to similar. I'm not sure how important it is to be able to tell if someone is "irritated" or "annoyed" by their eyes, when the rest of the face and their body language would be enough for most people to discern the emotion appropriately.

 

I also struggled with reading the women more than the men. I think it may have been the makeup.

[Matryoshka]

Anyone else have their kids take it? I was curious how my very different twins (almost 15yo) would do on it.

 

Very surprised by the results. My very socially-aware kid with all the friends got a 23. My very introverted kid that pretty much sits at the edges of anything social got a 28... what's up with that??

[Matryoshka]

Am I the only one that found those photos odd? The women in particular all seemed to have dated brows like 60s. Maybe I just don't spend enough time around people who wear makeup.

 

I swear most of those women with the makeup were just staring impassively at the camera and had no emotion at all to communicate. I did those by process of elimination.

[Kathryn]

 

 

I swear most of those women with the makeup were just staring impassively at the camera and had no emotion at all to communicate. I did those by process of elimination.

 

Yes! I had a problem with the make-upped (?) women. I was just guessing at them and felt like my guesses were based more on their eyeliner than anything else.

[Parrothead]

26

[Scarlett]

I got 27, dh 24. I thought I was pretty good t reading people. Shrug.

[Laurel]

I got a 30, which surprised me as I felt like I was guessing at almost all of them. Or maybe not guessing, but I wouldn't have been surprised to find out my answer was wrong for most if not all. And the heavily made up women were difficult to read.

 

Very surprised by the results. My very socially-aware kid with all the friends got a 23. My very introverted kid that pretty much sits at the edges of anything social got a 28... what's up with that??

 

 

Sitting at the edge allows one a lot of time for observation. I'm very introverted, but also interested in people and human nature, so I think in general I read people well.

[6packofun]

I got 33/36. I expected to do well...for some reason this is something I'm fairly intuitive about. Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.

[zillymom]

I got 33. It is interesting though, I have always been quite good at "reading" people but I really dislike group projects.

 

 

Same score for me, and I echo your comments as well! :)

[Belacqua]

I'm kind of afraid to take it. I'm reasonably certain I'll fail spectacularly.

[Truscifi]

I got 28, ds9 got 16. Reading people is not one of his strong points, so I wasn't surprised.

[sparrow]

I did better than I expected: 32/36

[regentrude]

. My very socially-aware kid with all the friends got a 23. My very introverted kid that pretty much sits at the edges of anything social got a 28... what's up with that??

 

Being introverted does not mean the person can not be socially aware. Introverts find too much interaction stressful - but they can still be very good at it.

And being an extrovert and loving company does not mean one can not be clueless about other people's emotions.

[Tammi K]

I got 25 which is higher than I expected. I hate looking into people's eyes.

[Forget-Me-Not]

27. I did it on my iPhone. I wonder if a larger screen would affect the results.

[Mothersweets]

I got 29. I expected to do better. Did it seem as though one or two of the pictures were used twice?

[5of5]

32. But I could only get it to work using Chrome.

[Merry]

I got only 23. I wonder if it's because I spend so much time lipreading and reading the overall facial expressions that I'm not used to looking at people's eyes when I talk to them.

[sparrow]

Being introverted does not mean the person can not be socially aware. Introverts find too much interaction stressful - but they can still be very good at it.

And being an extrovert and loving company does not mean one can not be clueless about other people's emotions.

 

I don't necessarily find too much interaction stressful, but it can be tiring.

 

I do think that introverts would actually score higher on this test than extroverts because we spend so much time watching :) People have always been surprised at my ability to accurately read a situation at a party, or gathering, from across the room. I've just spent a lot of time watching people when I get wore out from trying to carry on conversations all night ;)

[lea1]

I got 32...most of them by process of elimination.

[Lisa in SC]

33...it was interesting.

[a27mom]

I am shocked I scored a 30. I generally feel clueless at reading people. Maybe I read them better than I thought, and my cluelessness is not knowing how to respond. (I am bad at small talk)

[Garga]

I got a 32 so I did well, but I think it would have been better not to have choices. I might just have been better at narrowing down the choices, rather than knowing what the expressions were without the choices to choose from. If this was at a party and there were no little words floating around someone's head to choose from to narrow down a person's feelings, would I have done so well? Don't know.

 

What I did was look at the face and register my immediate reaction to their expression and then see if any of the four words matched what I initally thought. Many of them didn't exactly match my first impression, but were somewhat close. Like, I looked at someone at thought, "Ah, he's making a joke!" but if there were no choices about making a joke, I'd look for words that seemed happy, such as "friendly" and chose that word.

 

But without the words to choose from, I may not have done as well.

 

And those women with the make-up were tough!! They all looked impassive for the most part. I had to stare at the crinkles around their outer eyes (smiling?) and the lines between their eyes (frowning?). Some of them had no lines at all. In those cases I tried to judge how wide open their eyes were. (Somewhat closed eyes means a person is more relaxed and feeling positive feelings. Somewhat wider usually indicates some sort of distressed feelings.)

 

I also read the words and then made that expression on my own face. Like if it said, "terrified" I made my own face look terrified to see if what I was doing was what the person in the picture was doing. But again, if I were at a party, I wouldn't have the luxury of 4 words floating around someone's head for me to try to match on my own face to then decide what the other party goer was feeling.

 

I also wonder how much the test taker's age has to do with it. I'm 40 now and feel like I understand people a ton more than I used to in my 20s and early 30s.

 

I'm a mixture of introvert and extrovert. Some days I will sit in a crowd and quietly observe without contributing much and other days I'll jump right in and engage.

[Woodhaven]

I got a 31.

[Paige]

I too thought that the descriptions and make up on the women made things difficult. Many times I thought the choices were too similar and people feel multiple things at the same time. I can be amused and irritated and arrogant at the same time. I disliked that they did not use parallel language for the emotions- fantasizing, irritated, and arrogant all in the same face? Ugh. Past, present, and progressive at one time? Some of the women did not look real either and I felt the photo editing may have altered things. I did not see eye creases where normal people have creases no matter the age. I give the survey design a C. :laugh:

 

I scored average with a 28. I'm not surprised.

[unsinkable]

34

 

I want to know how they picked the pictures.

[Luanne]

Doesn't work for me either. Oh well.

[Arcadia]

I got a 27. Expected to do worse as I sense rather than see people. Did it on my iPad.

[NicAnn]

34

 

I want to know how they picked the pictures.

 

 

I thought they were celebrities. Recognized a few, or so I thought.

[Murphy101]

I hate and despise group projects. I do not think that the ability to read people affects whether one LIKES group projects.

 

 

Me too.

 

I got a 26. And I agree with a pp that it was hard. Especially the women.

[Stacia]

28. About average & about where I would have figured myself to score....