Social perception: relationships with general intelligence, working memory, processing speed, visual-spatial ability, and verbal comprehension

Social perception is important because it can affect the way intelligence is expressed during social interactions at school, home, and work. This study (N = 800) of adolescents and adults (age range = 16–91) examined which specific aspects of intelligence are associated with social perception (a composite of affect labelling, linking prosody to facial expressions, and interpreting the intent of a speaker). Women scored higher on social perception than men. Verbal comprehension (VC), perceptual reasoning (PR), working memory (WM), and processing speed (PS) accounted for 20% of the social perception variation, significantly (p < .05) more than did Full Scale IQ alone. VC had the largest effect on social perception, followed by PS and PR. WM had a non-significant effect on social perception. Implications for theory and research on intelligence and emotional intelligence are discussed along with implications for educational practice.