This is Part 1 of your Social Intelligence Workshop. We will introduce Social Intelligence by first covering these 3 Topics : 1. Social Brain - how humans are wired to connect 2. Social Neuroscience - what happens in our brains when we do connect 3. Social Intelligence - its responsiveness and influence So let's begin. Part I.C. Social Intelligence Responsiveness and Influence of the Social Brain Our brains interlock, therefore spreading our emotions like virus. Our social interactions play a role in reshaping our brain, through neuroplasticity, which means repeated experiences sculpt the shape, the size, the number of neurons and their synaptic connections. By repeatedly driving our brain into a given register, our key relationships can gradually mold certain neural circuitry. In effect, being chronically hurt and angered, or being emotionally nourished, by someone we spend time with daily over the course of the years can refashion our brain. Our relationships have subtle yet powerful lifelong impact on us. How we connect with others has unimagined significance. In view of these insights, it means we need to be intelligent about our social world. What is Social Intelligence? Simply being manipulative, valuing only what works for you at the expense of the other - should not be seen as socially intelligent. Social Intelligence is being intelligent about our relationships but also in them. To be conscious of what emerges as a person who engages in a relationship, to be able to know what actually transpires as we interact and look beyond our narrow self-interest to the best interest of others too. Social responsiveness of the brain requires that we be wise and realize how not just our own moods but our very biology is being driven and molded by the other people in our lives and in turn, it demands that we take stock of how we affect other people's emotions and biology. We can take the measure of a relationship in terms of a person's impact on us, and ours on them. The biological influence passing from person to person suggests a new dimension of a life well-lived, conducting ourselves in ways that are beneficial even at this subtle level for those with whom we connect.