New Findings About Social Intelligence Development and Application of the Magdeburg Test of Social Intelligence (MTSI)

Social intelligence (SI) is an ability construct with a long history in scientific psychology which has yet to be clearly established. SI tests show low convergent validity and can hardly be distinguished from academic intelligence. This may be the result of conceptual ambiguity and a lack of reliable and valid performance tests that apply nonverbal stimuli. The Magdeburg Test of Social Intelligence (MTSI) is a new multimedia-based performance test battery relying on a potential-based concept of SI. It presently comprises subtests for social understanding, social memory, and social perception, each of which is measured with real auditory, video-based, pictorial, and verbal task material. It applies target scoring to the social understanding tasks. Two studies with 127 and 190 participants, respectively, examined the psychometric properties and construct validity of the MTSI. Discriminant construct validation was conducted with well-established academic intelligence and personality tests. The findings revealed satisfactory psychometric properties for nearly all of the 22 tasks. A general SI and a social perception factor were not substantiated. Social understanding was separate from academic intelligence, whereas social memory and social perception tasks showed systematic correlations with academic intelligence. The SI tasks were not systematically related to personality traits.