scholarly journals Team Players: How Social Skills Improve Team Performance

Econometrica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 89 (6) ◽  
pp. 2637-2657
Author(s):  
Ben Weidmann ◽  
David J. Deming

Most jobs require teamwork. Are some people good team players? In this paper, we design and test a new method for identifying individual contributions to team production. We randomly assign people to multiple teams and predict team performance based on previously assessed individual skills. Some people consistently cause their team to exceed its predicted performance. We call these individuals “team players.” Team players score significantly higher on a well‐established measure of social intelligence, but do not differ across a variety of other dimensions, including IQ, personality, education, and gender. Social skills—defined as a single latent factor that combines social intelligence scores with the team player effect—improve team performance about as much as IQ. We find suggestive evidence that team players increase effort among teammates.

Author(s):  
Émilie Perez

The role of children in Merovingian society has long been downplayed, and the study of their graves and bones has long been neglected. However, during the past fifteen years, archaeologists have shown growing interest in the place of children in Merovingian society. Nonetheless, this research has not been without challenges linked to the nature of the biological and material remains. Recent analysis of 315 children’s graves from four Merovingian cemeteries in northern Gaul (sixth to seventh centuries) allows us to understand the modalities of burial ritual for children. A new method for classifying children into social age groups shows that the type, quality, quantity, and diversity of grave goods were directly correlated with the age of the deceased. They increased from the age of eight and particularly around the time of puberty. This study discusses the role of age and gender in the construction and expression of social identity during childhood in the Merovingian period.


Author(s):  
Ishita Ghaonta ◽  
Pawan Kumar

This study aims to assess the social intelligence of prospective teachers in relation to gender, stream, and emotional intelligence. Initial sample of the study consisted of 400 prospective teachers on which Rogan Emotional Intelligence Test (REIT) developed and standardized by Zainuddin (2005) and Social Intelligence Scale developed and standardized by Chadha and Ganeshan (2009) were administered. The sampled teachers were categorized into two extreme groups on the basis of emotional intelligence scores. Finally, the sample consisted of 136 prospective teachers i.e. 68 of each gender as well as 68 of each stream of teacher education. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was applied for data analysis. Significant differences were found in their social intelligence on the basis of their emotional intelligence. However, no significant differences were observed in the social intelligence of prospective teachers on the basis of their gender and stream.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klarita Gërxhani ◽  
Nevena Kulic ◽  
Fabienne Liechti

This article examines gender bias in the Italian academia, and whether this bias depends on one’s collaborative work and its related conventions across academic disciplines. We carry out the research by relying on status characteristics theory, which is tested via a factorial survey experiment of 2,098 associate and full-time professors employed in Italian public universities in 2019. This is one of the few experiments of the hiring process in academia conducted on a nationally representative population of university professors. Our article focuses specifically on three academic disciplines: humanities, economics, and social sciences. The results indicate that female academics in Italy are penalized for co-authoring. They receive less favorable evaluations of their competence, but only when the evaluator is a male. This gender bias is most pronounced in economics, a discipline where conventions of co-authorship allow for more uncertainty on individual contributions to a joint publication. Overall, the results partially confirm our postulates based on status characteristics theory.


Author(s):  
Rhyse Bendell ◽  
Jessica Williams ◽  
Stephen M. Fiore ◽  
Florian Jentsch

Artificial intelligence has been developed to perform all manner of tasks but has not gained capabilities to support social cognition. We suggest that teams comprised of both humans and artificially intelligent agents cannot achieve optimal team performance unless all teammates have the capacity to employ social-cognitive mechanisms. These form the foundation for generating inferences about their counterparts and enable execution of informed, appropriate behaviors. Social intelligence and its utilization are known to be vital components of human-human teaming processes due to their importance in guiding the recognition, interpretation, and use of the signals that humans naturally use to shape their exchanges. Although modern sensors and algorithms could allow AI to observe most social cues, signals, and other indicators, the approximation of human-to-human social interaction -based upon aggregation and modeling of such cues is currently beyond the capacity of potential AI teammates. Partially, this is because humans are notoriously variable. We describe an approach for measuring social-cognitive features to produce the raw information needed to create human agent profiles that can be operated upon by artificial intelligences.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandra Turini BOLSONI-SILVA ◽  
Sonia Regina LOUREIRO

Abstract The aim was to compare the social skills of preschool and school-age children, considering groups differentiated by behavior problem indicators, according to the assessment performed by parents and teachers. Children of both genders participated in this study. Parents/primary caregivers assessed 194 children and 294 children were assessed by their teachers. The results indicated that, for the parents and teachers, the children without problems were more socially skilled. The gender of the children distinguished the repertoire of social skills, according to their parents, mainly the school-age children. For the teachers, considering both school periods, girls were more socially skilled and, for both parents and teachers, boys presented more behavior problems. These data have implications for assessment and intervention procedures.


2013 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatos Silman ◽  
Tayfun Dogan

AbstractThe aim of this research is to examine the relationship between social intelligence and loneliness of academics in the workplace. This study involves 326 (149 female/177 male) academics employed in various universities in Turkey and North Cyprus. The age average of participants is 39.09 years. In this study, the Loneliness at Work Scale (LAWS) and Tromso Social Intelligence Scale (TSIS) have been utilized. The data were analyzed using multiple regression and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient analysis techniques. The findings showed that social information processing, social skills, and social awareness, which are the sub-dimensions of social intelligence, positively explained 26% of social deprivation. Social skills and social awareness positively explained 13% of social companionship. The findings also showed that the social information processing sub-dimension did not meaningfully explain social companionship.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Kadir Vefa Tezel

Language is normally associated with linguistic capabilities of individuals. In the theory of multiple intelligences, language is considered to be related primarily to linguistic intelligence. Using the theory of Multiple Intelligences as its starting point, this descriptive survey study investigated to what extent prospective English teachers’ high school education contributed to the development of linguistic intelligence which is essential for language teachers. The data were collected, using the Teele Inventory of Multiple Intelligences. The results showed that of the seven intelligences in the inventory, linguistic intelligence was not the most dominant intelligence of the participants. Variables such as the type of high school the students graduated from, the number of years of English learning, and gender did not have any effect on the linguistic intelligence scores of prospective English teachers either. The findings indicate that a change in the criteria of selection needs to be made in admitting prospective language teachers to universities. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyndsay N. Jenkins ◽  
Amanda B. Nickerson

The Bystander Intervention Model proposed by social psychologists Latané and Darley has been used to examine the actions of peer bystanders in bullying. The five-stage model consists of notice the event, interpret event as an emergency, accept responsibility for intervening, know how to intervene, and implement intervention decisions. The current study examined associations among gender, social skills, and the bystander intervention model among 299 sixth- to eighth-grade students. Analyses revealed that girls reported significantly greater cooperation and empathy, and noticed bullying events, interpreted them as an emergency, and intervened more often than boys. The best fitting structural equation model included both empathy and cooperation, with significant positive path coefficients between empathy and bystander intervention. Students with greater empathy were more likely to engage with each step of the model, except noticing the event. Assertiveness was positively associated and cooperation was negatively associated with greater knowledge of how to intervene.


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