A study on how gender and stream of studies impact social intelligence of undergraduates in Sri Lanka

Humans are masters at social interaction. The ability to make sense of other people's behavior is essential in people's daily functioning. As a result, they want to know that people's activities are motivated by aims and driven by motives. At present, it has been observed that undergraduates face many issues such as a lack of empathy, suicidal thoughts, and causing disturbances to the peace of the society. This dilemma highlights the need to study social intelligence, especially among undergraduates in Sri Lanka. The present study attempted to determine whether students from different genders and streams of studies show differences, in terms of social intelligence and its related components. The questionnaire survey method was employed to collect data from 200 undergraduates from a selected university, in Sri Lanka which includes students from nine faculties. The research gathered responses from 182 students, which is 91%. Descriptive analysis was performed to identify the social intelligence among undergraduates regarding their gender and the subject stream. Inferential analysis was performed to identify the differences in social intelligence among undergraduates concerning their gender and subject stream. Results showed that there was no significant difference between the genders on their total score measuring spiritual intelligence dimensions of cooperativeness, confidence, patience, social environment recognition, tactfulness, memory, and sense of humor, but the genders did tend to differ in sensitivity dimension. It may be observed from the data that undergraduates in the Technology stream are more cooperative than students in other streams. Agriculture faculty undergraduates showed a higher level of confidence in contrast to other students. Commerce students showed more patient than students from other faculties. Nursing students are better than other faculty students at recognizing the social context. Undergraduates in Physical Science appeared to be more tactful than other students. Undergraduates in the Medical faculty displayed a strong sense of humor, while students in the Arts and Culture faculty were found to have a higher memory power than undergraduate students in other faculties.