What Are Some Examples of Animals That Demonstrate a High Level of Social or Emotional Intelligence?

All animals are instinctively socially intelligent. That is, they know how to behave with each other instinctively in a way that is good for themselves and for the environment.

The animal kingdom has a built-in intelligence that makes animals act in mutual complementarity. In that respect, we as humans have a lower social intelligence than animals. It might sound strange that the human being, with his IQ that has developed so much, has a lower social intelligence than an animal, but it is indeed the case. We as humans need to develop and acquire social intelligence, whereas animals possess it instinctively.

Every animal possesses an inner knowledge of how to connect with the inanimate, vegetative, and animate degrees in the world. The human being lacks that knowledge of how to properly connect with those degrees. This is because we need to complete ourselves — our attitudes, behaviors, and communication that is balanced with nature — by ourselves.

We start doing so by doing no harm to other people, to animals, as well as to the vegetative and inanimate degrees of nature. Then, we try to advance positive mutual relationships up to a point of achieving, as it is written, “love your neighbor as yourself.”

As opposed to animals, we were given an evil inclination, i.e., an egoistic desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature. Therefore, we need to conduct our interactions with each other, and with the animate, vegetative, and inanimate degrees of nature, in a way that goes against our inclination to benefit ourselves at their expense. Doing so leads us to a positive connection with others and nature, which in turn leads us to discover the general positive force inherent in the whole of reality — the power that connects humanity, and within it, the degrees of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate.

This is the meaning of what is written, “You shall be as God, knowing good and bad.” Reaching such a level of social intelligence will let us interact harmoniously, peacefully, and joyously with one another, because through our interactions, we will feel that we connect to the whole of the global-integral nature, and that we exist in an eternal and perfect reality.