Abstract:

Representatives of psychology of science, among other things, look for an answer to the question whether there are certain personality differences between representatives of different fields of science, for example between scientists and artists. According to Feist (1998), it may be assumed that naturalists are more introverted and realistic (focused on things) than biologists; and those are less sociable and extroverted than representatives of social sciences who should have the most developed social intelligence. Following these assumptions, we wanted to find out whether there were differences in social intelligence and selected personality variables among students of humanities and exact sciences. The sample consisted of 120 students aged 20-26 years. We used the Mini International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird, Lucas, 2006) and the Social Skills Inventory (SSI) (Riggio, 1986). We found out that the humanities students had significantly higher scores in extroversion, emotional sensitivity, emotional skills, and the overall level of social skills, which is an indicator of overall social intelligence, than the students of exact sciences. The students of exact sciences were more open to experience and were emotionally more stable and more controlled in social situations than the students of humanities. In emotional and social intelligence, the women had significantly higher scores than the men. Based on our findings, we suggest the development and promotion of the areas of social and emotional capabilities which are key competences in helping professions and may also be developed during the studies.

Keywords:

Personality variables, social skills, humanities, exact sciences.