If you are looking to learn more about social health, these social health articles are a great place to start! They will help you understand and develop your personal social wellness.

For example, did you know that social wellness has been conflated with mental and emotional wellness for decades? The three are all interlinked, but they are not the same thing.

Mental health relies on an awareness of and the ability to understand and use your thoughts. The thoughts we think have an effect on what we do and how we interact with others.

This is separate from an awareness of your emotions. Being able to understand and respond to your emotions leads to increased emotional wellness.

Similarly, social health is an understanding of what you need from others and how to interact in a healthy manner.

With all three areas of wellness, healthy means helpful. Increasing wellness is all about increasing our helpful behaviors–working with ourselves rather than against ourselves.

These social health articles will help you learn more about social wellness. Learning is always the first step to helping ourselves (and each other!) out.

Social Health Articles Everyone Should Read

If you have already checked out my recommended mental and emotional health articles, you will have a good idea for how this will go and can skip on down to the articles. It is fine if you have not though!

Basically the articles are broken down into three categories: learning about social health articles, increasing social health articles, and maintaining social health articles. This mirrors our own journeys through social wellness.

You will find both scholarly and layperson articles in this compilation. Scholarly articles are a great resource for expanding knowledge. Layperson articles are still often written by professionals, but in a manner that is more easily digestible.

In other words, scholarly articles are great for learning, and layperson articles are great for applying.

Both contain great information. You will find several of each below!

Learning About Social Health Articles

In the upcoming social health articles, you will often see what we are referring to as “social health” referred to as “social intelligence”. The two are interchangeable for our purposes. Emotional health is also commonly referred to as emotional intelligence.

It is important to differentiate between emotional, mental, and social health. Each contributes to overall wellbeing in its own way. Understanding them individually helps us break wellbeing down into smaller pieces that are easier to problem solve and utilize.

The social health articles below will help you gain a better understanding of social health. Read my recommended mental health articles and emotional health articles to gain a better understanding of those categories.

Scholarly Article: Social Intelligence

Alright, so this article is actually a chapter excerpt out of a book. It still reads like an article and gives an excellent history of the study of social health.

This chapter also covers how some disorders such as autism can affect social intelligence. One of the brain’s functions is to notice and interpret social cues. However, the brain’s ability to do so is not guaranteed.

You can learn about that and also how the concept of social intelligence has shaped the study of mental health. It has influenced more than you might think!

Scholarly Article: Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership

Do not skip over this article just because you are not in a leadership role–and if you are in a leadership role definitely read it! Leadership is all about effectively interacting with people. If you are interested in effectively interacting with people, this article is for you.

This article explores the different ways that social intelligence benefits leaders (and people in general). When you are able to get your message across clearly, it opens doors for you.

Skip ahead to the section titled, “Are You a Socially Intelligent Leader,” on page 5 to do a little self-evaluation. A little introspection can take you a long way.

Layperson Article: Social Health and You

If you are wanting a thorough explanation of social health and why it is important, this is the article for you. It clearly explains the difference between social, emotional, and mental health.

Additionally, it gives some examples of what social health looks like. This is helpful when trying to figure out how to increase your own social health.

You will also find the social intelligence strategies useful. This article also breaks down different strategies to use depending on if you are more introverted or extroverted.

Layperson Article: What is Social Intelligence? Why Does it Matter?

This quick article gives a good foundation for understanding social intelligence. Especially helpful, it notes that social intelligence is something that is developed, rather than something innate.

Knowing that we can develop social intelligence means that we can get better at it. You can be more socially intelligent tomorrow than you are today.

This article also explores the different aspects of social intelligence. As you read through them, you will be able to pick out some of the areas where you are doing great and other areas where you could grow a little.

At the end of the article, it offers a little bit of advice on how to do so. However, if you are wanting it more specifically explained, read some of the articles in the next two sections.

Increasing Social Health Articles

Now that you know more, let’s look at how to do more. Or rather, do differently.

You know that saying, “Work smarter, not harder.” That is what we want to do here–not add more to your already hectic life, but rather, make your hectic life a little more fluid.

After all, you are likely already engaging in multiple different social situations. You do not need to be more social to increase your social intelligence, but rather utilize social situations to develop your skills.

Social intelligence is all about recognizing social cues and successfully interacting with others. So keep interacting, and read these social health articles to figure out how to learn from your interactions.

Scholarly Article: Fostering Emotional & Social Intelligence in Organizations

Check out this article for an understanding of how emotional and social intelligence is linked. While they are separate, part of social intelligence is being able to recognize other people’s emotions.

Furthermore, being able to use emotional and social intelligence can increase an organization’s efficacy. Read this article to find out how to do so with your own company (or family, or neighborhood organization, etc.).

Things that apply to one area often apply to another. This is why improving one area of your life often improves your life overall.

That is one of the most exciting things about increasing social intelligence! Social interactions affect so many different parts of our lives–improve one of them, and you improve all of them to some degree.

Scholarly Article: An Empirical Evaluation of Three Popular Training Programs

You may or may not be surprised by the extreme lack of options for social skills training for adults. While there are beginning to be more options for adults with autism, there are very few for adults who are just looking to be more socially intelligent.

This article takes a look at three different programs used to increase social intelligence in the workplace. It is very jargon-heavy, but there are still some takeaways for the average consumer.

One is that you will learn more from a program tailored specifically to your needs, rather than a group program.

When reading a true research article like this one, I recommend reading the introduction and then skipping ahead to the discussion and conclusion.

If statistical measures are your bread and butter, by all means, read the rest of the study. But if you are just looking for information to apply to yourself, do yourself a favor and skip all the numbers stuff.

Layperson Article: How to Increase Your Social Intelligence

While this article gives a good introduction to what social intelligence is, its true value is its deep dive into increasing social intelligence. Short and to the point, this article does not mince words. It still manages to deliver some great information though!

One of the best pieces of advice it gives is to find someone in your own life who is a great example of social intelligence. Watch them and figure out what they do. How do they respond to and interact with the people around them?

If you can mimic their strategies, you will figure out how to make them your own. Sometimes it is easier to see what other people are doing well and then to follow suit.

Maintaining Social Health Articles

Alright, so once you know a little something about social health you can start applying what you know to your life. However, do not be surprised if old habits start creeping back into your social interactions.

Human beings are creatures of habit–we just are. We find something that works well enough to get us by and then we hold onto it with a death grip.

However, we also yearn for a future when we are not just getting by. A future when we are thriving and excelling. In order to get to this future, we have to loosen our death grip on the things that get us by.

But then somewhere along the way, we find ourselves holding hands with our old habits again. We do this because we are looking for a sense of normalcy and comfort.

It is important to be aware of this tendency so that we can catch ourselves doing it. Maintaining social health requires keeping an eye on our old habits while nurturing our new habits. It requires diligence and dedication.

Do not let that get you down or hold you back–thriving is worth some hard work. Read the social health articles below to learn more about what to do to keep yourself moving forward.

Scholarly Article: Good Habits, Bad Habits

If you have been wondering how new habits are actually established in the brain, this article is for you. Like all of the articles in this section, it focuses more on habits in general than on social health.

Not surprisingly, maintaining social health does not have a lot of great research articles behind it. As noted above, scholarly articles tend to be great for education, but not so great for application.

However, this article does explore ways to break old habits and form new ones. Increasing social health requires both!

We all have our go-to responses for certain situations, and they usually boil down to the classic fight/flight/freeze reactions. The good news is that we can all develop our ability to respond rather than react.

Layperson Article: 18 Tricks to Make New Habits Stick

This article, with its 18 quick tips, is very easy to apply! Its recommendation to let yourself be imperfect is one of the best. We often hold ourselves back because we do not want to make mistakes.

Making mistakes is part of the learning process! Sometimes you just cannot do it right the first time because you do not know how. Trying anyway lets you learn.

Another great tip is to “Run it as an experiment.” This follows along the same lines–when you are trying a new thing, keep an air of curiosity. Instead of beating yourself up for failing, ask questions of how you can be successful next time.

Layperson Article: The Secret to Keeping Good Habits

While the last article offers a lot of options, this article tailors things down and goes into depth on four specific strategies.

And folks, accountability is a big one! Sometimes when we are trying something new we keep it a secret because we do not want anyone to know if we fail. Do not do this!

Keeping secrets is actually more likely to lead to failure than telling people. Of course, you do not have to tell everyone. But, having a specific support partner will go a long way to keeping you motivated to work toward your goal.

Check out the article to read more about accountability, and the three other strategies it recommends. Maintaining social health is just like maintaining any other habit–the same principles apply.

In Conclusion

While this list of articles is by no means conclusive, it is a great start! Reading through these articles will give you a ton of information.

Knowledge is power, after all. Are there any articles you have read that you would add to this list? Do you have any social health tips or tricks that have helped you?

Please feel free to share in the comments below so that we can all learn together!