What makes this person so good at these situations? What is this ‘it’ that they’re good at, and can we measure what makes them so good?
One answer is that our friend has high ‘emotional intelligence,’ which is sometimes referred to as ‘social intelligence’ (e.g., Mayer & Salovey, 1993).
The topic of emotional intelligence has generated a great deal of interest, especially in the workplace and other highly social contexts.
Read more on positivepsychology.com