Social adroitness is a personality trait measured in the Jackson Personality Inventory.

It assesses the ability to regulate your own behavior in order to get what you want from others. It differs from psychopathy

Psychopathy

Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...

 in that the adroitness is not intrinsically narcissistic or manipulative

Psychological manipulation

Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or even abusive tactics. By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at the other's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative,...

, but refers rather to the set of social skills that allow one to work with others productively. In that sense it is closeley related to conceptions of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a skill or ability in the case of the trait EI model, a self-perceived ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. Various models and definitions have been proposed of which the ability and trait EI models are the most...

.

Tools of adroit behavior include flattery, indirection, listening, circumspection, reciprocal altruism

Reciprocal altruism

In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time...

, politeness and strategic reasoning.

Example behaviors associated with adroitness include:

• The ability to pretend to enjoy things which you dislike when it suits the individual's purpose.
• Changing the way you act to satisfy a person with whom you are dealing.
• Holding feelings in check if they might interfere with getting what you want from someone.
• Trying to appear less informed than you actually are.
• An ability to get the most out of people.
• Enjoying being nice to others.
• Changing others behaviour, without letting them know why or even that you are doing it.