Social intelligence as predictor of risky online behaviour among undergraduates in federal universities in South-West, Nigeria

The paper investigated the influence of social intelligence on risky online behaviour among undergraduates in selected federal universities in South-West, Nigeria. Due to the proliferation of digital technologies that has revolutionized the way undergraduates interact, socialize and navigate the online environments, undergraduates are further exposed to varying kinds of risks which can be mitigated through the deployment of social intelligence, thus fostering healthy social interactions in the online environment. The population was 175,779 and sample size was 439 undergraduates. Structured and validated questionnaire was used for data collection while the researcher and four research assistants administered the questionnaire to respondents in the four randomly selected universities. Descriptive (frequency counts, percentages, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (simple linear regression) were used to analyse the collected data. Findings revealed that the rate at which undergraduates engaged in risky online behaviour was low (overall weighted mean x̄ = 3.04, SD = 0.35 on a four-point Likert scale), social intelligence ((R 2 = 0.036, β = 0. 191, t(387) = 3.892, p = 0.000) predicted risky online behaviour of undergraduates’ at a significant level. It was concluded that social intelligence is vital in mitigating risky online behaviour of undergraduates in federal universities in South-West, Nigeria and recommended that the university management of federal universities should incorporate advanced social intelligence training into the academic curriculum to help develop healthy social interaction of undergraduates.