in short it is "Hacking People".

it is any means carried out by a social engineer that deceive others to "Do or not do do" an action which will help the social engineer in executing a further attack.

A very good resource here that will help you more in this topic a book

"Social Engineering the Art of Human Hacking" by Christopher Hadnagy

What is social engineering?

You can also refer to the following RG links:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_social_Engineering

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_Social_Engineering_What_are_the_useful_tools_of_Social_engineering

Thanks colleagues- Prof Badir and Prof Han for your response.

Is there any method to curb the negative impacts of social engineering? Really can we do it?

Social engineering refers to different techniques of gaining access to buildings, systems or data by exploiting human psychology, rather than by breaking in or using technical hacking methods.

following

following

The rogue hackers define ”social engineering” as the acquisition of special knowledge by means of wit and skill. In practice, the means are fraud and deceit. Involves attacks where the person is the target and which use appeals to greed, sloth, lust, and even curiosity.

Security experts recommend that IT departments regularly carry out penetration tests that use social engineering techniques. This will help administrators learn which types of users pose the most risk for specific types of attacks while also identifying which employees require additional training.

Kindly see the below given link.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-social-engineering