Social Competence

Frank M. Gresham

doi:10.4135/9781412950534

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Social Competence

By: Frank M. Gresham
In:Encyclopedia of Behavior Modification and Cognitive Behavior Therapy
Chapter DOI:https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412950534.n3130
Subject:Behavior Modification, Cognitive/Behavior Therapy

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Overview

Social competence has been an important concept in the behavioral literature since the 1970s and has received a great deal of attention in both research and [Page 1536]practice. Social competence is an important aspect of a student's short-term and long-term adaptation in psychosocial, educational, and vocational spheres of functioning. Social competence embodies the development and maintenance of satisfactory interpersonal relationships with both peers and adults.

Many students, particularly those at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), experience deficits in social competence. Included in the EBD population are students who otherwise might be classified by schools as having emotional disturbance or by clinicians as having externalizing disorders (e.g., conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) or internalizing disorders (e.g., anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder). A great deal of research over the past 20 years suggests that students with EBD have great difficulty in deriving benefits from their interpersonal relationships with peers, teachers, and parents. These students often do not exhibit ageappropriate social behavior; may be immature in their social interactions with peers and adults in school, home, and community settings; and may show extremely poor peer group entry skills.

Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Social Competence

Comprehensive reviews of the literature have indicated at least 15 definitions of social competence that can be classified into three categories. One category can be termed peer relationships and refers to students' social competence based on the quality of their relationships with peers. This category typically uses a student's sociometric status to operationalize the quality of peer relationships. Sociometric statuses include popular, neglected, rejected, controversial, and average and use measures of a student's social preference and social impact in the peer group. Each of these sociometric statuses is associated with specific social behaviors. For example, behaviors such as cooperation, initiation of positive social interactions, and helping others are associated with a popular sociometric status. In contrast, behaviors such as social withdrawal, anxiety, and depression are associated with neglected sociometric status.

Another category of social competence might be termed behavioral definitions: Social competence is referenced to behaviors that increase the probability of reinforcement and decrease the likelihood of punishment or extinction contingent on those social behaviors. These definitions emanate from the applied behavior analysis perspective. The major drawback of strictly behavioral definitions is that they do not guarantee that behaviors leading to reinforcement or decreasing punishment or extinction are socially significant behaviors that lead to socially important outcomes.

A third category of social competence definitions refers to social validity. These definitions describe social competence as specific behaviors that lead to or otherwise predict important social outcomes for students. Socially important outcomes are those outcomes that treatment consumers would consider to be important, adaptive, and functional in specific social environments. Socially important outcomes are those that make a difference in a student's functioning or adaptation to the expectations of society (i.e., they are socially valid).