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Social Skills, Adults

Adult social skills (also referred to as interpersonal skills or interpersonal or social competence) consist of a wide range of interpersonal abilities and competencies that help people function effectively in social situations. Social skills are particularly important in the initiation, formation, and maintenance of adult interpersonal relationships. Rather than being a clearly defined area of research on human relationships, research on adult social skills is progressing in many disciplines and subdisciplines on a variety of fronts. Scholars in clinical psychology, communication, social/personality psychology, and human development have all contributed to what we know about adult social skills. Moreover, the complexity and variety of adult social skills is enormous. This entry explores how and where adult social skills have been investigated in the social science literature, reviews models for understanding and measuring adult social skills, and discusses their implications for effective human relationships.

Social Skills in Adult Clinical Work

Research on adult social skills has its roots in clinical psychology as a means of helping hospitalized and discharged patients, as well as participants in a variety of outpatient programs, develop interpersonal skills to help them cope with problems stemming from family and other interpersonal conflicts. Social skills training typically consists of providing strategies for initiating and maintaining conversations, resolving interpersonal conflicts, avoiding inappropriate statements or nonverbal behavior, and understanding and adhering to appropriate social rules and conventions. Social skill training uses a variety of methods, ranging from simple instruction to role-playing, to homework assignments that have participants use their newly developed skills in actual social settings. Using a behavioral approach, social skills training typically relies on behavior modeling, live and video-recorded feedback, and rehearsal of effective social behaviors in simulated (and sometimes actual) social settings. Some research has demonstrated that social skills training is superior to traditional psychotherapy in effecting positive outcomes with certain clinical populations, particularly those suffering from chronic social anxiety or difficulty coping with social relationships. Social skills training has been a component of a number of psychological interventions, including conflict management training, anger management, family and marital therapy, assertiveness training, and in programs to treat severe shyness and social anxiety.

Perhaps the most impressive and well-organized social skills training program has been the work of John Gottman and his colleagues on marital relationships. In Gottman's program, couples are taught to recognize problematic aspects of their marital communication (e.g., criticizing, displaying anger and defensiveness, etc.); they are then taught appropriate social skills to deal with marital disagreements and conflict, such as learning how to tactfully discuss a conflict, avoiding negativity in interactions, and the like. These skills consist of both learning appropriate verbal interchanges and dealing with the nonverbal and emotional aspects of marital conflict.

Social Skills, Social Intelligence, and Social and Communicative Competence

In the early 20th century, psychologists studying intelligence proposed that, in addition to academic intelligence (i.e., the construct of Intelligence Quotient [IQ]), there existed another form of “everyday” intelligence: social intelligence. The domain of social intelligence consists of knowledge of appropriate behavior in common social interactions; the ability to understand others' communications, intentions, and emotions; and knowing how to act wisely and tactfully in social encounters. Unfortunately, this line of research was nearly abandoned because of the complex variety of social abilities that composed social intelligence and difficulty distinguishing social intelligence from academic intelligence. Instead, scholars began investigating these constructs with research that examined various social skills, abilities, or competencies, usually without an organizing theoretical framework.

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