Social Skills in Childhood

Integrative Conceptualization of Social Skills

To conceptualize social skills, some scholars emphasize the capacity to elicit positive responses from peers and to forge positive peer relationships (e.g., friendships), whereas others focus on the attainment of social goals (e.g., establishing a position of leadership). Positive or desired peer responses are established by enacting behaviors [Page 1563]that are sensitive to specific demands across diverse social settings (e.g., classroom vs. playground) and situations (e.g., dyadic vs. group interaction). However, most scholars agree that social skills involve more than possessing a particular behavioral repertoire. The social behaviors that children display in a given social situation are shaped by cognitive and emotional capacities, such as an ability to “read” social situations accurately, an understanding of effective solutions to social problems, and well-controlled experiences and expressions of emotion. Thus, social skills are dynamic and multidetermined, not simply “mechanical” behaviors that function equally well across social contexts.

Several conceptual models have been formulated to explain how children's social behavior is influenced by the ways in which they interpret social information (e.g., the facial expressions or behaviors of others during social interactions). Children's interpretation of social information is often referred to as social information processing. Generally, these models propose that children process social information, first, by noticing and interpreting social cues and by selecting goals for the situation; next, by generating, evaluating, and selecting potential social responses; and, finally, by enacting the chosen response. Numerous studies have provided compelling evidence that social information-processing tendencies are associated with children's social behavior and social status. For example, a well-replicated finding is that aggressive or peer-rejected children are more likely to attribute hostile intent to others in social situations (e.g., interpret an accident as an intentional attempt to harm), compared with nonaggressive or accepted children.

Likewise, emotion is tightly intertwined with children's social information processing and social behaviors. Children's interpretation of social cues and their selection of social responses is associated with the valence (i.e., positive or negative) and intensity of their emotions. For example, aggressive children are more likely to attribute hostile intent to peers after negative emotions (e.g., anger, frustration) have been primed, compared with neutral emotional conditions. Furthermore, emotion can be directly related to children's observable social behavior. For example, to invite peers to interact with them, it is important for children to experience appropriate emotion (e.g., happiness at the prospect of interaction), send appropriate emotional messages (e.g., facial expressions such as smiling), and receive emotional messages appropriately (e.g., read the other child's emotion to assess whether she is also inclined to interact).

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