Peer validation and idiographic analysis of social skill deficits

Abstract

It is generally considered that few specific behavioral com ponents of social competence have been identified. Prior research in this area is reviewed, and a somewhat more optimistic conclusion is reached. There appear to be nine.behavioral codes which have been significantly related to social competence in two or more studies: eye contact, smiles, verbal personal attention, trembling stammers-fidgets, talking time, hand gestures, pauses or long latencies, compliments, and positive statements about other people or things. Research results have been inconsistent across studies, however, so it is difficult to know whether these behaviors are reliably related to social competence. Moreover, past research has generally ignored the possibility of individual differences among socially inadequate people. The difficulty of identifying behavioral components of social skill seems paradoxical when compared with the relative ease with which naive observers can reliably distinguish subjects who are high vs. low in self-reported social competence. Thus, the present study employed an assessment methodology which relied on peer judgments to identify specific problematic conversational behaviors. Forty-two subjects, both male and female, who reported high social avoidance and distress, each interacted with three different randomly assigned peers of the opposite sex in dyadic social conversations. The 126 peers completed rating scales of the nine behavioral categories listed above. Indicating both the degree and direction of suggested change In their partner's conversational behavior. Results indicated that each of the nine behaviors was rated as more important for change than a group of comparison behaviors which had no previous research support. In addition, peers reliably evaluated the changes that they would recommend on six of the nine behavioral scales. An analysis of these six measures indicated that peers recommended different changes for different individuals. Three conceptually important subject groups were identified: those with general difficulties across the set of behaviors (11.9%), those with specific differential difficulties (28.6%), and those with no reliably indicated overt social skill problems (59.5%). Thus, this research generally corroborates the importance of many of the previously identified behaviors, although individualized assessment and treat ment of social inadequacy seems warranted.