Social competence

Social competence consists of social, emotional, cognitive and behavioral skills needed for successful social adaptation. Social competence also reflects having an ability to take another's perspective concerning a situation, learn from past experiences, and apply that learning to the changes in social interactions. Social competence consists of social, emotional, cognitive and behavioral skills needed for successful social adaptation. Social competence also reflects having an ability to take another's perspective concerning a situation, learn from past experiences, and apply that learning to the changes in social interactions. Social competence is the foundation upon which expectations for future interaction with others is built, and upon which individuals develop perceptions of their own behavior. Social competence frequently encompasses social skills, social communication, and interpersonal communication. Past and current research intends to further the understanding of how and why social competence is important in healthy social development. The study of social competence began in the early 20th century. A noteworthy discovery was that social competence was related to future mental health, thus fueling research on how children interact with their peers and function in social situations. As research developed, different definitions and measurement techniques developed to suit these new findings. In the 1930s, researchers began investigating peer groups and how children's characteristics affected their positions within these peer groups. In the 1950s and 1960s, research established that children's social competence was related to future mental health (such as maladaptive outcomes in adulthood), as well as problems in school settings. Research on social competence expanded greatly from this point on, as increasing amounts of evidence demonstrated the importance of social interactions. Mid-century, researchers began to view social competence in terms of problem-solving skills and strategies in social situations. Social competence was now conceptualized in terms of effective social functioning and information processing. In the 1970s and 1980s, research began focusing on the impact of children's behavior on relationships, which influenced the study of the effectiveness of teaching children social skills that are age, gender, and context specific. In an effort to determine why some children were not exhibiting social skills in some interactions, many researchers devised social information processing models to explain what happens in a social interaction. These models concentrated on factors in interactions such as behavior, how people process and judge each other, and how they process social cues. They also focus on how people select social goals, decide on the best response to a situation and enacting the chosen response. Studies such as this often looked at the relationship between social cognition and social competence. A prominent researcher of social competence in the mid-1980s was Frank Gresham. He identified three sub-domains of social competence: adaptive behavior, social skills, and peer acceptance (peer acceptance is often used to assess social competence). Research during this time often focused on children who were not displaying social skills in efforts to identify and help these children who were potentially at risk of long-term negative outcomes due to poor social interactions. Gresham proposed that these children could have one of four deficits: skill deficits, in which children did not have the knowledge or cognitive abilities to carry out a certain behavior, performance deficits, self-control skill deficits, and self-control performance deficits, in which children had excessive anxiety or impulsivity that prohibited proper execution of the behaviors or skills they knew and understood. Despite all the developments and changes in the conceptualization of social competence throughout the 20th century, there was still a general lack of agreement about the definition and measurement of social competence during the 1980s. The definitions of the 1980s were less ambiguous than previous definitions, but they often did not acknowledge the age, situation, and skill specificity implicit in the complex construct of social competence. These approaches define social competence based on how popular one is with his peers. The more well-liked one is, the more socially competent they are.