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Social skills and the perception of interaction episodes
Author(s) -
Forgas Joseph P.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1983.tb00600.x
Subject(s) - psychology , personality , perception , social skills , cognition , multidimensional scaling , social anxiety , anxiety , social perception , developmental psychology , social relation , cognitive psychology , social psychology , statistics , mathematics , neuroscience , psychiatry
Accurate and well‐differentiated cognitive representations about the social world are an important prerequisite of skilled social behaviour. The aim of this study was to demonstrate empirically that a significant relationship exists between social skill and the way an actor perceives and interprets various interaction episodes. Based on a free‐response diary study, the most typical and common interaction episodes in a subcultural milieu were established. A second sample from the same milieu were asked ( a ) to indicate their perception of these episodes, and ( b ) to complete a battery of social skill assessment scales as well as personality scales. The episode judgements data were analysed using an Individual Differences Multidimensional Scaling (INDSCAL) procedure, identifying three episode dimensions (social anxiety, evaluation and perceived intensity). Subjects falling within the top and the bottom quartiles of the distribution on the social skills measures had significantly different cognitive representations about these episodes, with low skilled actors relying on the social anxiety dimension, and high skilled actors on the evaluation and intensity dimensions most heavily. The nature of these differences was further explicated by a canonical correlation analysis, showing that sex and personality variables were also related to episode cognition. The results are interpreted as indicating the important role episode representations play in social skills, and the implications of the findings for social skills assessment and therapy are discussed.