Relations and Interactions Between Social Skills, Values, and Personal Constructs

Abstract

The aim of this study is to verify which values or personal constructs are incompatible in people with deficits in social skills, preventing them from properly develop these skills. Winter (1992) discussed how people with poor social skills among its constructs showed personal dilemmas, attributing negative implications to social skills. Social skills are invaluable skills for the benefits they offer to people. It is for this reason that we need to address this issue from the perspective of discovering why social skills training is not successful for some people, and consequently to develop resources that are useful for all individuals.
Three self-administered questionnaires and a fourth, designed ad hoc for the occasion, were given to 40 people aged between 17 and 53 years. The data for each factor of each questionnaire, as well as negative implications of the Social Skills obtained through the grid constructs were subjected to a Principal Components Analysis with Varimax Rotation. The results show that the distribution of the factor loadings was consistent with the results of Winter (1992) by demonstrating that a positive validation profile of social skills leads to a certain set of personal and interpersonal values.
A good assessment of social values for each client could be a very good criterion for indicating the most appropriate therapeutic modality. The data from this study, in line with those of Winter (1992), show that for certain profile of clients (those whose value system focuses on the pursuit of assertive independence), the direct training in social skills may be appropriate. However, another group of them (those characterized by seeking altruistic prosociality) it may not work because from their point of view are inconsistent with their core values.