Concept and Structural Components of Social Skills

Abstract

Research background. Though a variety of social skill explanations exist, in essence they give us plenty examples of controversial interpretation of social skill conception and classification. So, there is a problem of different semantic meanings in the concept of social skills and different classifications of them. Research aims were to reveal the multidimensionality of the construct of social skills and to create a theoretical model of their structure. Research method was theoretical analysis. Discussion and conclusions. After studying various explanations of social skills, we observed that not only a great variety of their interpretations was revealed, but also there is a problem of different semantic meaning: some authors named the same behavioral categories as social competences, others – as social skills, yet others – as social abilities, etc. In addition, the authors present a variety of different classifications of social skill groups and the different structures of social skills. In this theoretical research we tried to analyze and systemize the explanations of social skills with reference to the data of scientific research from various countries. As a result of analysis and systemization of scientific data we offer a model of social skill structure and give interpretation of social skill concept as a multidimensional construct created from integrative, overlapping and supplementing each other structural components of: 1) interaction skills; 2) communication skills; 3) participation skills; 4) emotional skills; and 5) social cognition skills. Each component of social skills is made up of certain behavioral abilities. Keywords: interaction skills; communication skills; participation skills; emotional skills; social cognition skills.