Interpersonal Skills – Mental Health Matters

What is a Social Relation?

Published on 03/19/2024 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Introduction

A social relation is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals within and/or between groups. The group can be a language or kinship group, a social institution or organisation, an economic class, a nation, or gender. Social relations are derived from human behavioural ecology, and, as an aggregate, form a coherent social structure whose constituent parts are best understood relative to each other and to the social ecosystem as a whole.

Brief History

Early inquiries into the nature of social relations featured in the work of sociologists such as Max Weber in his theory of social action, where social relationships composed of both positive (affiliative) and negative (agonistic) interactions represented opposing effects. Categorising social interactions enables observational and other social research, such as Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (lit. ‘community and society’), collective consciousness, etc.

Ancient works which include manuals of good practice in social relations include the text of Pseudo-Phocylides, 175–227, Josephus’ polemical work Against Apion, 198–210, and the deutero-canonical Jewish Book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, 7:18–36.

More recent research on social behaviour has demonstrated that newborn infants tend to instinctually gravitate towards prosocial behaviour. As obligate social apes, humans are born highly altricial, and require an extended period of post-natal development for cultural transmission of social organisation, language, and moral frameworks. In linguistic and anthropological frameworks, this is reflected in a culture’s kinship terminology, with the default mother-child relation emerging as part of the embryological process.

Forms of Relation and Interaction

According to Piotr Sztompka, forms of relation and interaction in sociology and anthropology may be described as follows: first and most basic are animal-like behaviours, i.e. various physical movements of the body. Then there are actions—movements with a meaning and purpose. Then there are social behaviours, or social actions, which address (directly or indirectly) other people, which solicit a response from another agent.

Next are social contacts, a pair of social actions, which form the beginning of social interactions. Symbols define social relationships. Without symbols, our social life would be no more sophisticated than that of animals. For example, without symbols people would have no aunts or uncles, employers or teachers-or even brothers and sisters. In sum, symbolic integrations analyse how social life depends on the ways people define themselves and others. They study face-to-face interaction, examining how people make sense out of life, how they determine their relationships.

	Physical Movement	Meaning	Directed Towards Others	Await Response	Unique/Rare Interaction	Interactions	Accidental, Not Planned, But Repeated Interaction	Regular	Interactions Described by Law, Custom, or Tradition	A Scheme of Social Interactions
Behaviour	Yes
Action	Yes	Maybe
Social Behaviour	Yes	No	Yes
Social Action	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Social Contact	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Social Interaction	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Repeated Interaction	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Regular Interaction	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Regulated Interaction	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Social Relation	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_relation >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What is Emotional Competence?

Published on 02/29/2024 by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

Emotional competence and emotional capital refer to the essential set of personal and social skills to recognise, interpret, and respond constructively to emotions in oneself and others. The term implies an ease around others and determines one’s ability to effectively and successfully lead and express.

Definition

Emotional competence refers to an important set of personal and social skills for identifying, interpreting, and constructively responding to emotions in oneself and others. The term implies ease in getting along with others and determines one’s ability to lead and express effectively and successfully. Psychologists define emotional competence as the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.

Description

Emotional competence is another term for emotional intelligence. It describes a person’s ability to express their emotions completely freely, and it comes from emotional intelligence, the ability to recognise emotions. Individual’s emotional competence is considered to be an important predictor of their ability to adapt to their environment, and it refers primarily to their ability to identification, understanding, expression, regulation, and use their own and other’s emotions. Emotional competence is often referred to in social contexts, and is considered a capability of recognising their own emotions, as well as those of others and expressing them in socially acceptable ways. Competence is the level of skill at which a person interacts constructively with others. This personal emotional capacity is based on a person’s perception of their emotions and how they affect others, as well as the ability to maintain control and adaptation of emotions.

Brief History

In 1999, Carolyn Saarni wrote a book named The Development of Emotional Competence. Saarni believed that emotional abilities are not innate, but are cultivated and developed through children’s interactions with others, especially family members and peers. Saarni defined emotional capacity as the functional ability of humans to achieve goals after experiencing an emotion-eliciting encounter. She defined emotion as a component of self-efficacy, and she described the use of emotions as a set of skills that lead to the development of emotional capacity.

Examples

Understand others: To be aware of other people’s feelings and perspectives
Develop others: Be aware of the development needs of others and enhance their capabilities
Service orientation: Anticipate, recognise and meet customer needs
Leverage diversity: Nurture opportunities through different types of people

Intelligence Quotient and Emotional Quotient

Intelligence quotient (IQ): Is a measure of person’s reasoning ability, introduced by the German psychologist Louis William Stern as a qualitative method of assessing individual differences.
Emotional quotient (EQ): Is a measure of self-emotional control ability, introduced in American psychologist Peter Salovey in 1991. The emotional quotient is commonly referred to in the field of psychology as emotional intelligence(also known as emotional competence or emotional skills). IQ reflects a person’s cognitive and observational abilities and how quickly they can use reasoning to solve problems. EQ, on the other hand, is an index of a person’s ability to manage their own emotions and to manage the emotions of others.

Daniel Goleman’s Model

In Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, he introduced components of EQ:

Self-awareness: precise awareness of self emotions
Self-regulation: controlled emotional expression
Motivation: emotional self-motivation
Empathy: adept at modulating the emotional responses of others and helping them to express their emotions
Social skills: excellent communication skills
Personal Competence

Self-Awareness – Know one’s internal states, preferences, resources and intuitions. The competencies in this category include:
- Emotional Awareness – Recognize one’s emotions and their effects
- Accurate Self-Assessment – Know one’s strengths and limits
- Self-Confidence – A strong sense of one’s self-worth and abilities
- Self-Regulation – Manage one’s internal states, impulses and resources.
Social Competence:
- Empathy – Awareness of others’ feelings, needs and concerns. The competencies in this category include:
  - Understand Others – Sense others’ feelings and perspectives
  - Develop Others – Sense others’ development needs and bolstering their abilities
  - Service Orientation – Anticipate, recognise and meet customers’ needs
  - Leverage Diversity – Cultivate opportunities through different kinds of people
  - Political Awareness – Read a group’s emotional currents and power relationships
Emotional intelligence

Emotional Intelligence and the Four-Branch Model

Psychologists see emotional competence as a continuum, ranging from lower levels of emotional competence to perform mental functions to complex emotional competence for personal self-control and management. The higher levels of emotional competence, on the other hand, comprise four branches:

Perceive emotions in oneself and others accurately
Use emotions to facilitate thinking
Understand emotions, emotional language, and the signals conveyed by emotions
Manage emotions so as to attain specific goals

Each branch describes a set of skills that make up overall emotional intelligence, ranging from low to high complexity. For example, perceiving emotions usually begins with the ability to perceive basic emotions from faces and vocal tones, and may progress to the accurate perception of emotional blends and the capture and understanding of facial micro-expressions.

Assertiveness

Building up emotional competence is one way of learning to handle manipulative or passive-aggressive behaviour in which the manipulator exploits the feelings of another to try to get what they want.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_competence >; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.

What are Life Skills?

Published on 04/04/2022 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Introduction

Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable humans to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life.

This concept is also termed as psychosocial competency. The subject varies greatly depending on social norms and community expectations but skills that function for well-being and aid individuals to develop into active and productive members of their communities are considered as life skills.

Enumeration and Categorisation

The UNICEF Evaluation Office suggests that “there is no definitive list” of psychosocial skills; nevertheless UNICEF enumerates psychosocial and interpersonal skills that are generally well-being oriented, and essential alongside literacy and numeracy skills. Since it changes its meaning from culture to culture and life positions, it is considered a concept that is elastic in nature. But UNICEF acknowledges social and emotional life skills identified by Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). Life skills are a product of synthesis: many skills are developed simultaneously through practice, like humour, which allows a person to feel in control of a situation and make it more manageable in perspective. It allows the person to release fears, anger, and stress & achieve a qualitative life.

For example, decision-making often involves critical thinking (“what are my options?”) and values clarification (“what is important to me?”), (“How do I feel about this?”). Ultimately, the interplay between the skills is what produces powerful behavioural outcomes, especially where this approach is supported by other strategies.

Life skills can vary from financial literacy, through substance-abuse prevention, to therapeutic techniques to deal with disabilities such as autism.

Core Skills

The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1999 identified the following core cross-cultural areas of life skills:

Decision-making and problem-solving;
Creative thinking (see also: lateral thinking) and critical thinking;
Communication and interpersonal skills;
Self-awareness and empathy;
Assertiveness and equanimity; and
Resilience and coping with emotions and coping with stress.

UNICEF listed similar skills and related categories in its 2012 report.

Life skills curricular designed for K-12 often emphasize communications and practical skills needed for successful independent living as well as for developmental-disabilities/special-education students with an Individualized Education Programme (IEP).

There are various courses being run based on WHO’s list supported by UNFPA. In Madhya Pradesh, India, the programme is being run with Government to teach these through Government Schools.

Skills for Work and Life

Skills for work and life, known as technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is comprising education, training and skills development relating to a wide range of occupational fields, production, services and livelihoods. TVET, as part of lifelong learning, can take place at secondary, post-secondary and tertiary levels, and includes work-based learning and continuing training and professional development which may lead to qualifications. TVET also includes a wide range of skills development opportunities attuned to national and local contexts. Learning to learn and the development of literacy and numeracy skills, transversal skills and citizenship skills are integral components of TVET.

Parenting: A Venue of Life Skills Nourishment

Life skills are often taught in the domain of parenting, either indirectly through the observation and experience of the child, or directly with the purpose of teaching a specific skill. Parenting itself can be considered as a set of life skills which can be taught or comes natural to a person. Educating a person in skills for dealing with pregnancy and parenting can also coincide with additional life skills development for the child and enable the parents to guide their children in adulthood.

Many life skills programs are offered when traditional family structures and healthy relationships have broken down, whether due to parental lapses, divorce, psychological disorders or due to issues with the children (such as substance abuse or other risky behaviour). For example, the International Labour Organisation is teaching life skills to ex-child laborers and at-risk children in Indonesia to help them avoid and to recover from worst forms of child abuse.

Models: Behaviour Prevention vs. Positive Development

While certain life skills programs focus on teaching the prevention of certain behaviours, they can be relatively ineffective. Based upon their research, the Family and Youth Services Bureau, a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services advocates the theory of positive youth development (PYD) as a replacement for the less effective prevention programmes. PYD focuses on the strengths of an individual as opposed to the older decrepit models which tend to focus on the “potential” weaknesses that have yet to be shown. The Family and Youth Services Bureau has found that individuals who were trained in life skills by positive development model identified themselves with a greater sense of confidence, usefulness, sensitivity and openness rather than that of preventive model.