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APR 0 5 2004 .w ’ THE CONCEPTUALIZATION AND ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL COMPETENCE IN FEMALES by Carole Elaine Rankin A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Psychology 1983 ABSTRACT THE CONCEPTUALIZTION AND ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL COMPETENCE IN FEMALES by Carole Elaine Rankin The literature to date has not addressed the topic of social competence in an adequate manner. It has been inadquately conceptualized in terms of a very limited - range of behaviors and chiefly studied in impaired populations. There is also a paucity of studies of women. This correlational study of A0 college age women used a global definition of competence. Competence was assessed in terms of peer evaluations and paper-and-pencil measures. This study also examined the influence of cognitive complexity and social insight on the subjects' social contact experiences. It was found that cognitive complexity and social insight are likely to affect actual skill levels, there is a positive correlation between self and peer evaluations of competence, but a negative correlation between self report of the affective quality and self perceptions of skill. It was concluded that the degree of agreement between self and peer evaluations of competence is a critical variable in determining social competence TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Model of social competence Components of social competence Concepts that might be confused social competence Possible sources of failure to -— display social competence How Social Competence has been studied Problems with previous studies A strategy for solution Method Measures Results Conclusions and Discussion ll lb 15 l8 25 LIST OF TABLES Tau coefficents 20 Multiple Rs 22 LIST OF FIGURES Model assumed to begin this study 12 Path model derived in this study 23 The "Othn of someone being socially competent or incompetent ‘5 common in our society and is expressed in many forms. It is said that someone is ”savvy", is "smart", is "polished", is "good with people", or is "sophisticated". These descriptions have a common thread. They describe someone who is skilled in social interactions. This skill is clearly recognizable. This study sought to understand skill in interaction with others. This skill was called social competence. In this study, an analysis of social competence was undertaken with the goals of describing social competence and suggesting how it might be measured more precisely. To reach these goals, three things were done: (a) review the relevant literature, (b) describe a model of social competence, and (c) collect data to confirm or disconfirm components of the model. It is central to social psychology to study social behavior and social interaction. Casual observations reveal that some persons are competent with respect to social interactions and some persons are not. This observation prompts two questions. The first question concerns the genesis of socially competent behavior. That is a developmental question and as such will not be fully explored here. However, it is worthwhile to examine the developmental literature as this may provide clues to answer the second question. The second question concerns the definition of social competence. Social competence is the ability to perform adequately across situations regardless of the novelty or familiarity of the situation. Social competence is characterized by behaviors which are adequate for social interaction. To perform adequately is to behave in a manner suitable for the occasion. Suitable means whatever is defined as such by the customs of the group in the midst of which one is behaving. Customs is used here in the sense of culturally expected or prescribed behavior. The notion of an adequate performance may seem problematic. As used here, adequate means the performance can be reasonably expected to accomplish whatever the actor is trying to achieve. There are many prerequiste skills one needs to master in order to be be socially competent. Some of these skills will be measured in the course of this study. Model 21 Social Competence This study assumes the model of social competence shown in Figure l. The model has a number of interconnected parts. This reflects the complexity of the phenomena and the interactionist perspective of the author. The model states that social insight and cognitive complexity are correlated with each other and serve as predictor variables. Amount of social contact and the affective quality of that contact are seen as the criterion variables which indicate a socially competent performance. Social Insight Cognitive Complexity Peer Rating Social Contact Figure 1 Model assumed to begin this study Components 9f Social Competence Social insight. Social insight is the ability to "see into" social situations; to see what others are likely to be thinking or feeling and to predict what their future behavior is likely to be (Chapin,l9h2). This ability is expected to be very useful to someone who wants to enact suitable behavior. Eggnitive complexity. Cognitive complexity is defined (Beiri et al.,1975) as "the capacity to construe behavior in a multidimensional way." This is an information processing variable. The more alternatives a person is able to imagine as explaining another's behavior or as a response to another's behavior, the more likely it is the appropriate response will be conceived and subsequently carried out. This information processing ability should be useful to assess the similarities and differences between and among situations in which the actor finds himself or herself. Concepts that might pg confused with social competence Social desirability Socially competent behavior is something that would be desired in a social situation. Ratings of socially competent behavior and socially desirable behavior cannot be easily separated. Socially competent persons are liked, however, liking does not logically imply competence. Liking could result from empathy, e.g.,just another klutz like me. Socially desirable behaviors such as agreeableness and willingness to do favors can be carried to extremes where they are labeled ingratiating and are not considered socially competent of desirable. As a further example of the distinction between socially competent and socially desirable behavior, consider that a person may not cooperate with you, which is not socially desirable, in an agreeable manner, which is socially competent. Perhaps the most famous example of this is the behavior of civil rights advocate Martin Luther King. Social desirablity describes an outcome, social competence describes a process. Self presentation If self-presentation is used in the sense of Erving Goffman's The Presentation 91 S311 lg Evegydaerife , then successful self-presentation is the result of social competence. Goffman talks about self-presentation as a managed performance which presents behavior in a manner which creates a consistent and desired impression on others. A socially competent person would certainly be able to do this. Social competence encompasses the skills needed for successful self- presentation. Self-presentation is the product or end point. Social competence is the process or means to the end. ls desirable to examine which cognitive skills comprise social competence and thus facilitate successful self-presentation. Possible sources 91 failure t9 display socially competent behavior Concern over evaluation by others Because the display of socially competent behavior requires a performance in the presence of others and concern over evaluation by others can affect a performance, the role of this concern should be considered. If levels of concern are extremely high, the actor may be affected in giving the performance he or she knows is expected or required. This concern may still be present even after considerable skill has been achieved. This concern arises when other's behavior is interpreted as feedback about one's own performance. Other's behavior is interpreted as feedback when the actor attends to the other's perspective of the situation ( Ellis and Holmes, 1982) . A curvilinear relationship between concern over evaluation by others and social performance is assumed. It is assumed that concern over evaluation by others serves as motivation to perform and that most people have this concern, under at least some circumstance. If the level of concern is very low, one does not put forth the effort required to perform adequately. It is further assumed that feedback from the environment is essential to an adequate performance. This feedback serves as information as to what constitutes an adequate performance. The ability to utilize this feedback depends upon the actor's relative levels of self versus other awareness. Without awareness of the reponses of others to one's performance, one would be ignorant of one's relative success or failure in creating the desired impression on others consistently. If the level of concern is extremely high, the actor may focus on his or her own behavior to the exclusion of observing the reactions of others. If the person is exclusivly focused on others, the person may not be sufficently aware of his or her own behavior to observe any relationships between his or her own behavior and the reactions of others. The ideal circumstance is where concern over evaluation by others is moderate and there is a balance of attention between self and others. Ignorance 2L inexperience The effects of ignorance are obvious. If the actor is ignorant of what consitutes suitable behavior, obviously his or her chances of enacting suitable behavior are considerably reduced, especially if the actor is in unfamiliar or ambiguous circumstances. The effects of inexperience are expected to be similar to those of ignorance. However, the effects of inexperience may not be as severe as those of ignorance. The inexperienced person may know what to do and simply not perform as smoothly as an experienced person. There is a difference between knowing what to do and how to do it. Sharp (l98l) found there was no correlation between children's ability to verbally generate solutions to hypothetical interpersonal conflicts and their actual observed ability to get along with others. How social competence has been studied Social competence is a term bandied about freely in the psychological literature. It would be easy to assume that its meaning is clear to all and it can be quickly and easily measured. This is not the case for all groups of subjects. It has been studied in terms of social skills (Liberman,l982), in terms of how well children interact with their peers (Dorr et al l980), in terms of social insight (Chapin,l9h2), in terms of comfort in social interaction (Gormally et al 198l), and anxiety with the other gender in men (Watson and Friend, 1969). Social competence has been studied in clinical populations ( Gormally et al, l98l, Watson and Friend,l969, Remingtion and Tryer,l979, McReynolds, 198l, Lowe,1982, and Tarte et al.1982). It has been studied in ninth and twelth graders in terms of selffreport and teacher ratings (Ford,198l). It has been assessed in terms of nonverbal sensitivity in college age women (Christina,Farina,&Boudereau,1980). It has been evaluated in terms of the social strategy found to be most effective (Scott & Edelstein,l981). It has been treated as knowledge of the appropriate rules and social goals (Argyle,Furnham,EGraham,I981). There are not many studies which take a broad view of social competence in persons who are beyond high school and can be reasonably expected to be functioning adequately in their own milieu, that is to say, they have not sought clinical treatment and they have not been' insitutionalized. Problems with previous studies Several things need to be done to update and improve previous studies. It is necessary to update old studies of social insight for example Chapin (l9h2). It is necessary to conduct further studies of persons who are beyond high school. It seems perfectly reasonable to assume that social competence is a developmental task and should change with increasing age. It is desirable to examine females as a separate group from males. If it is reasonable to assume that social competence is l0 situation specific, then it is reasonable to suppose that social competence is different in at least some aspects for women than it is for men. The culturally required behavior is different for men and women. Men suffer anxiety over asking women for dates, women suffer anxiety over not being asked or worry over whether to break with tradition and do the asking. Men and women have different social goals and so they need to proceed socially in different ways. In a similar vein, it can be argued that adults and children are different because they have different social goals: different things are expected of them. If the problem of cultural norms were not sufficent to prompt re-examination of studies of social competence, previous studies have ndt conceptualized socially competent behavior in a sufficently rich manner. With few exceptions,(Scott and Edelstein,l98l, Ford,l98l), social competence has been conceptualized in terms of specific behaviors in limited realms such as dating. Social competence has been examined to ascertain the characteristics of socially competent persons in terms of specfic behaviors such as how often the person dates or how many friends the person has. Considering the vast diversity of situations the average person has to face on a regular basis, it seems unlikely II that any one behavior will be found to be appropriate in all situations. There are some micro-level behaviors, such as smiling, which would be appropriate in a large number of situations. However, even smiling is not always appropriate, for example, it is not considered appropriate to smile when chastised by an authority figure or at a funeral (even if you inherit everything). Vlt is desirable to investigate assessment strategies which do not’depend upon specific behaviors to define or identify social competence. To summarize, there are four problems with existing studies. They are: paucity of post-high school studies, paucity of studies of women, poor conceptualization, and poor asessment strategies. A strategy for solution Social competence was conceptualized in this study as skill in implementing a strategy, not acting out a memorized script. The definition of strategy used here follows that of Scott and Edelstein(1981). A strategy is a coherent pattern of responses guided by'goals rather than by isolated topgraphical rules. It was assumed that social behavior is goal directed and the model shown in Figure l is accurate enough to serve as a working hypothesis. It was assumed that there is more 12 than one way to implement a strategy and more than one strategy may successfully reach a goal. Thus, specification of molecular behaviors to observe would have been self defeating. The problem of identifying specific behaviors was surmounted by using gobal ratings by peers. Peers were used so that the judgments were made by persons in the same cultural mileu. The paucity of studies of post-high school adults and women was addressed by using college-age women. To address the issues of conceptualization and assessment, social competence was assessed with diverse measures. Social competence was assessed by peer ratings, self report describing the affective quality of relationships with others, and self report of the amount of contact had with others. To further understanding of antecedent variables, cognitive complexity, social insight, and the actor's self perception of skill were assessed. Cognitive complexity, social insight, and self perception of skill were used to predict quanity of and peer ratings of social competence. These predictors and criterion variables were chosen because Chapin(19h2) showed that social insight was correlated with quanity of social contact and Remington and Tryer(l979) showed that self perceived quality of contacts with others was correlated with peer assessments of interpersonal 13 competence. Peer assessments were obtained to evaluate the usefulness of the variable and because of the theoretical belief that one's social peers are the ultimate judge of social competence when social competence is defined as skill in interpersonal interaction. METHODS Subiects. Subjects were A0 women in introductory psychology classes recruited through sign-up sheets posted in their classroom. They received course credit for their participation. Procedure Subjects were brought together in groups of three. Friends were asked not to volunteer to be in the same group. Subjects were asked to spend twenty minutes getting to know each other. They were informed that at the end of this time they would be asked to rate themselves and each other on skill in social interaction and to fill out some other questionaires. Each member of the group was given a geometric symbol (circle,diamond, or triangle) to be used to identify themselves and their fellow group members. This was done to maintain the subjects' privacy and to avoid any suggestion of ordering to the subjects. The measures the subjects were asked to fill out after the twenty minutes discussion period were: the self and peer ratings, the Chapin Social Insight test (Chapin,l9h2), the Bieri cognitive complexity test(Bieri et al, 1975), and the Social Contact Appraisal List, developed by the I“ 15 author for this study. After filling out the questionaires, subjects were given an opportunity to ask questions and have the study explained to them in more detail. Measures Chapin Social Insight. Chapin (l9h2) developed a scale to measure social insight which he found to be correlated with general levels of social activity in terms of social contact. The more social contact; the more insight into social situations. Insight is defined by Chapin as the capacity to discern the true nature of the situation. Chapin's instrument attempts to measure the ability to define (by classifying, diagnosing, inferring causes, and predicting outcomes) a social situation in terms of behavior inputed to others present, rather than in terms of the individual's own feelings about others who are present. It presents vignettes and asks subjects to select the option which offers the most insightful commentary or wisest course of action. It has twenty-five questions, each with. three or four options. The subject chooses one option. There is only one correct option. The correct option was determined by asking qualified experts. Chapin's validity data were encouraging. The scale has been l6 further validated by Sadowski (1978) and Gough(l965). Chapin found a correlation of .36 between supervisor ratings of social insight and the results of his test for professional staff at a social service agency. He also found that his test could discriminate between clerical and professional staff at that same agency. Eggnitive complexity; This will be measured by the Bieri method (Bieri et al, I966). Bieri's method is a modification of the Kelly (1965) Role Construct Repertory Test in grid form. It consists of a list of ten persons and ten dichotomous descriptors called constructs. Each subject rates each person on each construct on a six point Likert-type scale (+3 to -3). There is no neutral point on the scale. The persons to rated are given to the subject in general terms such as: mother, father, friend of the same sex, boss, person difficult to understand, ect. Cognitive complexity scores are obtained by comparing ratings across constructs for each person rated. A subject receives a score of one whenever two constructs are used in the same way to rate the same person. Low scores indicate complexity and high scores indicate relative simplicity. 17 Social Contact Appraisal List. This is a scale I have constructed. I have devised a list of social contact situations and adjectives which might be used by a person to describe their perceptions of the affective qualities of their relationships to that category of people. This assesses the level of competence in terms of the quality and quantity of social contacts. As a person has more social contacts of a more desirable nature, that person is said to be more socially. competent. This list has been named the Social Contact Appraisal List. It presents a series of categories of social contacts such as friends, roommates, and family members. Each category is rated on seventeen bipolar adjectives with a five point Likert-type scale. Adjectives for the scale were chosen so as to sample broadly the subjective, evaluative, and conceptual domain a person who might have for social contacts. I believe that how a person subjectively evaluates the social contacts experienced will be correlated with her evaluation of her own social competence relative to the competence of others. This follows from Chapin's observation that number of social contacts was correlated with that person's social insight. It seems 18 reasonable to assume that number of contacts would also correlate with the satisfaction obtained from those relationships, at least for the voluntary relationships. Results In general, this was a very homogeneous group. All subjects reported at least an average level of skill in interaction with others and felt their relationships with others were important. They described their relationships with others in pleasant terms such as easy, warm, comfortable, correct, and emotionally close. The distributions of scale scores were markedly non-normal (see Appendix A). Non-parametric statistical techniques were employed wherever possible. It should be noted that Kendall rank-order correlations were employed instead of Spearman rank-order correlations. This was done for the following reasons. Kendall's rank-order correlation (Tau) can be simply interpreted as a descriptive statistic. The sample Tau is the difference between two proportions. For this reason, it is an unbiased estimator of the population value. The Tau sampling distribution converges to normal more quickly than the Spearman distribution does. For moderately the distributions of large samples, Tau seems to provide a better test of the hypothesis of no association than does Spearman (Hays,1976). In addition, Tau coefficents are somewhat more meaningful when the data contain a large number of ties, as in these data (Nie, et al.,l975). 19 20 Before computing correlation coeffecients, the items of the Social Contact Appraisal List were divided into two sections. The Social Contact Appraisal List (SCAL) consists of two types of items. One type of item asks for a subjective evaluation of the affective(emotional) aspects of the subject's relationships to others. The other type of item asks _for a subjective evaluation of the relative scarcity or abundance of contacts with others. Two scores were obtained for each subject from SCAL. These scores were : the sum of the affective items, called Social Contact Appraisal List Affective (SCALA); and the sum of the quantity items, called the Social Contact Appraisal List Quantity (SCALQ). The coefficent alpha for SCALA was .93. The coefficent aplha for SCALQ was .AO. Thus, there were six scale scores used for the analysis of results. These were: SCALA, SCALQ, Chapin social insight, peer ratings of interaction skills, self ratings of interaction skills, and Bieri's cognitive complexity measure. Kendall's Tau was computed for all possible pairs of scales. The results of the correlation computations are shown in Table 1. Significance levels of .16 and better are shown. This level was chosen because it allowed interesting, if not 21 high, correlations to be highlighted. TABLE 1 Tau Coeffecients SCALQ ScalQ Insight Peer Self Complexity SCAL Q 1.00 SCAL A .33(.oo2) 1.00 Social Insight .08 .05 1.00 Peer Rating .00 .06 .08 1.00 Self Rating -.36(.001) -.19(.0h) -.lh(.10) .2A(.02) 1.00 Cognitive Complexity.07 -.13(.ll) .l9(.0h) .ll(.l6) -.08 1.00 This shows a positive relationship between the affective quality of one's contacts with others and the perceived abundance of those contacts. There is a positive relationship between self peceptions of skill and peer ratings of skill. Yet, there is a negative relationship between self perceptions of skill and felt affective quality of contacts with others. If a subject believes he or she is above average in social interaction skills, he or she reports a lower affective quality of contacts with others than does a person who describes his or her skill level as average. A subject who reported that contacts with others were pleasant also reported that 22 those contacts were abundant. A subject who obtained a high score on SCALA and SCALQ tended to rate herself as having an average level of skill in interaction with others. This is discordant with the result that self and peer ratings have a statistically significant positive correlation. This suggests that if Suzy Subject has a high opinion of her skills her peers will agree with her, and that she will report a scarcity of contact with them and a less pleasant affective quality_ of contact with them. These results were sorted out further through regression and subsequent path analysis. To predict peer ratings and amount of contact, two stepwise simple linear regressions were performed. Peer ratings were used as the criterion variable the for the first regression analysis. SCALQ scores were used as the criterion variable for the second regression analysis. The regression analyses were performed using "Statistical Package for the Social Sciences" (Nie, et al., 1975). The maximum number of steps allowed was two. The minimum tolerance to enter the equation was .001. The maximum F to remove a variable was .005. These values are the default values for this package. The only change from the default values was for the minimum value of F to enter the equation. This was set at 1 because no i ratio less than 1 will ever be 23 significant and the author did not want to look at hopelessly insignificant results. Rggression using Peer ratings 35 the criterion. Self ratings, social insight, and SCALA entered the equation. None were significant. Regression using SCALQ 25 the criterion. SCALA, self rating, social insight, and cognitive complexity entered the equation. The multiple R's are shown in table 2. TABLE 2 Multiple Rs SCALA .A3 .005 Self Rating ' .50 .005 Social Insight .52 .009 Cognitive Complexity .5A .01A Summary 9: Regression. None of the variables predicted peer ratings very well. However, the four variables shown in Table 2 did a good job of predicting the quantity of social contact. This led to the decision to use SCALQ as the criterion variable or end point of the path analysis. The results of the regression confrim that social insight and quanitity of social contact are related to each other. It is also 2h suggested that social insight and cognitive complexity may correlate with quantity of social contact if the study is repeated with a larger sample. Clearly, cognitive skills are important in determining the affective quality of contacts with others in adult women. This is consistent with the results of Gormally,et al(1981) who found that cognitions and social anxiety were related to each other.in adult men seeking treatment for dating anxiety. The path model derived in this study is shown in Figure 2. Self rating and social insight were used as the two independent exogenous variables. Hunter's (1980) Pathpac procedure was used to test the predictive accuracy of the path model. The sum of the squared devations of predicted correlations from observed values was .02. This is a very small amount of error. REPORTED AMOUNT OF y SELF SKILL REPORT CONTACT(SCALA) ERATING REPORTED QUALITY SOCIAL INSIGHT/ 0 CONTACTS(SCALA) COGNITIW:\E%:PLE:IT/ FIGURE ‘L 25 PATH MODEL DERIVED IN THIS STUDY Self rating has a direct negative relationship with SCALA and SCALQ. Self rating has an indirect positive relationship with SCALA through a positive relationship with peer rating. Peer rating has a positive realtionship with SCALA. ScaIA has a positive relationship with SCALQ. It appears that self perceptions about social interaction skills are negatively related to quantity and quality of social contacts unless the perception is confrimed by peer ratings. It seems likely that persons who think of themselves as highly skilled are most likely to be wrong. When self and peer ratings do not agree, relationships with others are stressful and thus, the individual withdraws or the social contacts withdraw and amount of social contact declines. However, when self and peer ratings agree, then social contact is less stessful and amount of social contact may increase. The agreement of self and peer ratings may be facilitated by social insight and cognitive complexity. Social insight has a positive relationship with SCALA through positive relationships with cognitve complexity and peer rating. Cognitive complexity has a positive relationship with SCALA. If a person who is more socially insightful and 26 more cognitively complex is more likely to both receive positive peer ratings and to be more aware of these positive ratings, this awareness seems likely to lead to increased pleasantness of social contacts and a subsequent increase in the amount of social contact sought or encouraged. Conclusions and discussion The results of this study suggest that the degree of agreement between self and peer ratings conbined with cognitive skills is best able to predict the quality and quantity of one's social contacts. Cognitive skills such as insight and complexity may contribute by either enhancing one's rating by others or by facilitating the degree of agreement between self and peer ratings. A third possibility is that cognitive skills may affect actual skill levels as measured by peer ratings and actual skill levels may then affect the quality of one's relationships with others. In discussion of these results, certain assumptions are useful. First, people prefer to think well of themselves. Second, no one is perfect. Third, admitting shortcomings to oneself is unpleasant. Fourth, people will be very strongly tempted to lie to themselves about themselves in order to maintain a positive self image. Acceptance and liking of oneself in spite of shortcomings is a possible but rare occurance. This assumption is supported by the limited range of self-ratings from average to high. Fifth, it requires extra ordinary circumstances to inhibit self-deception. 27 28 There are several implications of these assumptions. Self-report measures will probably reflect the "lie" structure used to maintain a positive self image. Indirect questioning may have the best chance of breaking through defensive self deception mechanisms. The Social Contact Appraisal List may be particularly useful in this respect as it allows subjects to respond in a way which reveals problems but allows the subject to blame those problems on others. If there are problems in getting along with others, the problems will most likely be attributed to others and not to one's own lack of skill as doing so would threaten the lie structure. This is supported by Christensen,et al (1980). The worse you are at getting along with others, the greater the pressure toward self deception and the greater the difficulty in maintaining that deception. This could be expected to result behaviorally in hostile defensive behavior, such as hypersensitivity to criticism. The bias toward self deception explains why social insight and cognitive complexity can be examined separately of social skill. Social insight and cognitive complexity address how aware you are of others, not how aware you are of yourself. From this it can be concluded that there may be much self deception 29 about skill and self ratings of skill should not be taken at face value, in spite of the high significant correlation between self and peer ratings. It can also be concluded that cognitive skills and an intellectual understanding of social behavior probably do influence actual skill levels and the quanity and quality of our relationships with others. I I These results should be viewed with the following caveats in mind. Self perception of skill is probably confounded with self confidence. High skill persons may exhibit more confidence. Those who appear more confident may receive higher ratings from peers. However, high self confidence can spring from knowing one is highly skilled or from self deceptively believing one has high skill leVels. We need some way to distinquish between persons whose self perceptions are veridical and those whose self perceptions are , defensively self deceptive. Self reports of the quality of one's relationships with others may be helpful here, based on both this study and Remington and Tryer (1979). Remington and Tryer found that quality of relationships with others was the single most useful variable in separating a clinical population into personality disorders, neurotics, and psychotics. 30 In addition, there are other factors which need to be considered. The role of feedback needs to be explored. The high correlation between self and peer ratings suggests the existence of some sort of feedback mechanism. This mechanism may be quite indirect. The role of social support should also be explored as social support, its existence ,form, and quantity may serve as a form of feedback. Last, but certainly not least, the workings of implicit social communiction need to be delineated. Under this would come non-verbal communication, meanings of words, language conventions, social sanctions, tone of voice, conventions for interpreting social context, and the meaning of gestures. The importance of context cannot be overlooked. "...a social deviation can hardly be reckoned with apart from the relationships and organizational memberships of the offender and the offended, since there is hardly a social act that in itself is not appropriate or at least excusable in some social context." (Goffman, 197l,p356.) The meaning of your behavior to others is also a crucial variable. As Mead (l93h) said a social act "involves the interaction of different forms, which involves the adjustment of the conduct of these different forms to each other in 31 carrying out the social process. Gestures bring about the adjustment of the other forms." (p.h5).Further, Mead asserts that the individual's consciousness of content and flow of meaning depend on his taking the attitude of the other toward his own gestures. Mead believes that it is through reflexiveness that the whole social process is brought into the experience of the individual involved. By such means, the individual is able to consciously adjust himself to that process and to modify the result of that process in any given social act. Reflexiveness becomes the essential condition within the social process. REFERENCES REFERENCES Bieri,J.,Atkin,A.L.,Briar,S.,Leaman,R.L..Miller,H.,5 Tripodi,T. (1975) Clinical and Social Judgment Robert E. Krieger Publishing C0: Huntington, New York.(reprint of 1966). Chapin,F.A. (19A2) Preliminary standardization of a social insight scale. American Sociologjcal Review 1 21A-255. Christensen,D.,Farina,A.,EBoudreau,L. (1980) Sensitivity to nonverbal cues as a function of social competence. Journal 9: Nonverbal Behavior 5 1A6-156. 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Scores PEER RATINGS DISTRIBUTION 3,333. 5 7mkkekakk a” A. 9 1.k«akskkkkkaakkksakkk A. 5 5.33% 1 area 1. nw 1¢« a” M 2 .d O 2 M“ 9{«k 0 5 .m 1. m .1 .1 .d e M“ no .3 .u .3 2 1.. 1 mowucoauoum Scores 35 APPENDICES APPENDIX A Scores 36 Frequencies 1 2 129 132 143 156 160 163 171 173 175 176 177 185 189 194 201 203 206 210 215 222 225 228 231 233 234 236 238 239 247 252 260 261 ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** 9**** ***** ***** *********** ‘***** ***** *********** ***** ***** ***** ***** *********** ***** ***** *********** *********** **** **** **** F**** A**** k**** k**** k**** k**** k**** L**** S'EOZ=U9TP3N (9A1308;;v)1VDS 9°IOZ=UB3N SL1=9P0N Score 12 17 18 19 21 22 23‘ 24 25 26 27 28= 29 30 31 34 35 37 Frequency *** *** ***********i ******* ************ **************** k******************** **************** **************** **************** **************** I******* ******* ******* *** *** *** SL'EZ=UBTP3N EO'VZ=U93N EZ=9P0N (KJTIUBDO)TVDS Score 38 Frequency 40 43 46 47 48 49 50 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 63 ** i” ************** ** ** ** *************************** ************** *********** ******* *********** ** ** ** Mk E‘Is=uerpaw yz-zg=ueau SHHODS NIdVHD O§=9P°N Score 39 Frequency 1 2 101 102 110 113 123 125 127 128 130 135 136 139 143 146 147 149 150 153 159 161 165 166 173 182 184 197 212 242 272 275 ********* **** ********* **** **** **** **** ********* **** **** **** **** ********* **** **** **** ********* **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** Herpew 101=3P°N BSI=UB3N 991 (LlIXHTdNOD HAILINDOD) NOILHHIHLSIG IHHIH APPENDIX B Social Contact Appraisal List INSTRUCTIONS: This a test to determine how you would describe your relationship to various kinds of people. A.Category of persons will be given. The category will be follwed by a list of adjective pairs. You are asked to rate each category on the same adjectives. The list of adjectives is repeated for each category. There are nine categories. Category: Parakeets fun X -------—---------dull If you feel that your relationship to your parakeet is fun, you would mark an x as above. 40 . . ' r . . -' ' .- ..~ ... - ‘...'. ‘1" ‘3'. . .. w . ft. ‘7 ’1‘} ' ~- ‘0‘ A r; ‘3. .‘ , -' o. s ' ‘ .0 "OJ, ' . . 7"\o‘ to... , cos y , D ‘ .‘.a ' ‘ u. f . 1‘ ~ '0 - . ' ."I a ' 9 n 0 d A a. ‘ i ' 9 . » . . ‘ ‘ v. . _ . ‘. 1‘. 1'1 . . :u .. . f . . ' ‘ ?:‘ ".'.. . ' o' -I 1" ‘ ‘ ' t" . .. o v '. JET. . . . .9 ,. ..-‘ r < ' a r L" .\ |[' 1, o v0 .. . . ' a _l c ‘v f . . 'O a ! ‘£- _ v 9’ .0 ' 9 ' ' .‘ 1,. s ' . _ a, «J..ca‘ I . . A a . fly. .I .r- A. s ‘ 1 ‘, an . _ . .’ o E . n . g ‘ a. - ‘ ' . .. ‘, . . a e . ' . '-. . ~ . a)” 1! .. '0 ‘ I «u. ' 1 . u .1 O a . ‘ D 41 c.t.80ryg Persons who live in.your housing unit friendly were easy comfortable scarce . unhappy polite wrong average excellent emotionally close important Category: friendly _wmrm - easy comfortable scarce unhappy polite wrong average excellent emotionally close important . .' unfriendly ”*__* -—*.—* cold difficult uncomfortable- abundant have? rude o COII’CCE Roomates “n...“ terrible emotionally distant unimportant unfriendly ' cold difficult uncomfortable abundant - happy __”.rude correct unusual terrible emotionally distant unimportant '0‘ ’1‘ ‘;.J' l '1 .e Category: friendly wane easy comfortable scarce unhlPPY Ipolite wrong average excellent emotionally close important Category: friendly warm easy comfortable scarce ‘ campy polite wrong average excellent emotionally close important 43 Romantic or sexual relationships v unfriendly cold ____difficult uncomfortable. abundant ______________havpy rude COIIGCC ____unuoual terrible ____emotionally distant unimportant persons of the same sex unfriendly cold difficult uncomfortable abundant happy rude correct unusual terrible emotionally distant unimportant 45 Category: P35891184 Of the Opposite sex, platonic relationships friendly __ __ __ __ __ unfriendly wane __ __ __ __ cold easy “““““ difficult comfortable ***** uncomfortable scarce _____ abundant unhappy mmmmm happy polite __ __ __ __ __ rude wrong __ __ __ __ __ correct average _____ unusual excellent terrible emotionally close emotionally distant important mmmmm unimportant Category: friends in general friendly _____ unfriendly warm __ ___ __ _‘____ cold easy __ ____ __ __ difficult comfortable __ __ __ __ uncomfortable scarce ____ __ abundant unhappy __ __ __ __ __ happy polite ***** rude wrong ______ correct average ......;. unusual excellent terrible emotionally close important emotionally distant unimportant .o~.‘ 46 Category: clerks in stores friendly warm easy comfortable scarce mhappy polite wrong average excellent emotionally close important unfriendly cold difficult uncomfortable abundant ________'._________happy “~*__ rude correct unusual terrible emotionally distant unimportant :1: la v). a . n. . . o! a R. .v . _ u C . (I n n C 9 n o .‘n-- . e . .0 .. I. . i . ... I :1. a ' I . s l I. s .o p m. 0‘ . o . a ,l a . a . . I F I Q.‘ . .0 i .h» V m m . . t —. a o III III I IIIIIII Ill