The Use of Skilled Strategies in Social Interactions by Groups High and Low in Self-Reported Social Skill

Abstract

Individuals high or low in self-reported social skill were recruited opportunistically. When presented with everyday social scenarios ending with an awkward request or offer, the high social skill participants more often used sophisticated strategies that showed greater consideration for all parties. By contrast, the low skill participants were more reliant on simple strategies including acquiescence or refusal, and the emotional tone of their responses was less positive. Greater reliance on sophisticated rather than simple strategies may be linked to more successful social interactions. The potential implications are considered for understanding everyday performance in skilled individuals and populations with limited social skills, such as those with autistic spectrum disorders.

Using and reasoning about social strategies in autism spectrum disorder in everyday situations

“…These findings replicate and extend those of Channon et al (2012), who showed that people with low levels of self-reported social skill generated fewer sophisticated strategies with a less positive emotional tone than participants with high levels of self-reported social skill. This suggests that the Social Strategy task is potentially a sensitive tool to identify quantitative and qualitative differences in performance both in those low vs. high in self-reported social skill and also in those with vs. without ASD.…”

“…This study extended previous work by Channon, Collins, Swain, Young, and Fitzpatrick (2012) examining how participants high vs. low in self-reported social skill responded to descriptions of interactions ending with an awkward question by the main character (the 'Social Strategy' task). Those lower in skill generated more simple strategies that either complied fully with the requests or refused outright, whereas those higher in skill generated more sophisticated strategies involving compromises or justifications, and also adopted a more polite emotional tone.…”

“…In this study, participants with ASD and a control group performed two conditions of the Social Strategy task (Channon et al, 2012): 'application' and 'reasoning'. The 'application' condition examined how they responded to everyday awkward scenarios, whereas the 'reasoning' condition explored how they reasoned about different types of strategies.…”

“…The original Social Strategy task (termed here the 'application' condition) (Channon et al, 2012) assessed the types of strategies that people use to respond to everyday awkward social situations. It consists of 10 vignettes describing social interactions between participants and a main character (see Appendix A for the full list of vignettes).…”

“…It was predicted that those with ASD would perform in a similar way to the low skill group in the Channon et al (2012) study, using fewer sophisticated strategies and a less polite emotional tone, but not differing in perceived awkwardness compared to the control group. They also completed a novel condition (the 'reasoning' condition) which examined ability to reason about descriptions of simple and sophisticated strategies to manage the same situations.…”