Habilidades sociais e comportamento de escolha

Abstract

In face of the concern to understand the controlling relationship of inappropriate behaviors, it was considered the possibility of an analysis of social relations upon the notions of choice and self-control, with the aim to carry out experiments to collect empirical data and investigate different relationships between self-control in social situations and with amounts of money and the level of social skills. The Experiment 1 compared the scores obtained with the application of the Social Skills Inventory (IHS) with the preference between social situations in the application of choice among IHS items, and the IHS scores with choices between certain / immediate amounts and delayed or probable amounts. The results show that the amount reported by the participants increases with increasing probability and decreases with increasing delay. The difference between the percentages of predictive and non-predictive items in the choice between social situations was similar. There was a tendency to diminish the values that the participants would accept to receive immediately for sure with the decreasing of the probability and with the increase of the delay. The experiment 2 tried to find an equivalence rule between the social skill level and hypothetical financial gains or losses. The participants indicated amounts to be received or paid to engage or to avoid social situations from IHS, which were related to the each social skill level. The results indicated a tendency in decreasing values to be received or paid as the social skill increased. Together, both studies suggest the possibility experimental investigations of social skills as self-control. Despite the possible gains from focusing on the functional aspects related to the analysis of social interactions as a choice and involving self-control, there is a need to adapt the notion of discount due to the decrease in the repertoire of social skills and a methodological refinement may contribute to a better understanding of functional aspects related to social skills