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The SkillsYouNeed Guide to Interpersonal Skills

Social problem-solving might also be called ‘ problem-solving in real life ’. In other words, it is a rather academic way of describing the systems and processes that we use to solve the problems that we encounter in our everyday lives.

The word ‘ social ’ does not mean that it only applies to problems that we solve with other people, or, indeed, those that we feel are caused by others. The word is simply used to indicate the ‘ real life ’ nature of the problems, and the way that we approach them.

Social problem-solving is generally considered to apply to four different types of problems:

• Impersonal problems, for example, shortage of money;
• Personal problems, for example, emotional or health problems;
• Interpersonal problems, such as disagreements with other people; and
• Community and wider societal problems, such as litter or crime rate.

A Model of Social Problem-Solving

One of the main models used in academic studies of social problem-solving was put forward by a group led by Thomas D’Zurilla.

This model includes three basic concepts or elements:

Problem-solving

This is defined as the process used by an individual, pair or group to find an effective solution for a particular problem. It is a self-directed process, meaning simply that the individual or group does not have anyone telling them what to do. Parts of this process include generating lots of possible solutions and selecting the best from among them.

A problem is defined as any situation or task that needs some kind of a response if it is to be managed effectively, but to which no obvious response is available. The demands may be external, from the environment, or internal.

A solution is a response or coping mechanism which is specific to the problem or situation. It is the outcome of the problem-solving process.

Once a solution has been identified, it must then be implemented. D’Zurilla’s model distinguishes between problem-solving (the process that identifies a solution) and solution implementation (the process of putting that solution into practice), and notes that the skills required for the two are not necessarily the same. It also distinguishes between two parts of the problem-solving process: problem orientation and actual problem-solving.

Problem Orientation

Problem orientation is the way that people approach problems, and how they set them into the context of their existing knowledge and ways of looking at the world.

Each of us will see problems in a different way, depending on our experience and skills, and this orientation is key to working out which skills we will need to use to solve the problem.

An Example of Orientation

Most people, on seeing a spout of water coming from a loose joint between a tap and a pipe, will probably reach first for a cloth to put round the joint to catch the water, and then a phone, employing their research skills to find a plumber.

A plumber, however, or someone with some experience of plumbing, is more likely to reach for tools to mend the joint and fix the leak. It’s all a question of orientation.

Problem-Solving

Problem-solving includes four key skills:

• Defining the problem,
• Coming up with alternative solutions,
• Making a decision about which solution to use, and
• Implementing that solution.

Based on this split between orientation and problem-solving, D’Zurilla and colleagues defined two scales to measure both abilities.

They defined two orientation dimensions, positive and negative, and three problem-solving styles, rational, impulsive/careless and avoidance.

They noted that people who were good at orientation were not necessarily good at problem-solving and vice versa, although the two might also go together.

It will probably be obvious from these descriptions that the researchers viewed positive orientation and rational problem-solving as functional behaviours, and defined all the others as dysfunctional, leading to psychological distress.

The skills required for positive problem orientation are:

Being able to see problems as ‘challenges’, or opportunities to gain something, rather than insurmountable difficulties at which it is only possible to fail.

For more about this, see our page on The Importance of Mindset ;

Believing that problems are solvable. While this, too, may be considered an aspect of mindset, it is also important to use techniques of Positive Thinking ;

Believing that you personally are able to solve problems successfully, which is at least in part an aspect of self-confidence.

See our page on Building Confidence for more;

Understanding that solving problems successfully will take time and effort, which may require a certain amount of resilience ; and

Motivating yourself to solve problems immediately, rather than putting them off.

See our pages on Self-Motivation and Time Management for more.

Those who find it harder to develop positive problem orientation tend to view problems as insurmountable obstacles, or a threat to their well-being, doubt their own abilities to solve problems, and become frustrated or upset when they encounter problems.

The skills required for rational problem-solving include:

The ability to gather information and facts, through research. There is more about this on our page on defining and identifying problems ;

The ability to set suitable problem-solving goals. You may find our page on personal goal-setting helpful;

The application of rational thinking to generate possible solutions. You may find some of the ideas on our Creative Thinking page helpful, as well as those on investigating ideas and solutions ;

Good decision-making skills to decide which solution is best. See our page on Decision-Making for more; and

Implementation skills, which include the ability to plan, organise and do. You may find our pages on Action Planning , Project Management and Solution Implementation helpful.

There is more about the rational problem-solving process on our page on Problem-Solving .

Potential Difficulties

Those who struggle to manage rational problem-solving tend to either:

• Rush things without thinking them through properly (the impulsive/careless approach), or
• Avoid them through procrastination, ignoring the problem, or trying to persuade someone else to solve the problem (the avoidance mode).

This ‘ avoidance ’ is not the same as actively and appropriately delegating to someone with the necessary skills (see our page on Delegation Skills for more).

Instead, it is simple ‘buck-passing’, usually characterised by a lack of selection of anyone with the appropriate skills, and/or an attempt to avoid responsibility for the problem.

An Academic Term for a Human Process?

You may be thinking that social problem-solving, and the model described here, sounds like an academic attempt to define very normal human processes. This is probably not an unreasonable summary.

However, breaking a complex process down in this way not only helps academics to study it, but also helps us to develop our skills in a more targeted way. By considering each element of the process separately, we can focus on those that we find most difficult: maximum ‘bang for your buck’, as it were.

Continue to: Decision Making Creative Problem-Solving

See also: What is Empathy? Social Skills

Social Skills Training for Adults: 10 Best Activities + PDF

Struggles with social skills in adulthood can cause avoidance of social situations and interfere with building long-lasting relationships.

Providing social skills training to clients with anxiety, fear of public speaking, and similar issues could ensure more optimal functioning.

This article provides strategies and training options for the development of various social skills. Several resources to help target specific struggles related to the development of social skills in adults are also included, and the approaches can be tailored to improve social responses in specific domains.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains:

Social skills training for adults explained, social skills coaching: 2 best activities, role-playing exercises: 4 scripts & examples, top 2 resources & worksheets, 4 insightful videos & podcasts, positivepsychology.com’s helpful tools, a take-home message.

Social skills training includes interventions and instructional methods that help an individual improve and understand social behavior. The goal of social skills training is to teach people about verbal and nonverbal behaviors that are involved in typical social interactions (“Social,” n.d.).

Social skills training is usually initiated when adults have not learned or been taught appropriate interpersonal skills or have trouble reading subtle cues in social interactions. These instances can also be associated with disorders that impede social development, such as autism.

Therapists who practice social skills training first focus on breaking down more complex social behaviors into smaller portions. Next, they develop an individualized program for patients, depending on what social skills they need to work on, and gradually introduce those skills to their patients, building up their confidence through gradual exposure.

For instance, a person who has trouble making eye contact because of anxiety in social situations might be given strategies to maintain eye contact by the therapist. Eye contact is the foundation for most social interaction, and interventions will often start with improving the individual’s ability to maintain eye contact.

During therapy, other challenging areas will be identified such as starting or maintaining a conversation or asking questions. Each session will focus on different activities that typically involve role-play and sometimes will take place in a group setting to simulate different social experiences.

Once confidence has been built up during therapy or social skills group settings, these social skills can be brought into daily life.

Useful assessments: Tests, checklists, questionnaires, & scales

Before engaging your clients in social skills interventions or any type of therapeutic intervention, it is important to determine if social skills therapy is a good approach to help them with their current situation.

The Is Social Skills Training Right for Me? checklist is a self-assessment opportunity for clients to determine if social skills therapy is appropriate for their specific situation or if another approach will be more beneficial.

However, self-assessment activities can sometimes be unreliable, as the individual might not fully understand the treatment models that are available to them. Additionally, if a client has issues with social skills, they may not be aware of their deficiencies in social situations.

In these situations, therapists should ask clients about the issues they are having and encourage them to engage in self-questioning during sessions.

9 Questions to ask your clients

Prior to starting social skills training or activities, the therapist and client should narrow down which areas need help. A therapist can do this by asking the client a series of questions, including:

• Where do you think you are struggling?
• Are there any social situations that make you feel anxious, upset, or nervous?
• Do you avoid any specific social situations or actions?
• Have you ever had anyone comment on your social behavior? What have they said?
• What do you think will help you improve the skills you are struggling with?

Clients can also ask themselves some questions to determine if the social skills therapy process is right for them.

These questions can include:

• What aspects of my life am I struggling with?
• Are there specific social situations or skills that I struggle with?
• Do I have trouble keeping or maintaining relationships with friends, family members, and coworkers?
• Am I avoiding specific social situations out of fear?

Getting clients to ask these questions will help determine if this process will benefit them. Having clients “buy in” to the process is important, to ensure that the approach is right for them and increase the likelihood that they will be engaged to complete activities with a reasonable degree of efficacy.

It is estimated that adults make eye contact 30–60% of the time in general conversation, increasing to 60–70% of the time when trying to form a more intimate relationship (Cognitive Development Learning Centre, 2019).

Giving people who are struggling socially the tools to make more eye contact is usually the first step in social skills training exercises.

The Strategies for Maintaining Eye Contact  worksheet provides some practical strategies and tips to practice making eye contact.

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Often, one of the most prominent struggles for people lacking social skills is starting a conversation, especially with people they are not familiar with.

Fleming (2013) details a helpful method for people who struggle with starting conversations. The ARE method can be used to initiate a conversation and gain an understanding of the person’s interests to facilitate a strong relationship.

• Anchor: Connect the conversation to your mutually shared reality (e.g., common interests) or the setting in which you encountered the individual.
• Reveal: Provide some personal context to help deepen the connection between you and the other person.
• Encourage: After giving them some context, provide the other person with positive reinforcement to encourage them to share.

This worksheet Starting a Conversation – The ARE Method guides participants through each step in the ARE process. It also provides examples of how the ARE method can be incorporated into a typical conversation and used as a workable strategy in social skills training activities.

A Guide to Small Talk: Conversation Starters and Replies  provides an outline of conversation ideas to help start any conversation, no matter the setting.

After developing the ability to start a conversation, being able to project assertiveness and understand one’s limits is essential in ensuring clear communication.

These worksheets on Different Ways to Say ‘No’ Politely and Using ‘I’ Statements in Conversation  facilitate assertive communication and give clients the confidence to set personal limits.

A lack of opportunity to learn coping strategies and difficulty with emotional regulation have been associated with anxiety and low problem-solving abilities (Anderson & Kazantzis, 2008).

An individual’s lack of ability to problem solve in social situations significantly affects their ability to come up with reasonable solutions to typical social problems, which in turn, causes them to avoid more difficult social situations.

Practicing social problem solving is a key component of social skills training. This worksheet on Social Problem Solving allows your clients to define the problems they are facing and rate the potential solutions from low to high efficacy.

Based on the rating, therapists can instruct clients to practice their social reasoning during sessions. Practicing these skills builds clients’ confidence and increases the likelihood that they will access these solutions under pressure.

Similarly, the Imagining Solutions to Social Problems worksheet implements a related process, but challenges participants to engage in a visualization activity. While engaging in visualization, participants have the opportunity to imagine what they would say or do, and reflect on what they have learned and why the solution they chose was best for that particular problem.

Supplementing modeling and practical activities with interactive audio-visual aids, such as podcasts and videos, is an essential practice in ensuring that patients seeking social skills training are getting multiple perspectives to develop their social intelligence.

Below, we have provided resources to help your clients with different social skills and situations.

An introvert’s guide to social freedom – Kaspars Breidaks

This TEDx talk focuses on providing guidelines for self-identified introverts. In this video, Breidaks frames introversion as an opportunity, rather than a weakness.

Based on his experiences moving from a small town to a big city and eventually starting improv comedy, he developed a workshop to help integrate principles of improvisation into social skills training.

His workshops focus on creating connections through eye contact and breaking through shyness by training the small talk muscle. Because of his experience, he recommends you say yes to yourself before saying yes to others. Breidaks theorizes that only by developing our awareness of our own true emotions and thoughts can we become more comfortable interacting with others.

This video is helpful if your patients need workable tips to improve their interactions with strangers and is an excellent complement to some of our worksheets on developing skills for small talk.

10 Ways to have a better conversation – Celeste Headlee

This TEDx talk is focused on tactics to have more effective conversations. In her TED talk, Headlee emphasizes the importance of honesty, clarity, and listening to others as well as yourself.

Headlee shares her ideas about how to talk and listen to others, specifically focusing on sustaining clear, coherent conversation and the importance of clear, direct communication.

She argues that technology has interfered with the development of interpersonal skills, stating that conversation is an art that is fundamentally underrated and should be emphasized more, especially among young children.

The main point Headlee tries to get across is to avoid multitasking and pontificating during conversation. Individuals who are struggling with active listening and keeping a conversation going would benefit from the tips she offers in this video, as she uses a lot of the same principles when interviewing her radio guests to ensure that she is getting the most out of their appearances.

She specifically emphasizes the importance of being continually present while talking and listening to someone, which is strongly emphasized in social skills training.

How Can I Say This – Beth Buelow

Each episode also provides techniques or approaches to help listeners become more confident when dealing with different social situations. The podcast also takes listener questions about dealing with social situations and issues.

If your clients are struggling with introducing themselves to new people, they may benefit from the episodes on talking to strangers and how to have difficult conversations.

Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts .

Social Skills Coaching – Patrick King

King focuses on using emotional intelligence and understanding human interaction to help break down emotional barriers, improve listeners’ confidence, and equip people with the tools they need for success.

Although King’s expertise is centered on romantic relationships, this podcast provides strategies to improve one’s emotional awareness and engage in better communication.

People engaging in social skills training would benefit from the episode on social sensitivity, which examines the social dynamics of the brain. It also explains why our brains are programmed to respond more to specific traits (e.g., warmth, dominance) and why people with those traits are often elevated to higher positions within the social hierarchy.

Available on  Apple Podcasts .

17 Top-Rated Positive Psychology Exercises for Practitioners

Expand your arsenal and impact with these 17 Positive Psychology Exercises [PDF] , scientifically designed to promote human flourishing, meaning, and wellbeing.

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There are several resources available on our website to complement the social skills training that you are providing to your clients.

Our Emotional Intelligence Masterclass© trains helping professionals in methodology that helps increase their client’s emotional intelligence.

The client workbook has several exercises that practitioners can give their clients to develop an awareness of their emotions and, subsequently, understand how those emotions might contribute to interactions with others.

Our Positive Psychology Toolkit© provides over 400 exercises and tools, and the Social Network Investment exercise, included in the Toolkit, focuses on reflecting on a client’s current social network. By further looking into the amount of time and investment devoted to the members of their social network, clients can further identify who is supportive of their endeavors and who negatively affects experiences.

With this knowledge, relationships can be analyzed before devoting even more time and investment that might not facilitate positive emotions.

People who struggle with initiating conversation might also have trouble talking about their emotions. Our exercise on Asking for Support , also in the Toolkit, can provide assistance to someone having trouble communicating their emotions.

It also provides strategies to practice asking for help when needed. This exercise also gives you the opportunity to identify any personal barriers that are impending your ability to seek help from others.

You might be interested in this sister article, Social Skills Training for Kids , which provides top resources for teachers. To enhance your knowledge, our Social Skills Books for Adults & Kids  is a must-read selection of top books.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others enhance their wellbeing, this signature collection contains 17 validated positive psychology tools for practitioners. Use them to help others flourish and thrive.

Improving social skills is an important skill to develop for anyone trying to facilitate professional and personal connections.

However, sometimes clients might not even realize they need targeted interventions to help with their social skills, and they might approach a therapist with other challenges around anxiety entering new situations.

For that reason, we hope this article provided valuable options for the development of social skills, with useful activities and social skills worksheets to be incorporated into your sessions.

We encourage you and your clients to explore these exercises together and engage in goal-setting tools to target areas that will benefit their daily lives, relationships, and communication.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free .

• Anderson, G., & Kazantzis, N. (2008). Social problem-solving skills for adults with mild intellectual disability: A multiple case study. Behaviour Change , 25 (2), 97–108.
• Cognitive Development Learning Centre. (2019). Training eye contact in communication . Retrieved May 4, 2021, from https://cognitive.com.sg/training-eye-contact-in-communication/
• Fleming, C. (2013). It’s the way you say it: Becoming articulate, well-spoken and clear (2nd ed.). Berrett-Koehler.
• Social skills training. (n.d.). In  Encyclopedia of mental disorder. Retrieved May 4, 2021, from http://www.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Social-skills-training.html

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What our readers think.

Hello, I am trying to open the link to the ARE-method but am unable to.

Please try to access the worksheet here .

If you experience further issues with accessing the link, please let me know!

Warm regards, Julia | Community Manager

Sounds so good for my young adult. Do you know of any in person sessions, workshops, which would benefit him being in person.

I would like to know what the best book to get for my husband for him to learn social skills conversations. Thank You

check out our article “ 12 Must-Read Social Skills Books for Adults & Kids “.

Hope this helps!

Kind regards, Julia | Community Manager

Are there any online classes for people suffering with anxiety, Aspergers and a lack of social skills? This is a great article, but there are no therapists who teach social skills. These are skills that come from parents. Like me, when you have no parent or friends to teach you, what do you do? Please make an online course. I would pay to watch a course and even buy materials.

Thank you for your thoughtful comment and interest in an online course addressing anxiety, Aspergers, and social skills. I understand how challenging it can be to find the right resources, especially when traditional sources of support may not be readily available.

While we don’t currently offer an online course, we are happy to recommend a helpful resource that cater to individuals experiencing similar difficulties: Psychology Today has a great directory you can use to find therapists in your local area. Usually, the therapists provide a summary in their profile with their areas of expertise and types of issues they are used to working with.

I hope this helps.

Hello, I just found out about this website today and this is the exact type of service I need. I unfortunately cannot find any one like this that is near me or accept my insurance. And I need this fast since my quality of life is so bad, I have severe social anxiety, and never had friends or a relationship.

Hi there a lot of the links don’t work in this article? How can I access the resources?

Thanks for your question! We are working on updating all the broken links in our articles, as they can be outdated. Which specific resource are you looking for?

Maybe I can help 🙂

Kind regards, -Caroline | Community Manager

Living socially isolated, getting told I have autism ad the age of 33, I found out that I have a lot to learn about being social with people. Now knowing what my “ problem” is also gave me the drive to improve my people skills. Fearing I willing never fully understand feelings ( not even my own) all help is welcome. And this was a very helpful article. Living in a world with tips and tricks to look normal will never be easy. But you sure help me .. thank you..

AMAZING work.. .as always. Thank you !

Thank you Gabriella social skills have been a real issue for me for my whole life. There are so many helpful avenues to explore thanks this article.

Steven Cronson My brothers didn’t consider me an Aspie and made a pact to ignore me , block me I hadn’t even learned many social skills my brother a psychiatrist tried by giving me ptsd and gad a Divorce to try to get me to end my life. My wife proudly fought back and figured out how better to understand me. And I fought the awful had medicine Lexapro that I consider the devil in a pill that made me flat and losing my superpower focusing ability. I hope a producer latched on to my fascinating story of greed, over good, attack on my very life and a brother doctor that should never been one. My dad a psychiatrist made me a DDS to be respected and listened to but not even work and married off in a fake but better life. They accused me an Aspie blind to empathy. B

I’m sorry to read about your challenges with your family. It’s good that you have what sounds like a supportive ally in your wife. And indeed, medications don’t work for everyone — or it may be the case that a different medication may suit you better. Definitely raise these concerns with a trusted psychiatrist if you feel medication could help you.

As you note, it’s a harmful myth that those on the autism spectrum don’t feel empathy. And this myth unfairly stigmatises members of this community. I’m sorry to read about these accusations from your family.

On another note, if you’d like to work on your social skills, consider reaching out to support groups for those with Aspergers in your area, or seeking the support of a therapist with expertise in this area. Psychology Today has a great directory you can use to find therapists in your local area. Usually, the therapists provide a summary in their profile with their areas of expertise and types of issues they are used to working with.

I hope this helps, and I wish you all the best.

– Nicole | Community manager

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

How to Empower Students to Take Action for Social Change

Young people are increasingly aware and concerned about the problems our world is confronting, from climate change to racial disparities in society. When facing social problems, how can educators transform a child’s sense of helplessness toward hope and action?

Educators must not allow our adolescents to languish in the face of social problems and injustice. In James Baldwin’s 1963 Talk to Teachers , he reminds us of this charge: “Our obligation as educators is to entrust in our students the abilities to create conscious citizens who are vocal about reexamining their society.” It is the moral imperative of public education to foster student agency to nurture an engaged citizenry.

At the Rutgers University Social-Emotional Character Development Laboratory’s Students Taking Action Together project , we have developed a social problem-solving and action strategy, PLAN, that makes it possible for teachers to transform students’ sense of hopelessness into empowerment. It allows students to investigate a particular social problem to get to the root cause, then design an action plan to challenge the dominant power structure to make change. It emphasizes considering the issue from multiple viewpoints to develop a solution that is inclusive and viable. 

Below, we’ll describe the four components of PLAN and demonstrate how to use PLAN to empower students in grades 5-12 to take action. We hope these strategies can help you encourage your students to be more deeply engaged with today’s problems and inspired to take social action. 

P: Create a Problem description

Problems are an inherent part of our daily lives, and one of the key problem-solving skills is the ability to define a problem.

To define a problem, students working collaboratively in groups of four or five start by reviewing background sources, such as articles, speeches, and podcast episodes, and then draft a problem description . They can discuss the following questions to frame their thinking. Not all questions will be answered, yet the discussion will guide and stretch their thinking to begin defining the problem:     

• Is there a problem? How do you know?
• What is the problem?
• Who is impacted by the problem?
• What are the issues from each perspective/party involved? What is the impact on the different individuals/groups involved?
• Who is responsible for the problem? What internal and external factors might have influenced this issue?
• What is causing those responsible to use these practices?
• Who were the key people involved in making important decisions?

To illustrate this process, let’s use the example of a recent issue: Texas’s refusal of federal funding to expand health care under the Affordable Care Act for all citizens of the state. For this issue, students might write the following problem description:

Along with Texas, 13 other states have refused to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid for citizens under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). State refusals can be attributed to a variety of factors. State lawmakers fear the loss of support from voters and their political party if they accept the federal funding to expand access to health care for lower-income communities and communities of color. Public perceptions of expanding social programs and the political costs of supporting bi-partisan reform also play a role. Political obstructionism harms all citizens, causing people to go without needed medical care and perpetuating inequalities in public health.  

L: Generate a List of options to solve the problem and consider the pros and cons


Organizing for change is a skill that can be taught, even though problem solving in the political arena may feel novel and uncertain for students. Stress that while there is no guarantee of a positive outcome as they tackle a problem, brainstorming effective and inclusive solutions can help stimulate deeper awareness and discussion on the need for change. According to Irving Tallman and his colleagues , this process teaches students to apply reasoning to anticipate how solutions may play out and, ultimately, arrive at an estimate of the probability of a specific result. 

That’s where the second step of PLAN comes into play: listing the possible solutions and considering the optimal plan of action to pursue. Students will revisit the background sources that they consulted during step one to consider how the actual current-event problem has been addressed over time and reflect on their own solutions. We encourage you to facilitate a whole-class discussion, guided by the following questions:

• What options did the group consider to be acceptable ways to resolve the problem?
• What do you think about their solution? 
• What would your solution be?
• What solution did they ultimately decide to pursue?

For example, here are some solutions that students may generate as they brainstorm around health care funding in Texas: 

• Launch a letter writing campaign to Senators and Congressional representatives communicating that obstructionism of federal funding to expand health care hurts all citizens and public health.
• Develop a social media-based public service announcement about the costs of refusing federal funding to expand health care, tagging state Senators and local Congressional representatives. 
• Team up with a public health advocacy organization and learn about how to support their work in key states.

Students would then weigh the pros and cons of each solution, as well as apply perspective-taking skills to consider the needs and interests of all relevant stakeholders (e.g., government officials, insurance companies, and patients) to select what they deem to be the most effective and inclusive option. In evaluating the pros and cons of all of the solutions presented above, they may determine:

• Solutions have direct routes to communicating to politicians and have a wide audience reach.
• Solutions build student’s advocacy skills and can send a clear message to lawmakers. 
• Solutions enable students to rehearse the skills of correspondence, networking, and communicating their ideas and plans with outside agencies.
• Solutions require substantial time for additional research.
• In some solutions, students may not be addressing issues in the state they live.
• In the letter-writing solution, letters lack a broad reach and the identified state(s) may already be developing reasonable alternatives to accepting federal funds to expand health care access. 
• The solutions will require efforts to be sustained over time and will demand additional time in or beyond the classroom to orchestrate.

This essential problem-solving skill will support students in making objective, thoughtful decisions. 

A: Create an Action plan to solve the problem

After students select what they assess to be the most effective solution, they collaborate with one another to develop a specific, measurable, attainable goal and a step-by-step action plan to implement the solution. Together, researchers refer to this as the solution plan. 

For example, the goal might be to develop a one-minute public service announcement about the costs of a state’s refusal to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid under the ACA.  

The step-by-step solution plan should align with the goal to resolve the problem and increase positive consequences, while minimizing potential negative effects. Your students should keep the following in mind when developing their plans:

• Make steps as specific as possible.
• Consider who is responsible for implementing each step.
• Determine how long each action step will take to execute.
• Anticipate any challenges that you may face and how you will address them.
• Identify the data that you can collect to determine whether or not your action plan was successful.

Below is a sample action plan that students may develop to meet their public service announcement goal:


• Convene a group of students to conduct research on the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid and the states that have accepted federal aid and those that refused federal aid.
• Conduct research by interviewing school nurses, county health commissioners, and the state’s Department of Health for additional content.
• Collaborate with visual arts teachers and students to design and develop the video, and course-level teacher to review the video. 
• Post the social media public service announcement on YouTube and share on social media, tagging the appropriate audiences. 

N: Evaluate the action plan by Noticing successes

The final step of PLAN involves evaluating the success of the action plan, using the evidence collected throughout in order to notice successes. As a whole class, students consider how similar problems were solved historically, as compared to the success of their plan. They also consider aspects of the plan that went well and those that could be improved upon moving forward. Connecting to past examples of social action affirms the understanding that you don’t always get it right in the initial push for change, and that the legacy and knowledge of incomplete change is passed from one generation to the next. 

A Sample Lesson

To check out how to infuse PLAN using a historic event, check out our ready-made lesson on Fredrick Douglass’s 1852 Speech: "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" .

Noticing successes is essential to instilling confidence in students to exercise their voice and choice by organizing for and taking social action. Research suggests that problem-solving skills help buffer against distress when people are experiencing stressful events in life. With PLAN, we have discovered that equipping our students with problem-solving skills is a strong predictor of student agency and social action . By teaching a deliberate social problem-solving strategy, we nurture hope that change can be made. 

In her 2003 Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope , bell hooks reminds us of the transformative power to upend the dominant power structure by bridging the gap between complaining and hope and action: “When we only name the problem, when we state a complaint without a constructive focus or resolution, we take away hope. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture.”

It is not enough to witness and criticize injustice. Students need to learn how to overcome injustice by developing solutions and gaining a sense of empowerment and agency. 

About the Authors

Lauren Fullmer

Lauren Fullmer, Ed.D. , is the math curriculum chair and middle school math teacher at the Willow School in Gladstone, NJ; instructor for The Academy for Social-Emotional Learning in Schools—a partnership between Rutgers University and St. Elizabeth University—adjunct professor at the University of Dayton’s doctoral program, and a consulting field expert for the Rutgers Social-Emotional Character Development (SECD) Lab.

Laura Bond, M.A. , has served as a K–8 curriculum supervisor in central New Jersey. She has taught 6–12 Social Studies and worked as an assistant principal at both the elementary and secondary level. Currently, she is a field consultant for Rutgers Social Emotional Character Development Lab and serves on her local board of education.

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• v.45; 2020 Oct

The building blocks of social competence: Contributions of the Consortium of Individual Development

Caroline junge.

a Departments of Developmental and Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

Patti M. Valkenburg

b Amsterdam School of Communication Research ASCoR, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Maja Deković

c Department of Clinical Child and Family Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

Susan Branje

d Department of Youth and Family, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

Associated Data

Social competence refers to the ability to engage in meaningful interactions with others. It is a crucial skill potentially malleable to interventions. Nevertheless, it remains difficult to select which children, which periods in a child’s life, and which underlying skills form optimal targets for interventions. Development of social competence is complex to characterize because (a) it is by nature context- dependent; (b) it is subserved by multiple relevant processes that develop at different times in a child’s life; and (c) over the years multiple, possibly conflicting, ways have been coined to index a child’s social competence. The current paper elaborates upon a theoretical model of social competence developed by Rose-Krasnor (Rose- Krasnor, 1997; Rose-Krasnor and Denham, 2009 ), and it makes concrete how underlying skills and the variety of contexts of social interaction are both relevant dimensions of social competence that might change over development. It then illustrates how the cohorts and work packages in the Consortium on Individual Development each provide empirical contributions necessary for testing this model on the development of social competence.

1. Introduction

Social competence can be characterized as the effectiveness of a child to engage in social interactions with peers and adults ( Fabes et al., 2006 ; Rubin et al., 1998 ). It is the behavioral manifestation of a child’s emotional and regulatory competencies while interacting with other people. Social competence does not represent a fixed quality but should be viewed as a construct that in itself marks development: Society expects more sophisticated interactions with older children. When children are growing up, interaction contexts beyond the home environment gain importance and become increasingly broader. Moreover, being effective in a variety of social interactions requires children to master many skills that underlie social competence, such as perspective taking, social problem solving, and emotion regulation, which possibly also differ in developmental stadia. Knowledge about (a) these underlying skills, (b) the interaction contexts, and (c) these developmental stadia all contribute to a better understanding of social competence, which is why we consider these three types of knowledge as relevant dimensions, that is, as crucial building blocks of social competence.

Although research on social competence has made great progress in understanding underlying skills and relevant interaction contexts in key periods in children’s lives (see e.g., Rubin et al., 2009 ; Bukowski et al., 2018 ), how these building blocks of social competence connect to each other over the course of development is less well understood: still missing is a detailed model of the development of social competence from infancy to adolescence. The aim of the Consortium on Individual Differences (CID) is to contribute to such a model that captures the development of social competence in a changing society.

In what follows next, we first describe why the field is in need of a developmental model of social competence (Section 2 ). We then give a brief overview of the development of social competence from infancy to adolescence (Section 3 ). In Section 4 , we explain the approach that CID takes towards building a developmental model, which is an elaboration upon a theoretical model of social competence developed by Rose‐Krasnor (1997 ; Rose-Krasnor and Denham, 2009 ). In Section 5 , we show how each of the cohorts and the individual work packages from CID are contributing pieces of evidence to steer the theoretical model. Finally, in Section 6 , we conclude by suggesting how the cohorts and work packages in CID can complement each other in building a developmental model.

2. Why it is crucial to have a better understanding of the development of social competence

Developing social competence is essential for future functioning in society and for reducing risk of behavioral and emotional problems. Indeed, there is ample evidence that variation in social competence in childhood is linked to prowess in other domains in present and later life. For instance, people who as children easily develop good relationships with others are more likely to grow into adults with better health (they live longer; are more resilient to mental health problems, and function better in society; Luthar, 2006 ; Masten and Coatsworth, 1995 ). Socially competent children are more likely to advance in academics ( Caprara et al., 2000 ; Denham, 2006 ; Wentzel, 1991 ), or rate themselves as happier ( Ryan and Deci, 2001 ). Reversely, deviances in social competence can be a symptom for many forms of psychopathology emerging in child development. If social competence appears deviant, many other problems are typically observed, such as peer rejection (in ADHD; Larson et al., 2011 ), social anxiety ( La Greca and Lopez, 1998 ), bullying and aggression ( Warden, and Mackinnon, 2003 ; for overviews, see Happé and Frith, 2014 ; Trentacosta and Fine, 2010 ). Together, this suggests that the construct of social competence is a key factor in explaining individual variation, both in typical and atypical child populations.

The construct of social competence is a developmental construct: it emerges from meaningful interactions with various others in a variety of contexts ( Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ). Such interactions shape children’s competence: children learn how to behave in their social worlds both through direct instruction as well as by observing others in interactions. As a result, the type and quality of interactions children experience become increasingly more varied and complex over time. Moreover, children’s concepts of the relevance of interactions mark clear progression. Clearly, the construct of social competence changes over time, but a unified model of how social competence emerges from infancy to adolescence remains missing.

There are several reasons why we need a better understanding how social competence unfolds. First, indexes of social competence from early childhood have been shown to be predictive of social competence later in life (e.g., Howes, 1987 ; Monahan and Steinberg, 2011 ; Rubin et al., 1998 ; but see Masten et al., 1995 ). In fact, there appears to be a Matthew effect for social competence: for example, those competent in making friends early in life are becoming more competent in forming friendships, while the less-competent ones are becoming even less competent in forming friendships ( Flannery and Smith, 2017 ; Ladd, 1999 ; Monahan and Steinberg, 2011 ). Research further documents reciprocal links across various underlying skills of social competence. For example, positive experiences in building friendships early in life foster the development of prosocial behavior, which in turn increases the chance to form friendships later in life ( Flannery and Smith, 2017 ; Ladd, 1999 ). Such self-reinforcing links between the underlying skills of social competence underscore the need to view the development of social competence as a dynamic, complex process in which children are actively regulating their own experiences and creating their own contexts ( Sameroff, 2010 ). Yet to fully grasp the complexity of the development of social competence we need to better understand how and when social competence becomes self-reinforcing along development. Researchers should therefore start building and testing more elaborate models of social competence that take into account the interplay between development, the complexity of different underlying skills, and the variety of social contexts that together shape social competence.

A second reason why it is crucial to develop a clearer picture of how social competence unfolds is that social competence can be malleable, and open to interventions. Yet optimization of interventions in childhood requires not only identifying which underlying skills of social competence are well-suited targets, but also selecting optimal periods to administer such interventions, and should be tailored to a child’s stage of social competence. Knowledge on when to start an intervention is essential since developmental models such as the developmental cascades models assume that adaptive and maladaptive behaviors can result in spreading effects over time across various levels ( Cicchetti, 2002 ). Optimal interventions should ideally result in the interruption of negative cascades and the promotion of positive cascades ( Masten and Cicchetti, 2010 ). Thus, it is essential to develop a model of social competence that makes explicit not only how different underlying skills connect with different stages of social competence (the ‘hows’), but also how social competence changes over development (the ‘whens’).

The third and final reason why it is important to develop get a better picture on how social competence unfolds is that children’s social contexts (the ‘wheres’) have changed dramatically in the past two decades. One key change is that most Western infants and toddlers now have extensive experiences with peers and other adults prior to school entry. In fact, unlike earlier generations, most of today’s infants are in some form of day care away from their primary caregiver(s). How does this change affect the formation of peer relations and social competence ( Hay et al., 2018 )?

Another key change involves the rapid changes in children’s and adolescents’ media environments. In the 1970s the average age that a child started watching television was at 4 years of age. But due to the rise of prosocial and educational baby TV and apps (and parents’ tendencies to embrace such media), the onset of media exposure is now dropped to three and five months of age ( Valkenburg and Piotrowski, 2017 ). Developmentally appropriate educational media may support cognitive learning (e.g., numeracy, literacy), but could also improve underlying skills of social competence (e.g., prosocial behaviour), particularly when adults are involved with the content their children consume ( Courage and Howe, 2010 ). Furthermore, increasingly more interactions in childhood and adolescence take place online. What are the consequences of this? Do skills in social competence generalize easily to those required in online social interaction or does effectively communicating in digital interactions require an additional set of skills? Or does the larger amount of online interaction hamper development of complex underlying skills of social competence, such as emotion recognition and perspective taking? This is something research only starts exploring ( Blumberg et al., 2019 ).

3. Sketching the development of social competence

Before we can explain how CID aims to build theory on the development of social competence, it is essential to provide an overview of how social competence develops across childhood. In Table 1 we therefore define each period in childhood and list the main characteristics in marking the development of social competence. Please note that this overview is neither inclusive nor complete—it only serves to outline the highlights of each period in relation to social competence.

Each age period comes with its own characteristics of social competence.

Certainly not surprising, it appears that any period in a child’s life is fundamental in contributing to social competence ( Rubin et al., 2009 ), albeit for different reasons. For example, while in infancy social interaction skills typically evolve within the family context (e.g., Jones et al., 2014 ), childhood highlights the dominating force of peers within the classroom ( Masten and Coatsworth, 1995 ), and adolescence is the period in which most relevant social interactions mainly take place in cliques ( Moffitt, 1993 ; Weiss, 1986 ). In addition, a skill such as perspective taking emerges in early childhood but only reaches mature levels in adolescence, when adolescents have learned to appreciate that others can have different opinions ( Selman, 1980 ). Although each period comes with its own developmental tasks, most central issues continue to be of importance throughout development ( Waters and Sroufe, 1983 ). For instance, the significant association between the quality of parent-child relationship and children’s social competence is not moderated by age ( Groh et al., 2014 ). A developmental model of social competence should thus not only view its development as a set of discrete stages, but also consider the factors that continue to bear on its development.

4. Towards a developmental model of social competence

How should we now start building a developmental model of social competence? We propose to build on an existing theoretical model: the prism model of social competence put forward by Linda Rose‐Krasnor (1997 ; Rose-Krasnor and Denham, 2009 ). This model does not focus on the development of social competence, but describes the different elements required for establishing good social interaction. We will first briefly summarize the prism model, before we outline how CID makes the prism model more concrete by adding a developmental framework.

The prism model has three hierarchical layers of analysis of social competence and one depth- dimension (context). The top layer of analysis is the theoretical one, which concerns social competence defined as effectiveness in interaction ( Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ). This definition allows us to maintain the same definition from infancy to adolescence. The second layer contains the indexical level and relates to the various ways in which social competence can be measured ( Flannery and Smith, 2017 ). The bottom layer of the prism model is the skills- dimension, which lists those underlying skills that are important across the many different contexts in which social interactions take place, such as emotion regulation and perspective taking skills. Finally, the depth- dimension of the prism model reflects the various kinds of contexts (home vs school; parent vs. peers; online vs. offline) in which interaction takes place.

In the next sessions, we explain how CID implements and provides data for the indexical layer as well as the skills- and context-dimensions in more detail. See Fig. 1 for a schematic representation of our proposed model based on Rose‐Krasnor (1997 ; Rose-Krasnor and Denham, 2009 ).

CID’s adaptation from Rose-Krasnor’s model of social competence ( Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ; Rose-Krasnor and Denham, 2009 ), adding a developmental perspective.

4.1. The indexical layer

The indexical layer encompasses the numerous ways researchers employ to quantify social competence, each of which characterize aspects of social competence or underlying skills of social competence (cf., Fabes et al., 2009 ; Flannery and Smith, 2017 ). The cohort studies in CID mainly rely on questionnaires as these are one of the easiest, fastest and most common ways to collect information about social competence in large groups of children ( El Mallah, 2020 ; Halle and Darling-Churchill, 2016 ). Most questionnaires are standardized, normed and internationally known questionnaires that can be filled in by either parents, teachers or children themselves.

4.2. The skills-dimension

The skills dimension is concerned with the foundational skills and motivations underlying social competence that are primarily individual in nature. It is at the skills level that developmental change might be considered most prominent and open to interventions ( Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ). However, there is no consensus on what one considers vital skills, partly because it is often difficult to tease apart underlying crucial skills from manifestations of social competence itself. Take for instance social perspective taking, which can be viewed both as an index of social competence, as well as a necessary skill from which social competence thrives. Table 2 lists the skills that various researchers find crucial for social competence ( Crick and Dodge, 1994 ; Halberstadt et al., 2001 ; Hay et al., 2004 ; Raver and Zigler, 1997 ; Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ; Rose-Krasnor and Denham, 2009 ). Although this list should not be considered as complete, it shows the variety of skills involved in social competence.

An overview of studies that list various skills as relevant processes to social competence.

Crucially, while Table 2 serves to highlight that there is no consensus in what one considers vital skills for social competence, it also reveals points of intersection. By focusing on those skills that are repeatedly listed we assume that these skills reflect the key foundations for social competence. We selected a set of five skills that serve as possible indicators in representing children’s (potential for) social competence. Below we motivate our choice in more detail. We begin with providing a definition and signaling its agreement with other researchers from Table 2 . We then give a brief overview of development, and end with how interventions targeted to this skill are beneficial for social competence.

4.2.1. Social encoding

Social encoding is the skill that requires a child to attend to the social interaction partner and to interpret meaningful cues from this person, such as emotions. We see the relevance of social encoding to social competence also in other researchers’ inventories of necessary skills (albeit phrased somewhat differently): as ‘encoding social situations’ ( Crick and Dodge, 1994 ), as ‘awareness and identification’ ( Halberstadt et al., 2001 ) and as ‘joint attention’ ( Hay et al., 2004 ). Some researchers suggest that newborns’ early interest in faces may be ‘the gateway to social expertise’ ( Jones et al., 2014 ). There is evidence that already seven-month- olds can differentiate between facial expressions ( Leppänen and Nelson, 2009 ), although the decoding of human faces continues to develop into adolescence (e.g., Cohen Kadosh et al., 2013 ; cf. Blakemore, 2008 ). Our proposal that social encoding is one of the key foundations of social competence is supported by interventions demonstrating that social encoding lead to modest improvements in children’s social competence ( Trentacosta and Fine, 2010 ).

4.2.2. Social problem solving

Social problem solving ( Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ; Rose-Krasnor and Denham, 2009 ) can be considered a logical continuation of the previous skill (social encoding), as it centers on responding in such a way to achieve social goals, such as solving conflicts with peers or gaining access to peer play. This skill is also listed by some as ‘social decision making’ ( Crick and Dodge, 1994 ). From early childhood up to adolescence, as children function increasingly in groups, social decision making assumes importance and often revolve around conflict resolution. One way to end conflicts is to react with anger or aggression, which often links to negative outcomes of social competence such as peer rejection ( Card and Little, 2006 ; Von Salisch and Zeman, 2018 ; Werner and Crick, 1999 ). This is not only true for behavior at the playground, but also holds for on-line behavior: cyber aggression is related to higher rates of loneliness and lower rates of friendships ( Schoffstall and Cohen, 2011 ). There are developmental shifts in the type of aggression that children can show in conflicts ( Laursen and Pursell, 2009 ), and when children use aggression strategically, it might actually be considered beneficial ( Hawley et al., 2007 ). Like social encoding, social problem solving is a skill susceptible to interventions aimed at improving social competence ( Denham and Almeida, 1987 ; for a recent meta-analysis, see Merrill et al., 2017 ).

4.2.3. Emotion regulation

If there is one skill that all researchers included in Table 2 consider vital to social competence, it is emotion regulation ( Hay et al., 2004 ; Raver and Zigler, 1997 ; also referred to as ‘arousal regulation’; Crick and Dodge, 1994 ; as ‘affect regulation’; Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ; or as ‘self-regulation’; Rose-Krasnor and Denham, 2009 ; Vink et al., 2020 ). Being unable to exert control over one’s emotions, behaviors and arousals while interacting with others is a clear sign of obtrusive, unpleasant behavior that is typically disliked by most people. Indeed, there is ample evidence linking poor regulation skills to negative indices of social competence, in particular peer problems (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2001 ; Holmes et al., 2016 ; cf. Eisenberg et al., 2010 ). As inter alia Vink and colleagues describe ( Vink et al., 2020 ), emotion regulation is an umbrella term that covers both effortful control as well as executive functions and executive control (see also Nigg, 2017 ). In early infancy, children’s responses are at first mainly reactive rather than pro-active ( Ruff and Rothbart, 1996 ). Processes related to executive functions also come to the scene, mainly in toddlerhood onwards; for instance, inhibitory control emerges around 24–26 months ( Kochanska et al., 2000 ), whereas improvements in executive control appear most pronounced in early childhood ( Carlson, 2005 ). A recent review on the development of emotion regulation ( Eisenberg et al., 2010 ) reveals that children make great advances in their ability to exert control over their emotions in the preschool years while it improves more slowly into adulthood. Importantly, while individual differences in emotion regulatory skills are rather stable, they can serve as a mediator between parenting and children’s problem behaviors ( Belsky et al., 2007 ; Van Dijk et al., 2017 ). Moreover, interventions targeted at promoting self-regulation or regulating emotions result in more socially competent students ( Domitrovich et al., 2007 ; Low et al., 2015 ).

4.2.4. Communication

Communicative competence refers to the ability to use language effectively and appropriately in different social situations ( Hymes, 1979 ). Developing good communication skills ( Raver and Zigler, 1997 ; Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ; Rose-Krasnor and Denham, 2009 ) is of course also essential in ‘competent responding’ required for sustaining positive engagement in interactions ( Crick and Dodge, 1994 ). Although communication involves also nonverbal understanding ( Raver and Zigler, 1997 ), it is language that is indispensable to communication. Although language shows marked improvements in all aspects from infancy till early childhood (e.g., Clark, 2003 ), it is in particular a child’s pragmatic abilities (e.g., concerned with how children use language in interactions) that prove most relevant to social competence. For instance, children who scored low in pragmatic abilities (e.g., offered fewer requests for explanations or clarifications, initiated fewer conversations, and showed inappropriate turn-taking behaviors) were more likely to be rejected by their peers ( van der Wilt et al., 2018 ). In addition, children with developmental language disorder often experience peer problems or display problem behaviors (e.g., Curtis et al., 2018 ; Forrest et al., 2018 ; Van den Bedem et al., 2018 ), but this is related to pragmatic rather than structural problems with language ( St. Clair et al., 2011 ; Van den Bedem et al., 2019 ). Interventions aimed at improving pragmatic skills prove beneficial in promoting social competence and reducing peer problems ( Adams et al., 2012 ; Bierman et al., 2013 ; Coplan and Weeks, 2009 ).

4.2.5. Empathy

Empathy is a broad concept which generally entails the skill of identifying with another by taking another person’s perspective (cognitive empathy) as well as sharing the emotions of others (affective empathy). Empathy thus acknowledges the awareness that other people may have different emotions and feelings, but also allows for responding appreciatively, both of which are important prerequisites for maintaining social interactions (Eisenberg Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006). Because empathy is a highly valued trait in interactions, it is relevant for a myriad of social competence indices such as sustaining relationships, forming friendships, and peer popularity ( Eisenberg et al., 2015 , 2006 ; Spinrad and Gal, 2018 ).

Both affective empathy (responding to other person’s emotions, for instance via imitation) and cognitive empathy (‘social perspective taking’; Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ) are considered vital skills for social competence ( Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ). We see the relevance of empathy to social competence also acknowledged by other researchers in Table 2 : Hay and colleagues list it as ‘imitation’ as well as ‘causal understanding’ ( Hay et al., 2004 ); Rose‐Krasnor (1997 ) as ‘empathy’ and ‘perspective taking’.

It is possible that affective and cognitive empathy have different developmental paths. For affective empathy, it appears that even neonates can already imitate other’s facial expression (e.g., contagious crying, Simner, 1971 ). There is evidence that affective empathy in childhood and adolescence is an important underlying skill of social competence (e.g., Van der Graaff et al., 2014 ; van Hoorn et al., 2016 ). There is also protracted development in social perspective taking, which starts at a later age ( Rose‐Krasnor, 1997 ; Selman, 1980 ). Toddlers begin social perspective taking by recognizing the separation between self and others. That is, they are developing a theory mind, which is the awareness that others can hold different feelings or opinions from themselves ( Wellman, 1992 ; Wellman et al., 2011 ). Across childhood (2–12 years) children who possess an advanced theory of mind often display higher levels of social competence ( Imuta et al., 2016 ). Yet preschoolers might still find it difficult to act upon it as their own feelings might be a more dominating force. It is only by late childhood that children learn to view oneself from another person’s perspective. Early adolescence sees the development of mutual and third- person perspective, and late adolescence is characterized by taking into account perspectives beyond the immediate interaction as it considers the relevance of one’s current interaction to social norms.

Interventions targeting the skill of empathy often start with improving in social-emotional understanding and prosocial behaviors in class-room settings (that is, in early and late childhood). Such interventions reveal small but positive effects for fostering social competence, visible in indices such as peer nominations and teacher ratings ( Durlak et al., 2011 ; Malti et al., 2016 ).

To conclude, for the skills-dimension CID identifies five skills underlying social competence, each of which are complex constructs of themselves.

4.3. The context-dimension

The context dimension stresses the variety of relevant contexts in which interactions usually can take place in Western society. Such contexts do not only concern the setting of an interaction (“a situation in time and place”; Hartup, 2009 , p.8), but also with whom a child is interacting. While researchers acknowledge the variety in the skills contributing to social competence, few make explicit the variety of contexts that shape social competence. To demonstrate the richness of contexts of these interactions it is helpful to characterize them using pairs of dichotomies. Below we give four useful dichotomies, and sketch development.

4.3.1. Home versus school

It is at home that children will build the first set of meaningful interactions, with their caretaker(s) and with the other members of the household (e.g., siblings). Consequently, the home provides the foundation for social interactions. Nevertheless, this is not the only context in which some infants learn to interact with others. In Western societies such as the Netherlands, the majority of infants and toddlers regularly experience a form of daycare or play groups, which provides opportunities to learn to interact within small and stable groups of age mates ( Hay et al., 2018 ). Most people agree that providing such additional contexts can be beneficial for a child’s development of social competence, but how or when to cater for this is poorly understood. Next, while infants and toddlers differ in how much of the home context provides the dominant social context relative to other contexts, it is in early and late childhood that for all children the classroom setting gradually becomes a dominant social context. This is why indices on social competence collected in childhood often revolve around group dynamics in the classroom setting, such as (perceived) peer popularity and peer rejection ( Asher and McDonald, 2009 ). In adolescence, the major social context is still dominated by peers, but this time from their own cliques and clubs rather than the classroom.

4.3.2. Offline versus online

Early in infancy most of the interactions take place offline, in close proximity of other persons. With the rise of social media, children come into contact with multiple forms of online interactions from an early age. Indeed, there is evidence that even infants can also learn from persons via on-line interactions, as long as there is social contingency between the child and the other (i.e., when turn-taking occurs naturally, and not artificially; Roseberry et al., 2014 ). Children in middle childhood and adolescents increasingly use social media tools to communicate or play with their friends, peers, or partners they meet on game or other types of platforms ( Valkenburg and Piotrowski, 2017 ). A recent survey from the Netherlands has shown the majority of adolescents use two or three social media platforms, such as Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat, in a complementary way ( van Driel et al., 2019v ). Today’s adolescents are amongst the first cohorts of young individuals who have grown up using mobile devices and social media; unlimited access to digital technologies enables them to be in constant contact with their peers and to engage in various social activities, such as playing games, creating audiovisual content, and sharing knowledge ( Salmela-Aro et al., 2017 ). However, about ten percent of current social media users has been identified as compulsive social media users ( van den Eijnden et al., 2016v ). Furthermore, positive correlations between compulsive use of technology and comorbid psychiatric disorders have been reported ( Andreassen, 2015 ). Since social media are a relatively new phenomenon, many questions regarding their potential impact on social competence and mental health remain unanswered ( Pantic, 2014 ). Therefore, more research in this field is required, and we hope that CID may provide some initial answers.

4.3.3. With adults versus peers

In a child’s life the most important adults are the caretakers (usually, the parents), and from childhood onwards, the teachers as well. (In both cases the child typically cannot control these social interaction partners). There is ample evidence that both parents’ ( Feldman et al., 2013 ; Groh et al., 2014 ) as well as teachers’ characteristics ( Wentzel, 2009 ) provide opportunities of interactions that contribute to a child’s social competence. From early childhood onwards, age-matched peers become increasingly the favored choice of interaction partners, as children learn to play and interact with peers. Although children with good social competence can interact easily in both contexts, children with poorer social competence (e.g., shy, withdrawn) find it often easier to interact with adults than with age-matched peers. Therefore, whereas adults might judge a child to be socially competent, one might reach different conclusions when observing a child interacting in situations with other peers.

4.3.4. With friends versus nonfriends

Already preschoolers can distinguish between friends and nonfriends ( Howes, 2009 ). Friendships centers around concepts of similarity: children like to play with others who are like themselves. However, our definition of social competence also requires that good social competence skills may come to the surface in contexts when the interaction partner is not familiar to the child. That is, how does the child interact when the other is not a friend, and the child therefore may not feel at ease with? Children who are shy in talking to others, or even experience social phobia, are at increased risk of developing poor social competence. It is therefore also important to consider social competence in the context of interaction partners the child is not friends with ( Asher and McDonald, 2009 ).

5. CID contributions to the developmental model for social competence

In the current paper we set out explaining that one of the aims of CID is to grasp the development of social competence. CID is a consortium of Dutch researchers aiming to understand the extent and relevance of individual differences in development. There are four main themes of research in CID, grouped into 4 work packages accordingly. Each work package focuses on different aspects of explaining individual differences across development. Two longitudinal cohorts were set up: the YOUth cohorts to sample neurocognitive development (Work Package 1;Onland- Moret et al., 2020), and the Leiden-CID cohorts (‘L-CID’) to test interventions in twins (Work Package 2; Crone et al., 2020 ). Work Package 3 unites four current cohorts established prior to CID ( Branje et al., 2020 ): Generation R (‘Gen-R’, Kooijman et al., 2016 ); Netherlands Twin Register (‘NTR’, Boomsma et al., 2006 ); RADAR (e.g., Branje and Meeus, 2018 ; Crocetti et al., 2017 ) and TRAILS ( Ormel et al., 2012 ). Finally, Work Package 4 focuses on advanced statistical modelling and animal models. CID thus encompasses six Dutch large-scale longitudinal cohort studies capturing child development through repeated measurements while it also houses the tools and methods required to address the complexity in developmental research. In what follows next, we provide more information how each of the cohorts (Section 5.1 ) and work packages (Section 5.2 ) provide building blocks towards building this model.

5.1. Contributions from the cohorts in CID

The cohorts participating in CID aim to help building a developmental model of social competence that integrates the ‘whens’ (age periods), ‘whats’ (indexical layer), ‘hows’ (skills-dimension) and ‘wheres’ (context- dimension) of social competence (See Fig. 1 ). More specifically, all cohorts in CID provide information about the ‘whens’ and ‘whats’ as all sample the development of social competence, albeit they differ in how exactly. It is one of the strengths of CID that all cohorts employ multiple indices collected at various moments in a child’s life to capture a child’s current stage of social competence. Table 3 lists for all cohorts which questionnaires they include to index social competence and it provides information about the age ranges that are covered; the frequency of administration, and the respondent filling in the questionnaires (amongst others children, parents, teachers).

An overview of the questionnaires that tap social competence and skills underlying social competence, for each of the cohorts involved in CID, with ages in years sampled in brackets.

Cohorts : Gen R = Generation R; l -CID = leiden Consortium on Individual Development; NTR = Netherlands Twin Register; RADAR = Research on Adolescent Development and Relationships; TRAILS = Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives’ Survey; YOU-th = Youth of Utrecht.

Indices : ASQ = Ages & Stages Questionnaire – Social Emotional -2 ( Squires et al., 2002 ); CBCL: = Child Behavior CheckList ( Achenbach, 1991 ; Achenbach and Rescorla, 2001 ); IRI = Interpersonal Reactivity Index ( Davis, 1983 ); ITSEA = Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment ( Briggs-Gowan et al., 2004 ); NRI = Network Relationships Inventory ( Furman and Buhrmester, 1985 ); SDQ = Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire ( Goodman, 1997 , 2001 ); SSRS = Social Skills Rating System ( Gresham and Elliott, 1990 ).

* Prosocial subscale from the Revised Self-Report of Aggression and Social Behavior Measure ( Morales and Crick, 1998 ).

** – only the prosocial scale from the SDQ.

c self-report; p parent report; t teacher report; f friend report; s sibling report; i partner report.

1 = collected every year; 2 = collected every two years; 3 = collected every three years.

Indeed, one of the strengths of CID is that its variety in questionnaires allows us to sample every period of child development, starting with infancy (YOUth cohort) and toddlerhood (L-CID cohort). This is in contrast with most studies that only begin measuring social competence once children go to school ( Parker et al., 2006 ). Because the CID cohorts cover each period in child development, we can examine not only direct and long-term outcome measures of social competence, but also precursors to social competence in younger children.

Another strength of CID is that these questionnaires are filled in by a variety of raters (children themselves, parents, teachers, or others), as the source of ratings might be prone to rater bias ( Jones and Yudron, 2016 ). It is important to consider the source of ratings (for example, parent-report vs. self-report), as the source often makes a difference on the factor loadings of the assumed underlying construct (e.g., Goodman, 2001 ; Van Roy et al., 2008 ).

Although the cohort studies in CID use a variety of indices of social competence, two are used in virtually all cohorts: the Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire (SDQ: Goodman, 1997 ; for Dutch: Van Widenfelt et al., 2003 ) and the Child Behavior Checklist (ASEBA CBCL; Achenbach, 1991 ; Achenbach and Rescorla, 2001 ; for Dutch: Verhulst et al., 1996 ). Both questionnaires are relevant indices of social competence; they measure different underlying skills and complement each other. Whereas the SDQ measures key underlying skills such as prosocial behavior and friendship behaviors, the CBCL focuses on atypical (problematic) behavior in social interactions. Because all our cohorts employ at least one of these two questionnaires, CID is eventually able to collapse indices of social competence across cohorts that share the same indices (see also Zondervan-Zwijnenburg et al., 2020 for a similar approach to combining multiple cohort data on questionnaires related to behavioral control).

Besides the indexical layer, the cohorts participating in CID also address each of the five identified skills from the skills dimension, via repeated measurements collected in multiple ways spanning development from infancy into adulthood: through questionnaires, experimentally, and in parent-child interaction tasks. In Table 1 from the supplementary information we further delineate how each of the CID cohorts captures these five skills we consider relevant building blocks of social competence. Other articles in this special issue discuss some of the tasks and questionnaires in more detail.

With information adding to the development of skills we can ultimately understand the interplay between different indices, different subserving skills, and different contexts. This is crucial as social competence is a complex developmental construct. Take for instance the development of the underlying skills. While each of these skills show development, they often differ in their trajectories, and operate at different time scales at which they are more influential for social competence than others (e.g., Happé and Frith, 2014 ). We therefore do not assume that development in each skill proportionally continues to shape the development of social competence but rather that weights will change over time.

We illustrate the different time courses by comparing the communication versus empathy skills. Each of these skills have shown to be crucial, but how do they compare to each other in their relevance to social competence? Communication requires in particular a good command of pragmatics in order to confer meaning appropriately for social interactions. For communication skills we assume that pragmatic development has profound influences on social competence in childhood ( van der Wilt et al., 2019 ), but that the additional relevance of language development for social competence might reach a plateau over the following years, before it again assumes importance when friendships in adolescence center on intimacy & self-disclosure ( Troesch et al., 2016 , but see Curtis et al., 2018 ). Nevertheless, our changing society might also add further relevance to communication skills, as interactions increasingly take place online. It is unclear for instance how children with or without developmental language delays fare in digital media contexts that does not require immediate responses ( Drago, 2015 ).

In contrast to the relevance of communication skills to social competence in the early years, cognitive empathy is a skill that shows marked development in the adolescent years ( van der Graaff et al., 2014 ). We therefore expect this skill to continue to grow in importance to social competence, possibly peaking in adolescence, as this is the period when social perspective taking becomes sophisticated ( Selman, 1980 ) and when peer influence becomes a major force in social decision making (e.g., Crone and Dahl, 2012 ).

The above illustrations are mainly speculations. With the evidence gathered so far, we can only isolate the time course of the skills to underlying social competence and provide estimates how their relevance changes over time. What is still missing is evidence that reveals how a range of underlying skills across development together shape the development of social competence. Moreover, given that there is development both in the skills underlying social competence as well as in the different aspects characterizing social competence, such data will also unravel whether there are bidirectional relationships between skills and outcome measures. To illustrate, a recent study shows that while empathy predicts development in friendship quality, the reverse also holds: friendship quality drives empathy development ( Van den Bedem et al., 2019 ). Because CID repeatedly collects information on a wide range of skills (Table 1 from S.I.) concerning the same children from whom we also collect indices of their social competence ( Table 3 ), we aim to eventually contribute the evidence required for a better understanding how these skills work in tandem towards the development of social competence.

5.2. Contributions from the work packages in CID

Above we listed how the cohorts within CID examine the building blocks of social competence, as we make concrete how social competence emerges out of a variety in skills and contexts. Even so, fully capturing (the range in) the development of social competence requires integrating biological, psychological, and environmental factors, as well as insights into how these processes influence one another over time ( Beauchamp and Anderson, 2010 ; Karmiloff-Smith, 2017 ; Karmiloff-Smith et al., 2014 ). Further, in-depth understanding of individual differences in social competence begs a more detailed understanding of each of the descriptive levels of analysis, ranging from the molecular to the behavioral level, and how these levels link to each other both at the same time and across development. However, to date it has been virtually impossible to predict which combinations of factors at which times explain individual variability in the development of social competence.

One of the main reasons why there is not yet such a detailed account is that while different strands of research provide relevant blocks of knowledge, these remain limited as they typically do not cross beyond the boundaries of their own scholarly discipline. To illustrate, developmental studies often rely on longitudinal studies to investigate how psychological child characteristics and environmental factors contribute to a child’s well-being in real-life ( Bronfenbrenner, 2005 ), but these studies often do not include a biological or neurocognitive levels through which factors affect social competence (but see Crone et al., 2020 ). In contrast, biologically-oriented models provide us with a detailed mechanistic understanding of genes, neural function, or brain maturation relevant to the development of social cognition (e.g., Bakermans‐Kranenburg and Van IJzendoorn, 2007 ; Blakemore, 2008 ; Happé and Frith, 2014 ; Johnson et al., 2015 ; Robinson et al., 2008 ; Werker and Hensch, 2015 ) but they do not take into account child characteristics such as emotion regulation. It is here that the CID proves instrumental to building a developmental model of social competence as it accommodates the various disciplines of research that examine the development of social competence in both online and offline interactions as well as possess the statistical knowledge to integrate these findings.

As noted above, social competence is a developmental outcome measure that is reciprocal in the long-term. This makes social competence an example of a developmental cascade as it reflects behavior that can prove adaptive for some while having maladaptive consequences for others. Masten and Cicchetti (2010) identify five strands of research that would inform and optimize interventions required to promote positive cascades but to interrupt negative cascades: all of which are available in the work packages in CID.

One of the proposed strands is that research should determine when the cascade of social competence begins and accelerates to optimize the timing of interventions ( Masten et al., 2009 ). As laid out in this paper, data collected in our work packages 1–3 together provides an overview of social competence spanning from 20 weeks’ pregnancy (YOUth cohort) to far into adulthood (e.g., RADAR, TRAILS). Consequently, we cover development of social competence completely; that is, we can observe precursors in pregnancy, infancy and toddlerhood as well as its long-term consequences from conception and infancy onwards.

Second, cascade models would benefit from repeated measurements of social competence collected at various overlapping time scales. The choice of a lag is often chosen arbitrarily, while there must be adequate time for the cascading effects of factors leading to social competence to be manifested (e.g., Cole, 2006 ). With ample variation in time lags we can measure effects of time continuously; this allows us to reach a better understanding of how effects manifest themselves over time, as we can disentangle direct from indirect pathways in which the various variables of interest contribute to social competence ( Masten et al., 2006 ). Indeed, we are collecting longitudinal human data indexing social competence ranging from days (WP3: RADAR cohort) to yearly measurements (WP2: l -CID; WP3: Generation R, NTR, RADAR) to three-year intervals (WP1: YOUth cohorts) to generations (WP3: RADAR; TRAILS cohort). The RADAR cohort is of especial interest here as it is one of the few existing cohorts that even combines various lags within their data collection.

Then there are three remaining strands of research that according to Masten and Cicchetti (2010) are also instrumental in informing interventions, but which have not received as much attention in this paper. In all three cases, CID is able to contribute missing information. One line of research should be demonstrating the necessity of testing intervention designs that target mediating processes for change in social competence, which we cover in Work Package 2. A second strand of research should address how the interplay between genes, brain and environment affects social competence, which we address in our multi- method cohorts: YOUth-cohorts, l -CID and NTR all collect genes and multiple indices of environment (YOUth cohorts in WP1: Onland-Moret et al., 2020 twin cohorts L-CID in WP2; cf. Crone et al., 2020 ; NTR cohort in WP3: Boomsma et al., 2006 ; cf. Branje et al., 2020 ). We also have access to rodent models that allow for a level of control at the level of genes, brain, or environment that cannot be achieved in humans (WP4; cf., van der Veen et al., 2020 ). Finally, Masten and Cicchetti (2010) stress the need of well-designed experiments to further bolster our model that go beyond longitudinal cohorts to demonstrate causal directions between variables of interest and the outcome measure of social competence. With the help of animal models (WP4) and neurocognitive testing (WP1, WP2) we can achieve this. For instance, while Bierman et al. (2008 ) suggest that enriched environments foster social competence, we now test its specificity and generalizability of this in rodent models, which allows for hypothesis-testing in more stringent conditions as the contribution of other factors such as socio-emotional and genes are controlled for ( van der Veen et al., 2020 ). All in all, the CID unites various strands of research that together centers on achieving a better understanding of the development of social competence.

6. Conclusions

To conclude, the literature is still missing a unified approach that integrates how a range of underlying skills together shapes the development of social competence in a range of contexts. The cohorts in CID collect information on different indices of social competence as well as on a wide range of underlying skills concerning the same children in a range of contexts repeatedly across various lags. The work packages in CID each provide unique additional information in testing our model. Putting these pieces together, CID aims to provide the evidence required for such theory-building and bridge these gaps in the literature.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The Consortium on Individual Development (CID) is funded through the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) (Grant No. 024.001.003). The authors thank Chantal Kemner and Carlijn van den Boomen for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article, and Lotte Houtepen for assistance. The authors also would like to thank representatives of the cohorts involved in CID for their assistance: Eveline Crone and Bianca van Bulk from the Leiden-CID cohort; Dorret Boomsma and Eveline de Zeeuw from the Netherlands Twin Register; Tineke Oldehinkel from the TRAILS cohort; Manon Hillegers and Elize Koopman Verhoef from the Generation-R cohort; and Juliëtte van der Wal from the YOUth cohorts.

Appendix A Supplementary material related to this article can be found, in the online version, at doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100861 .

Appendix A. Supplementary data

The following is Supplementary data to this article:

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Home » Blog » General » Effective Social Problem Solving: Free Worksheets and Resources

Effective Social Problem Solving: Free Worksheets and Resources

As a Speech Language Pathologist and Social Emotional Learning expert, I understand the importance of developing social problem solving skills in individuals of all ages. These skills not only help us navigate through various social situations, but also contribute to our overall emotional well-being. In this blog post, I will provide you with free worksheets and resources that can assist you in enhancing your social problem solving abilities.

Understanding Social Problem Solving

Social problem solving can be defined as the process of identifying, analyzing, and resolving social conflicts or challenges. It involves a set of cognitive and emotional skills that enable individuals to effectively navigate through social interactions and find appropriate solutions to problems. The key components of effective social problem solving include:

• Identifying the problem: Recognizing and understanding the social issue or conflict at hand.
• Generating possible solutions: Brainstorming and coming up with different options to address the problem.
• Evaluating and selecting the best solution: Assessing the pros and cons of each solution and choosing the most appropriate one.
• Implementing the chosen solution: Putting the selected solution into action.
• Reflecting on the outcome: Evaluating the effectiveness of the chosen solution and learning from the experience.

Developing social problem solving skills has numerous benefits. It enhances our ability to communicate effectively, resolve conflicts peacefully, and build positive relationships with others. It also promotes critical thinking, decision-making, and self-regulation skills.

Free Worksheets for Social Problem Solving

Worksheets are valuable tools in the development of social problem solving skills. They provide structured activities that guide individuals through the problem-solving process and encourage reflection and self-awareness. Here are some free social problem solving worksheets that you can utilize:

• Worksheet 1: Identifying the problem: This worksheet helps individuals identify and define the social problem they are facing. It prompts them to describe the situation, their feelings, and the impact of the problem on themselves and others.
• Worksheet 2: Generating possible solutions: This worksheet encourages individuals to brainstorm and list different solutions to the identified problem. It prompts them to think creatively and consider various perspectives.
• Worksheet 3: Evaluating and selecting the best solution: This worksheet guides individuals in evaluating the pros and cons of each solution generated in the previous step. It helps them weigh the potential outcomes and select the most suitable solution.
• Worksheet 4: Implementing the chosen solution: This worksheet assists individuals in planning and implementing the selected solution. It prompts them to outline the steps they need to take and consider any potential obstacles.
• Worksheet 5: Reflecting on the outcome: This worksheet encourages individuals to reflect on the effectiveness of the chosen solution. It prompts them to evaluate the outcome, identify any lessons learned, and consider alternative approaches for future situations.

Additional Resources for Social Problem Solving

In addition to worksheets, there are various other resources available to support the development of social problem solving skills. These include:

• Websites offering free social problem solving resources: There are several websites that provide free worksheets, activities, and games to enhance social problem solving skills. Some notable websites include EverydaySpeech, Social Thinking, and Teach Starter.
• Books and articles on social problem solving: Many books and articles have been written on the topic of social problem solving. These resources offer in-depth information, strategies, and real-life examples to help individuals improve their skills. Some recommended books include “Social Problem Solving: Theory, Research, and Training” by Norman A. Sprinthall and “The Social Skills Guidebook: Manage Shyness, Improve Your Conversations, and Make Friends, Without Giving Up Who You Are” by Chris MacLeod.
• Online courses and workshops: Online courses and workshops provide structured learning experiences that delve into the various aspects of social problem solving. These resources often include interactive activities, case studies, and expert guidance. EverydaySpeech offers a range of online courses and workshops on social emotional learning, including social problem solving.

Tips for Effective Use of Worksheets and Resources

To make the most of the worksheets and resources available, consider the following tips:

• Setting clear goals and objectives: Clearly define what you hope to achieve through the use of the worksheets and resources. Set specific goals and objectives that align with your needs and desired outcomes.
• Incorporating worksheets into daily routines: Integrate the worksheets into your daily routines and activities. This will help make social problem solving a regular practice and reinforce the skills learned.
• Providing guidance and support during worksheet activities: Offer guidance and support as individuals work through the worksheets. Encourage open discussions, provide feedback, and help individuals reflect on their experiences and learning.

Social problem solving skills are essential for navigating through various social situations and promoting positive relationships. By utilizing free worksheets and resources, you can enhance your social problem solving abilities and improve your overall emotional well-being. Start your EverydaySpeech free trial today to access a wide range of social emotional learning resources, including social problem solving worksheets and online courses. Remember, developing these skills is a lifelong journey, so keep exploring and learning!

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• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 07 October 2020

Impact of social problem-solving training on critical thinking and decision making of nursing students

• Soleiman Ahmady 1 &
• Sara Shahbazi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8397-6233 2 , 3  

BMC Nursing volume  19 , Article number:  94 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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The complex health system and challenging patient care environment require experienced nurses, especially those with high cognitive skills such as problem-solving, decision- making and critical thinking. Therefore, this study investigated the impact of social problem-solving training on nursing students’ critical thinking and decision-making.

This study was quasi-experimental research and pre-test and post-test design and performed on 40 undergraduate/four-year students of nursing in Borujen Nursing School/Iran that was randomly divided into 2 groups; experimental ( n  = 20) and control (n = 20). Then, a social problem-solving course was held for the experimental group. A demographic questionnaire, social problem-solving inventory-revised, California critical thinking test, and decision-making questionnaire was used to collect the information. The reliability and validity of all of them were confirmed. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software and independent sampled T-test, paired T-test, square chi, and Pearson correlation coefficient.

The finding indicated that the social problem-solving course positively affected the student’ social problem-solving and decision-making and critical thinking skills after the instructional course in the experimental group ( P  < 0.05), but this result was not observed in the control group ( P  > 0.05).

Conclusions

The results showed that structured social problem-solving training could improve cognitive problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision-making skills. Considering this result, nursing education should be presented using new strategies and creative and different ways from traditional education methods. Cognitive skills training should be integrated in the nursing curriculum. Therefore, training cognitive skills such as problem- solving to nursing students is recommended.

Peer Review reports

Continuous monitoring and providing high-quality care to patients is one of the main tasks of nurses. Nurses’ roles are diverse and include care, educational, supportive, and interventional roles when dealing with patients’ clinical problems [ 1 , 2 ].

Providing professional nursing services requires the cognitive skills such as problem-solving, decision-making and critical thinking, and information synthesis [ 3 ].

Problem-solving is an essential skill in nursing. Improving this skill is very important for nurses because it is an intellectual process which requires the reflection and creative thinking [ 4 ].

Problem-solving skill means acquiring knowledge to reach a solution, and a person’s ability to use this knowledge to find a solution requires critical thinking. The promotion of these skills is considered a necessary condition for nurses’ performance in the nursing profession [ 5 , 6 ].

Managing the complexities and challenges of health systems requires competent nurses with high levels of critical thinking skills. A nurse’s critical thinking skills can affect patient safety because it enables nurses to correctly diagnose the patient’s initial problem and take the right action for the right reason [ 4 , 7 , 8 ].

Problem-solving and decision-making are complex and difficult processes for nurses, because they have to care for multiple patients with different problems in complex and unpredictable treatment environments [ 9 , 10 ].

Clinical decision making is an important element of professional nursing care; nurses’ ability to form effective clinical decisions is the most significant issue affecting the care standard. Nurses build 2 kinds of choices associated with the practice: patient care decisions that affect direct patient care and occupational decisions that affect the work context or teams [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ].

The utilization of nursing process guarantees the provision of professional and effective care. The nursing process provides nurses with the chance to learn problem-solving skills through teamwork, health management, and patient care. Problem-solving is at the heart of nursing process which is why this skill underlies all nursing practices. Therefore, proper training of this skill in an undergraduate nursing program is essential [ 17 ].

Nursing students face unique problems which are specific to the clinical and therapeutic environment, causing a lot of stresses during clinical education. This stress can affect their problem- solving skills [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]. They need to promote their problem-solving and critical thinking skills to meet the complex needs of current healthcare settings and should be able to respond to changing circumstances and apply knowledge and skills in different clinical situations [ 22 ]. Institutions should provide this important opportunity for them.

Despite, the results of studies in nursing students show the weakness of their problem-solving skills, while in complex health environments and exposure to emerging diseases, nurses need to diagnose problems and solve them rapidly accurately. The teaching of these skills should begin in college and continue in health care environments [ 5 , 23 , 24 ].

It should not be forgotten that in addition to the problems caused by the patients’ disease, a large proportion of the problems facing nurses are related to the procedures of the natural life of their patients and their families, the majority of nurses with the rest of health team and the various roles defined for nurses [ 25 ].

Therefore, in addition to above- mentioned issues, other ability is required to deal with common problems in the working environment for nurses, the skill is “social problem solving”, because the term social problem-solving includes a method of problem-solving in the “natural context” or the “real world” [ 26 , 27 ]. In reviewing the existing research literature on the competencies and skills required by nursing students, what attracts a lot of attention is the weakness of basic skills and the lack of formal and systematic training of these skills in the nursing curriculum, it indicates a gap in this area [ 5 , 24 , 25 ]. In this regard, the researchers tried to reduce this significant gap by holding a formal problem-solving skills training course, emphasizing the common social issues in the real world of work. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the impact of social problem-solving skills training on nursing students’ critical thinking and decision-making.

Setting and sample

This quasi-experimental study with pretest and post-test design was performed on 40 undergraduate/four-year nursing students in Borujen nursing school in Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences. The periods of data collection were 4 months.

According to the fact that senior students of nursing have passed clinical training and internship programs, they have more familiarity with wards and treatment areas, patients and issues in treatment areas and also they have faced the problems which the nurses have with other health team personnel and patients and their families, they have been chosen for this study. Therefore, this study’s sampling method was based on the purpose, and the sample size was equal to the total population. The whole of four-year nursing students participated in this study and the sample size was 40 members. Participants was randomly divided in 2 groups; experimental ( n  = 20) and control (n = 20).

The inclusion criteria to take part in the present research were students’ willingness to take part, studying in the four-year nursing, not having the record of psychological sickness or using the related drugs (all based on their self-utterance).

Intervention

At the beginning of study, all students completed the demographic information’ questionnaire. The study’s intervening variables were controlled between the two groups [such as age, marital status, work experience, training courses, psychological illness, psychiatric medication use and improving cognitive skills courses (critical thinking, problem- solving, and decision making in the last 6 months)]. Both groups were homogeneous in terms of demographic variables ( P  > 0.05). Decision making and critical thinking skills and social problem solving of participants in 2 groups was evaluated before and 1 month after the intervention.

All questionnaires were anonymous and had an identification code which carefully distributed by the researcher.

To control the transfer of information among the students of two groups, the classification list of students for internships, provided by the head of nursing department at the beginning of semester, was used.

Furthermore, the groups with the odd number of experimental group and the groups with the even number formed the control group and thus were less in contact with each other.

The importance of not transferring information among groups was fully described to the experimental group. They were asked not to provide any information about the course to the students of the control group.

Then, training a course of social problem-solving skills for the experimental group, given in a separate course and the period from the nursing curriculum and was held in 8 sessions during 2 months, using small group discussion, brainstorming, case-based discussion, and reaching the solution in small 4 member groups, taking results of the social problem-solving model as mentioned by D-zurilla and gold fried [ 26 ]. The instructor was an assistant professor of university and had a history of teaching problem-solving courses. This model’ stages are explained in Table  1 .

All training sessions were performed due to the model, and one step of the model was implemented in each session. In each session, the teacher stated the educational objectives and asked the students to share their experiences in dealing to various workplace problems, home and community due to the topic of session. Besides, in each session, a case-based scenario was presented and thoroughly analyzed, and students discussed it.

Instruments

In this study, the data were collected using demographic variables questionnaire and social problem- solving inventory – revised (SPSI-R) developed by D’zurilla and Nezu (2002) [ 26 ], California critical thinking skills test- form B (CCTST; 1994) [ 27 , 28 ] and decision-making questionnaire.

SPSI-R is a self - reporting tool with 52 questions ranging from a Likert scale (1: Absolutely not – 5: very much).

The minimum score maybe 25 and at a maximum of 125, therefore:

The score 25 and 50: weak social problem-solving skills.

The score 50–75: moderate social problem-solving skills.

The score higher of 75: strong social problem-solving skills.

The reliability assessed by repeated tests is between 0.68 and 0.91, and its alpha coefficient between 0.69 and 0.95 was reported [ 26 ]. The structural validity of questionnaire has also been confirmed. All validity analyses have confirmed SPSI as a social problem - solving scale.

In Iran, the alpha coefficient of 0.85 is measured for five factors, and the retest reliability coefficient was obtained 0.88. All of the narratives analyzes confirmed SPSI as a social problem- solving scale [ 29 ].

California critical thinking skills test- form B(CCTST; 1994): This test is a standard tool for assessing the basic skills of critical thinking at the high school and higher education levels (Facione & Facione, 1992, 1998) [ 27 ].

This tool has 34 multiple-choice questions which assessed analysis, inference, and argument evaluation. Facione and Facione (1993) reported that a KR-20 range of 0.65 to 0.75 for this tool is acceptable [ 27 ].

In Iran, the KR-20 for the total scale was 0.62. This coefficient is acceptable for questionnaires that measure the level of thinking ability of individuals.

After changing the English names of this questionnaire to Persian, its content validity was approved by the Board of Experts.

The subscale analysis of Persian version of CCTST showed a positive high level of correlation between total test score and the components (analysis, r = 0.61; evaluation, r = 0.71; inference, r = 0.88; inductive reasoning, r = 0.73; and deductive reasoning, r = 0.74) [ 28 ].

A decision-making questionnaire with 20 questions was used to measure decision-making skills. This questionnaire was made by a researcher and was prepared under the supervision of a professor with psychometric expertise. Five professors confirmed the face and content validity of this questionnaire. The reliability was obtained at 0.87 which confirmed for 30 students using the test-retest method at a time interval of 2 weeks. Each question had four levels and a score from 0.25 to 1. The minimum score of this questionnaire was 5, and the maximum score was 20 [ 30 ].

Statistical analysis

For analyzing the applied data, the SPSS Version 16, and descriptive statistics tests, independent sample T-test, paired T-test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and square chi were used. The significant level was taken P  < 0.05.

The average age of students was 21.7 ± 1.34, and the academic average total score was 16.32 ± 2.83. Other demographic characteristics are presented in Table  2 .

None of the students had a history of psychiatric illness or psychiatric drug use. Findings obtained from the chi-square test showed that there is not any significant difference between the two groups statistically in terms of demographic variables.

The mean scores in social decision making, critical thinking, and decision-making in whole samples before intervention showed no significant difference between the two groups statistically ( P  > 0.05), but showed a significant difference after the intervention ( P  < 0.05) (Table  3 ).

Scores in Table  4 showed a significant positive difference before and after intervention in the “experimental” group ( P  < 0.05), but this difference was not seen in the control group ( P  > 0.05).

Among the demographic variables, only a positive relationship was seen between marital status and decision-making skills (r = 0.72, P  < 0.05).

Also, the scores of critical thinking skill’ subgroups and social problem solving’ subgroups are presented in Tables  5 and 6 which showed a significant positive difference before and after intervention in the “experimental” group (P < 0.05), but this difference was not seen in the control group ( P  > 0.05).

In the present study conducted by some studies, problem-solving and critical thinking and decision-making scores of nursing students are moderate [ 5 , 24 , 31 ].

The results showed that problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and decision-making in nursing students were promoted through a social problem-solving training course. Unfortunately, no study has examined the effect of teaching social problem-solving skills on nursing students’ critical thinking and decision-making skills.

Altun (2018) believes that if the values of truth and human dignity are promoted in students, it will help them acquire problem-solving skills. Free discussion between students and faculty on value topics can lead to the development of students’ information processing in values. Developing self-awareness increases students’ impartiality and problem-solving ability [ 5 ]. The results of this study are consistent to the results of present study.

Erozkan (2017), in his study, reported there is a significant relationship between social problem solving and social self-efficacy and the sub-dimensions of social problem solving [ 32 ]. In the present study, social problem -solving skills training has improved problem -solving skills and its subdivisions.

The results of study by Moshirabadi (2015) showed that the mean score of total problem-solving skills was 89.52 ± 21.58 and this average was lower in fourth-year students than other students. He explained that education should improve students’ problem-solving skills. Because nursing students with advanced problem-solving skills are vital to today’s evolving society [ 22 ]. In the present study, the results showed students’ weakness in the skills in question, and holding a social problem-solving skills training course could increase the level of these skills.

Çinar (2010) reported midwives and nurses are expected to use problem-solving strategies and effective decision-making in their work, using rich basic knowledge.

These skills should be developed throughout one’s profession. The results of this study showed that academic education could increase problem-solving skills of nursing and midwifery students, and final year students have higher skill levels [ 23 ].

Bayani (2012) reported that the ability to solve social problems has a determining role in mental health. Problem-solving training can lead to a level upgrade of mental health and quality of life [ 33 ]; These results agree with the results obtained in our study.

Conducted by this study, Kocoglu (2016) reported nurses’ understanding of their problem-solving skills is moderate. Receiving advice and support from qualified nursing managers and educators can enhance this skill and positively impact their behavior [ 31 ].

Kashaninia (2015), in her study, reported teaching critical thinking skills can promote critical thinking and the application of rational decision-making styles by nurses.

One of the main components of sound performance in nursing is nurses’ ability to process information and make good decisions; these abilities themselves require critical thinking. Therefore, universities should envisage educational and supportive programs emphasizing critical thinking to cultivate their students’ professional competencies, decision-making, problem-solving, and self-efficacy [ 34 ].

The study results of Kirmizi (2015) also showed a moderate positive relationship between critical thinking and problem-solving skills [ 35 ].

Hong (2015) reported that using continuing PBL training promotes reflection and critical thinking in clinical nurses. Applying brainstorming in PBL increases the motivation to participate collaboratively and encourages teamwork. Learners become familiar with different perspectives on patients’ problems and gain a more comprehensive understanding. Achieving these competencies is the basis of clinical decision-making in nursing. The dynamic and ongoing involvement of clinical staff can bridge the gap between theory and practice [ 36 ].

Ancel (2016) emphasizes that structured and managed problem-solving training can increase students’ confidence in applying problem-solving skills and help them achieve self-confidence. He reported that nursing students want to be taught in more innovative ways than traditional teaching methods which cognitive skills training should be included in their curriculum. To this end, university faculties and lecturers should believe in the importance of strategies used in teaching and the richness of educational content offered to students [ 17 ].

The results of these recent studies are adjusted with the finding of recent research and emphasize the importance of structured teaching cognitive skills to nurses and nursing students.

Based on the results of this study on improving critical thinking and decision-making skills in the intervention group, researchers guess the reasons to achieve the results of study in the following cases:

In nursing internationally, problem-solving skills (PS) have been introduced as a key strategy for better patient care [ 17 ]. Problem-solving can be defined as a self-oriented cognitive-behavioral process used to identify or discover effective solutions to a special problem in everyday life. In particular, the application of this cognitive-behavioral methodology identifies a wide range of possible effective solutions to a particular problem and enhancement the likelihood of selecting the most effective solution from among the various options [ 27 ].

In social problem-solving theory, there is a difference among the concepts of problem-solving and solution implementation, because the concepts of these two processes are different, and in practice, they require different skills.

In the problem-solving process, we seek to find solutions to specific problems, while in the implementation of solution, the process of implementing those solutions in the real problematic situation is considered [ 25 , 26 ].

The use of D’zurilla and Goldfride’s social problem-solving model was effective in achieving the study results because of its theoretical foundations and the usage of the principles of cognitive reinforcement skills. Social problem solving is considered an intellectual, logical, effort-based, and deliberate activity [ 26 , 32 ]; therefore, using this model can also affect other skills that need recognition.

In this study, problem-solving training from case studies and group discussion methods, brainstorming, and activity in small groups, was used.

There are significant educational achievements in using small- group learning strategies. The limited number of learners in each group increases the interaction between learners, instructors, and content. In this way, the teacher will be able to predict activities and apply techniques that will lead students to achieve high cognitive taxonomy levels. That is, confront students with assignments and activities that force them to use cognitive processes such as analysis, reasoning, evaluation, and criticism.

In small groups, students are given the opportunity to the enquiry, discuss differences of opinion, and come up with solutions. This method creates a comprehensive understanding of the subject for the student [ 36 ].

According to the results, social problem solving increases the nurses’ decision-making ability and critical thinking regarding identifying the patient’s needs and choosing the best nursing procedures. According to what was discussed, the implementation of this intervention in larger groups and in different levels of education by teaching other cognitive skills and examining their impact on other cognitive skills of nursing students, in the future, is recommended.

Social problem- solving training by affecting critical thinking skills and decision-making of nursing students increases patient safety. It improves the quality of care because patients’ needs are better identified and analyzed, and the best solutions are adopted to solve the problem.

In the end, the implementation of this intervention in larger groups in different levels of education by teaching other cognitive skills and examining their impact on other cognitive skills of nursing students in the future is recommended.

Study limitations

This study was performed on fourth-year nursing students, but the students of other levels should be studied during a cohort from the beginning to the end of course to monitor the cognitive skills improvement.

The promotion of high-level cognitive skills is one of the main goals of higher education. It is very necessary to adopt appropriate approaches to improve the level of thinking. According to this study results, the teachers and planners are expected to use effective approaches and models such as D’zurilla and Goldfride social problem solving to improve problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision-making skills. What has been confirmed in this study is that the routine training in the control group should, as it should, has not been able to improve the students’ critical thinking skills, and the traditional educational system needs to be transformed and reviewed to achieve this goal.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and analyzed during the present study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

California critical thinking skills test

Social problem-solving inventory – revised

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Acknowledgments

This article results from research project No. 980 approved by the Research and Technology Department of Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences. We would like to appreciate to all personnel and students of the Borujen Nursing School. The efforts of all those who assisted us throughout this research.

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SA and SSH conceptualized the study, developed the proposal, coordinated the project, completed initial data entry and analysis, and wrote the report. SSH conducted the statistical analyses. SA and SSH assisted in writing and editing the final report. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Ahmady, S., Shahbazi, S. Impact of social problem-solving training on critical thinking and decision making of nursing students. BMC Nurs 19 , 94 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-020-00487-x

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Social Skills: Promoting Positive Behavior, Academic Success, and School Safety

Good social skills are critical to successful functioning in life. These skills enable us to know what to say, how to make good choices, and how to behave in diverse situations. The extent to which children and adolescents possess good social skills can influence their academic performance, behavior, social and family relationships, and involvement in extracurricular activities. Social skills are also linked to the quality of the school environment and school safety.

While most children pick up positive skills through their everyday interactions with adults and peers, it is important that educators and parents reinforce this casual learning with direct and indirect instruction. We must also recognize when and where children pick up behaviors that might be detrimental to their development or safety. In the past, schools have relied exclusively on families to teach children important interpersonal and conflict resolution skills. However, increased negative societal influences and demands on family life make it imperative that schools partner with parents to facilitate this social learning process. This is particularly true today given the critical role that social skills play in maintaining a positive school environment and reducing school violence.?

Consequences of Good Social Skills?

With a full repertoire of social skills, students will have the ability to make social choices that will strengthen their interpersonal relationships and facilitate success in school. Some consequences of good social skills include:

• Positive and safe school environment.
• Child resiliency in the face of future crises or other stressful life events.
• Students who seek appropriate and safe avenues for aggression and frustration.
• Children who take personal responsibility for promoting school safety.

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Consequences of Poor Social Skills

Students with poor social skills have been shown to:

• Experience difficulties in interpersonal relationships with parents, teachers, and peers.
• Evoke highly negative responses from others that lead to high levels of peer rejection.? Peer rejection has been linked on several occasions with school violence.
• Show signs of depression, aggression and anxiety.
• Demonstrate poor academic performance as an indirect consequence.
• Show a higher incidence of involvement in the criminal justice system as adults.

Impact on School Safety

Given the demonstrated relationship between social skills and school safety, schools are increasingly seeking ways to help students develop positive social skills, both in school and in the community. Social skills related to school safety include:

• Anger management
• Recognizing/understanding others’ point of view
• Social problem solving
• Peer negotiation
• Conflict management
• Peer resistance skills
• Active listening
• Effective communication
• Increased acceptance and tolerance of diverse groups

In isolation, social skills are not sufficient to ensure school safety; interventions should not be limited to student instruction and training. Change in the school culture should be facilitated by infusing social skills training into a comprehensive system of school safety and discipline policies, emphasizing relationship-building between students and faculty (teachers and administrators) and between schools and families, and providing effective behavior management and academic instruction.

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Defining Types of Social Skills

While there are hundreds of important social skills for students to learn, we can organize them into skill areas to make it easier to identify and determine appropriate interventions. For example, the “Stop and Think” program organizes skills into four areas:

• Survival skills (e.g., listening, following directions, ignoring distractions, using nice or brave talk, rewarding yourself)
• Interpersonal skills (e.g., sharing, asking for permission, joining an activity, waiting your turn)
• Problem-solving skills (e.g., asking for help, apologizing, accepting consequences, deciding what to do)
• Conflict resolution skills (e.g., dealing with teasing, losing, accusations, being left out, peer pressure)

Identifying Social Skills Deficits?

Prior to determining the best means to help a student develop better social skills, it is important to understand specifically what a student can and can’t do. It is crucial to assess and classify the nature of a child’s social skill deficits in order to devise and implement the most appropriate intervention.?

Children may experience difficulty performing a skill:

• Due to lack of knowledge (acquisition deficits), e.g., the child does not know the skills or does not discriminate when a skill is appropriate. For example, a child grabs a pencil from a peer in class when she needs one because she does not know how to appropriately ask to borrow it.
• Consistently despite knowledge (performance deficits), e.g., the child knows how to perform the skills but fails to do so consistently or at an acceptable level of competence. For example, although the child understand that he should raise his hand to speak in class, and does so much of the time, he will sometimes blurt out a comment without raising his hand.
• To a sufficient degree or level of strength (fluency deficits), e.g., the child knows how to perform skill and is motivated to perform, but demonstrates inadequate performance due to lack of practice or adequate feedback. For example, a student has learned what to say and do when confronted with bullying behavior, but her responses are not yet strong enough to be successful.
• Due to competing skill deficits or behaviors, e.g., internal or external factors interfere with the child demonstrating a learned skill appropriately. For example, depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, or negative motivation can interfere with demonstration of appropriate conflict resolution skills, even though the skills have been taught and learned.

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Social Skills Interventions

Effective social skills programs are comprised of two essential elements: a teaching process that uses a behavioral/social learning approach and a universal language or set of steps that facilitates the learning of new behavior. Interventions can be implemented at a school-wide, specific setting, classroom, or individual level, but at all levels the emphasis is on teaching the desired skill, not punishing negative behaviors.

Facilitate learning through normal activities. Teachers and parents must take advantage of incidental learning, in which naturally occurring behaviors or events are used to teach and reinforce appropriate social behavior. Adults can reinforce demonstrated positive social skills by praising children when they behave correctly, or offer alternatives to poor decisions to teach the more appropriate behavior. It may be necessary when working with children who have particular difficulty to intentionally “catch” them doing the right thing or devise situations in which they can make a good choice.?

Address environmental factors . The school or home environment can affect a child’s ability to learn and perform good social skills. If a child is experiencing difficulty demonstrating a particular skill, it is best to first evaluate the environment to determine what might interfere with the child’s appropriate acquisition of that skill. For instance, a student may be unruly at the beginning of the day because the teacher needs to establish more specific routines for coming into class, hanging up coats, checking in, etc. Addressing environmental obstacles like this also will benefit all children in that environment.

Address individual factors . Some children need more intensive, personalized training because of individual factors, such as a disability. These interventions might be aimed at children experiencing a specific difficulty or those who have previously been identified as at risk for behavior problems. For example, studies have shown that children with mild disabilities tend to exhibit deficient social skills and excess problem behaviors more than students without such disabilities. Interventions aimed at at-risk students are based on individual assessment of the particular child’s skills and deficits.? Selected interventions aim to prevent existing behavior problems from developing into more serious ones.

Social skills training should:

• Focus on facilitating the desirable behavior as well as eliminating the undesirable behavior.
• Emphasize the learning, performance, generalization, and maintenance of appropriate behaviors through modeling, coaching, and role-playing. It is also crucial to provide students with immediate performance feedback.
• Employ primarily positive strategies and add punitive strategies only if the positive approach is unsuccessful and the behavior is of a serious and/or dangerous nature.
• Provide training and practice opportunities in a wide range of settings with different groups and individuals in order to encourage students to generalize new skills to multiple, real life situations.
• Draw on assessment strategies, including functional assessments of behavior, to identify those children in need of more intensive interventions as well as target skills for instruction.
• Look to enhance social skills by increasing the frequency of an appropriate behavior in a particular situation. This should take place in “normal” environments to address the naturally occurring causes and consequences.

When planning social skills training programs, schools should:

• Include parents and other caregivers, both to help develop and select interventions and as significant participants in interventions. (Parents and caregivers can help reinforce the skills taught at school to further promote generalization across settings.)
• Focus on all age groups, including children below the age of 9 who are often bypassed due to the erroneous belief that they will “grow out of it.”
• Avoid a “one size fits all” approach and adapt the intervention to meet the individual or particular group needs. Students who speak English as a Second Language might need intensive social skill instruction to promote acculturation and peer acceptance. Children with disabilities might need adaptive curriculum and learning strategies. Most children will need a combination of different strategies that are matched to their particular deficits and backgrounds.

Examples of evidence-based social skills programs

Often school administrators or mental health professionals opt to introduce one of the many empirically supported, commercially published programs into their schools. Effective existing social skills training programs include:

• “Stop and Think” Social Skills Program (Knoff): Part of Project ACHIEVE (Knoff and Batsche). Has demonstrated success in reducing student discipline referrals to the principal’s office, school suspensions, and expulsions; fostering positive school climates and prosocial interactions; increasing students’ on-task behavior; and improving academic performance. http://www.projectachieve.info
• Primary Mental Health Project (Cowen et al.)? Targets children K-3 and addresses social and emotional problems that interfere with effective learning.? It has been shown to improve learning and social skills, reduce acting, shyness and anxious behaviors, and increase frustration tolerances.? http://www.sharingsuccess.org/code/eptw/profiles/48.html
• The EQUIP Program (Gibbs, Potter, & Goldstein) Offers a three-part intervention method for working with antisocial or behavior disordered adolescents. The approach includes training in moral judgment, anger management/correction of thinking errors, and prosocial skills. http://www.researchpress.com/scripts/product.asp?item=4848#5134
• The PREPARE Curriculum (Goldstein) Presents a series of 10 course-length interventions grouped into three areas: reducing aggression, reducing stress, and reducing prejudice. It is designed for use with middle school and high school students but can be adapted for use with younger students. http://www.researchpress.com/scripts/product.asp?item=5063
• The ACCEPTS Program (Walker et al) Offers a complete curriculum for teaching effective social skills to students at middle and high school levels. The program teaches peer-to-peer skills, skills for relating to adults, and self-management skills.

For further resources go to www.nasponline.org .

? 2002, National Association of School Psychologists, 4340 East West Highway, Suite 402,?Bethesda, MD, 20814, (301) 657-0270, fax (301) 657-0275 , TTY (301) 657-4155.

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Teach social problem solving

For student year, helps students to.

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Social problem solving is a skill that develops during the early years of school. It is the process and strategies used to analyse, understand, and respond to everyday problems, decision making, and conflicts.

Social problem solving is often fostered intuitively through interactions with others. Some students, including those on the autism spectrum, may benefit from systematic instruction in helpful strategies for social problem solving.

Social problems can be as simple as turn-taking, and as complex as bullying.

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4.2 - manage classroom activities

4.3 - manage challenging behaviour

For further information, see  Australian Professional Standards for Teachers AITSL page

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Preparing to teach

Be proactive.

• Identify barriers to learning and social demands and put these strategies in place to reduce the likelihood of problems occurring in the first place.
• Use observations to develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of the problem(s) that the student is experiencing.
• understand possible triggers 
• be alert to any potentially challenging situations throughout the day. 
• Identify the specific strategy to teach students how to find a solution. There are several strategies available in the Resources section below.
• as a whole class
• in small groups
• individually
• a mix of above.

Use supports

• Identify and develop the visual supports required to explicitly and systematically teach a social problem solving process and keep these handy. These can be social stories, routine charts, or emotion cards for self-regulation.
• Identify appropriate storybooks and visual supports that you can incorporate in your explicit teaching to enhance student understanding. 
• role-play/rehearsal
• puppet play (check the students aren’t frightened of puppets)
• social stories
• visual prompts.

How will you:

• embed problem solving scenarios 
• model the problem solving process 
• positively encourage, support, and reinforce students to use the process to solve real-life social problems 
• share the social problem solving process with families. 

Communicate

Communicating with families will encourage generalisation of the associated strategy at home. You can also communicate the types of language used so families can use similar language at home if they like.

The turtle technique

When you have a clear and understanding of the problem the student is experiencing, you can then identify and use a specific intervention process to teach the student how to find a solution. One such process is the turtle technique.  This which involves teaching students the steps of how to control feelings and calm down (i.e., think like a turtle). 

You will find further templates in the resource section of this practice.

It works better if:

• the social problem solving strategy has a small number of set steps
• teachers model these steps
• students are encouraged to use to the strategy to solve their social problems whenever they occur
• language is used consistently and modelled throughout the day and at home
• visual supports are used to enhance student understanding of the strategy.

It doesn’t work if:

• the student is expected to solve a social problem when distressed or overloaded 
• the student hasn’t understood the problem solving strategy (so it will need re-teaching) 
• the problem solving strategy has too many steps. 

In the classroom

Step 1: teach social problem solving.

Explicitly and systematically teach a social problem solving strategy using visual supports.  These are available in the resources section.

You notice student A becomes frustrated when they others don't want to play the same game. You can introduce the concept of turn-taking, and establish strategies for students to determine whose turn it is, promoting fairness and equality. Student A can then independently use these strategies when this comes up again.

Step 2: Practice relaxation

Ensure that class practises relaxation skills.

Step 3: Embed and respond

Be alert to any situations throughout the day that may result in social difficulties.

Model using the strategy to solve social problems.

Support student use of the strategy in relation to their encountered social problems: 

• remain calm – personally model the skills involved
• reduce ‘talk’ and use visual cues
• deal with social difficulties in a consistent manner.

Acknowledge and positively reinforce all attempts by student to use problem-solving skills.

Step 4: Review

Wait until the student is calm and receptive before providing feedback.

Step 5: Reflect

Reflect on whether the student was able to solve the social problem independently, or whether the strategy needs to be adjusted.

Record student outcomes in order to track progress.

Note program outcomes.

Practice toolkit

Practice implementation planner template.

We know that it is not always easy to keep track of what is working and what is not. So, we have created this template for you to record and reflect on what you are doing to help you create a more inclusive classroom. The implementation planner contains:

• Guidance around goal setting
• Reflection section (What worked, didn’t work and what to change and next steps.)
• Prompting questions

Implementation planner template

Implementation planner with examples

Set your professional learning goal for:, benefits of goal setting.

• Goal setting guidelines
• Importance of goal setting

How to set goals

Teach social problem solving - practice brief.

Turtle Technique – 4 step problem solving process

Suri spider social story - by ncpmi, example visual support - how to choose, example visual support: playing 'round the world, example visual support: playing handball, related practices.

Model positive interactions

Teaching practice, for student years.

• build social-awareness
• interact with others

This practice is from the core research project

Learning Cycle

Set your practice implementation goal

The Pathway 2 Success

Solutions for Social Emotional Learning & Executive Functioning

Teaching Social Problem-Solving with a Free Activity

February 3, 2018 by pathway2success 5 Comments

• Facebook 77

Kids and young adults need to be able to problem-solve on their own. Every day, kids are faced with a huge number of social situations and challenges. Whether they are just having a conversation with a peer, working with a group on a project, or dealing with an ethical dilemma, kids must use their social skills and knowledge to help them navigate tough situations. Ideally, we want kids to make positive choices entirely on their own. Of course, we know that kids don’t start off that way. They need to learn how to collaborate, communicate, cooperate, negotiate, and self-advocate.

Social problem solving skills are critical skills to learn for kids with autism, ADHD, and other social challenges. Of course, all kids and young adults benefit from these skills. They fit perfectly into a morning meeting discussion or advisory periods for older kids. Not only are these skills that kids will use in your classroom, but throughout their entire lives. They are well worth the time to teach!

Here are 5 steps to help kids learn social problem solving skills:

1. Teach kids to communicate their feelings. Being able to openly and respectfully share emotions is a foundational element to social problem solving. Teaching I statements can be a simple and effective way to kids to share their feelings. With an I statement, kids will state, “I feel ______ when _____.” The whole idea is that this type of statement allows someone to share how their feeling without targeting or blaming anyone else. Helping kids to communicate their emotions can solve many social problems from the start and encourages positive self-expression.

2. Discuss and model empathy. In order for kids to really grasp problem-solving, they need to learn how to think about the feelings of others. Literature is a great way teach and practice empathy! Talk about the feelings of characters within texts you are reading, really highlighting how they might feel in situations and why. Ask questions like, “How might they feel? Why do you think they felt that way? Would you feel the same in that situation? Why or why not?” to help teach emerging empathy skills. You can also make up your own situations and have kids share responses, too.

3. Model problem-solving skills. When a problem arises, discuss it and share some solutions how you might go forward to fix it. For example, you might say, “I was really expecting to give the class this math assignment today but I just found out we have an assembly. This wasn’t in my plans. I could try to give part of it now or I could hold off and give the assignment tomorrow instead. It’s not perfect, but I think I’ll wait that way we can go at the pace we need to.” This type of think-aloud models the type of thinking that kids should be using when a problem comes up.

4. Use social scenarios to practice. Give a scenario and have kids consider how that person might feel in that situation. Discuss options for what that person might do to solve the problem, possible consequences for their choices, and what the best decision might be. Kids can consider themselves social detectives by using the clues and what they know about social rules to help them figure out the solution. These are especially fun in small groups to have kids discuss collaboratively. Use these free social problem solving cards to start your kids off practicing!

5. Allow kids to figure it out. Don’t come to the rescue when a child or young adult has a problem. As long as it’s not a serious issue, give them time to think about it and use their problem-solving skills on their own. Of course, it’s much easier to have an adult solve all the problems but that doesn’t teach the necessary skills. When a child comes to you asking for your help with a social problem, encourage them to think about it for five minutes before coming back to you. By that point, they might have already figured out possible solutions and ideas and might not even need you anymore.

If you are interested in helping your kids learn social problem solving skills right away, consider trying out these Social Problem Solving Task Cards . They highlight real social scenarios and situations that kids can discuss. The scenarios include a variety of locations, such as in classrooms, with family, with friends, at recess, and at lunch. This set is targeted for elementary-age learners.

Of course, older kids need social problem solving skills, too! If you work with older kids, you will love these Social Problem Solving Task Cards for Middle and High School Kids. These situations target age-appropriate issues that come up in classes, with friends, with family, in the hallway, in the cafeteria, and with online and texting.

Remember that teaching social problem skills does take a little bit of planning and effort, but it will be well worth the time! Kids will use these skills to help them make social decisions in their everyday lives now and in the future!

Share this:

February 22, 2018 at 12:03 am

Thank you for sharing>

March 3, 2018 at 8:59 am

Good thought ful

March 20, 2018 at 9:24 pm

They are not free

March 21, 2018 at 8:58 am

They are! Here is the link (it’s listed under number 4): https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Free-Social-Problem-Solving-Task-Cards-2026178 I also have a paid version with a bunch more cards (for both elementary and older kids), but that will give you the freebie. Enjoy!

July 15, 2018 at 3:41 am

Awesome way to teach the skill of social problem solving.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

In the here and now: Future thinking and social problem-solving in depression

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected] (SN); [email protected] (BD)

Affiliation Department of Psychology, De Montfort University, Leicester, England

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland

• Saima Noreen, 
• Barbara Dritschel

• Published: June 30, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270661
• Reader Comments

This research investigates whether thinking about the consequences of a problem being resolved can improve social problem-solving in clinical depression. We also explore whether impaired social problem solving is related to inhibitory control. Thirty-six depressed and 43 non-depressed participants were presented with six social problems and were asked to generate consequences for the problems being resolved or remaining unresolved. Participants were then asked to solve the problems and recall all the consequences initially generated. Participants also completed the Emotional Stroop and Flanker tasks. We found that whilst depressed participants were impaired at social problem-solving after generating unresolved consequences, they were successful at generating solutions for problems for which they previously generated resolved consequences. Depressed participants were also impaired on the Stroop task, providing support for an impaired inhibitory control account of social problem-solving. These findings advance our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning social problem-solving in depression and may contribute to the development of new therapeutic interventions to improve social-problem solving in depression.

Citation: Noreen S, Dritschel B (2022) In the here and now: Future thinking and social problem-solving in depression. PLoS ONE 17(6): e0270661. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270661

Editor: Anna Manelis, University of Pittsburgh, UNITED STATES

Received: December 20, 2021; Accepted: June 14, 2022; Published: June 30, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Noreen, Dritschel. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The data underlying the results presented in the study are available from the following URL DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/SDNH7 .

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: No authors have competing interests.

Introduction

Social problem-solving reflects the process through which people generate effective solutions to problems experienced in everyday life [ 1 , 2 ]. Given that we frequently encounter social or interpersonal problems in everyday life, such as disagreements with friends, workplace disputes and marital conflicts, the ability to solve these problems effectively is not only important for our relationships with others, but also our psychological health and mental well-being [ 3 , 4 ]. Furthermore, the ability to maintain good social relationships is also important for our psychological well-being.

Deficits in social problem-solving are a central feature of depression [ 1 , 3 , 5 , 6 ]. Priester and Chun [ 7 ] for example, found that depressed individuals exhibit a negative orientation towards a social problem compared to non-depressed healthy individuals. Furthermore, Watkins and Baracaia [ 8 ] and Goddard, Dritschel & Burton [ 3 ] found that depressed individuals generated fewer relevant steps during problem-solving and their proposed solutions were less effective than their non-depressed counterparts.

Research also suggests that rumination, which involves individuals focusing their thoughts and behaviour on their depressive symptoms and the consequences of these symptoms [ 9 ] may be a key mechanism underlying poor social problem-solving in depression. The importance of rumination in depressive disorders has been well established [ 10 ] with rumination linked to depression maintenance, negative cognitions and enhanced accessibility of negative memories [ 11 – 13 ].

Research has also found that rumination impairs social problem-solving, with ruminative thinking having a detrimental impact on both problem orientation and problem-solving skill. Lyubomirsky et al. [ 14 ] had dysphoric and non-dysphoric participants complete the Means-End Problem-solving Task (MEPS, [ 15 ]). In the MEPS, participants are presented with a hypothetical social problem and a positive resolution to the problem. Participants are asked to generate a number of steps to reach the proposed solution. Lyubomirsky et al. [ 14 ] found that dysphoric individuals induced to ruminate generated fewer steps and produced fewer effective solutions on the MEPS compared to dysphoric individuals who distracted themselves from their mood and their non-dysphoric counterparts. Furthermore, they also found that dysphoric individuals who ruminated appraised their problems as overwhelming and unresolvable, thus reflecting a negative problem orientation.

It is also possible, however, that poor problem-solving contributes to the maintenance of rumination in depression. As rumination involves recurrent thinking, it can be conceptualised as an attempt to problem solve and resolve unfulfilled goals [ 16 , 17 ]. Indeed, research has found that the content of rumination in depression often focuses on trying to solve personal problems [ 14 ]. Furthermore, ruminative thinking continues to persist until a goal is attained or discarded. These findings suggest that a vicious cycle can ensue. There is considerable evidence that rumination impairs effective problem-solving [ 12 , 14 ], increasing the likelihood of the problem being unresolved. In turn, the lack of resolution continues to trigger and maintain further rumination [ 18 ].

Another important feature of depressive thinking is hopelessness, which is defined as the extent to which an individual is pessimistic about the future [ 4 , 19 – 21 ]. Research has found that depressed individuals generate fewer positive future events [ 22 ] which may impair social problem-solving. Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel [ 23 ], for example, had participants engage in future thinking by presenting them with a hypothetical social problem and asking them to generate the consequences of the social problem being resolved or remaining unresolved. Participants were presented with some of the solutions and were asked to solve the problem in order to achieve the resolution described. Participants were also asked to recall all of the consequences generated. The study found that participants reporting higher levels of depression and rumination were less effective at generating solutions. Furthermore, they also found that those reporting higher levels of rumination produced fewer effective solutions for social problems that they had previously generated unresolved consequences for. Individuals scoring high in rumination also recalled more of the unresolved consequences in a subsequent memory test. Taken together, these findings suggest that negative future thinking impairs the generation of effective solutions for individuals with high rumination tendencies.

One explanation for these findings may relate to the type of thinking evoked when participants were asked to think of the consequences of the problem being resolved or unresolved. According to the concreteness theory [ 24 ], there are two types of thinking; abstract and concrete. Abstract thinking is operationalised as ‘indistinct, equivocal, unclear and aggregated’ and reflects broad overarching general memories, whilst concrete thinking is ‘distinct, situational, specific and clear’ and reflects more specific individualised memories. As rumination is characterised by increased abstract thinking and reduced concrete thinking, it is possible that encouraging high ruminating individuals to think about the consequences of a problem remaining unresolved leads to greater abstract thinking, which subsequently impairs problem-solving. This is consistent with research by Watkins & Moulds [ 25 ] who found that abstract thinking, typical of rumination, impaired social problem-solving in depression. Similarly, Goddard, Dritschel & Burton [ 3 ] found that reduced social problem-solving performance in a clinically depressed sample was associated with the retrieval of spontaneous abstract categoric memories during problem-solving.

It is also possible, however, that encouraging participants to think about the consequences of a problem being resolved would encourage more concrete thinking and improve social problem-solving. Indeed, Watkins & Moulds [ 25 ] found that by encouraging participants to self-focus more concretely (i.e., focusing on the self in more concrete terms, such as, focusing on your experience of the way you feel inside) improved social problem-solving in depression. Given that Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel [ 23 ], did not have a baseline measure of problem-solving (one where no consequences were generated) it is unclear whether generating the consequences of a problem being resolved in individuals high in rumination may actually improve social problem-solving.

This is an important issue given that ineffective problem-solving has been linked to both the aetiology and maintenance of depression, which has led to the development of depression treatments that target social problem-solving [ 26 , 27 ]. These treatments have demonstrated some clinical improvements in social problem-solving [ 28 , 29 ], and have been found to alleviate some of the symptoms of depression [ 30 – 32 ]. However, these strategies do not address ruminative thinking directly associated with information related to social problem-solving. Therefore, it is possible that the task developed by Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel [ 23 ] may be an effective tool to improve social problem-solving in high ruminating individuals.

It is also possible that Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel’s [ 23 ] findings may be due to impaired inhibitory control. For example, people scoring high in rumination may be unable to inhibit the negative consequences they generated earlier. Difficulties inhibiting previously generated negative consequences may subsequently affect their ability to think clearly about the steps needed to solve a problem, thus resulting in impaired social problem-solving. It has been well established that inhibition is necessary to prevent irrelevant information from entering memory and instead focusing on relevant material [ 33 ]. Indeed, research has found that individuals scoring high on measures of rumination and depression demonstrate greater difficulty in inhibiting irrelevant information [ 34 , 35 ]. Joormann [ 36 ], for example, found that dysphoric participants were impaired in their ability to inhibit negative material in comparison to non-depressed controls. There were no group differences, however, for positive material. Taken together, these findings suggest that both depression and rumination are associated with poor inhibitory control.

Whilst there have been a number of studies implicating the role of rumination in impairing social problem-solving, the role of inhibiting irrelevant information has not yet been examined. Thus, a key underlying process that could potentially contribute to the relationship between depression, rumination and impaired social problem-solving is currently unknown.

The aim of the present research is to provide further insight into the mechanisms that contribute to poor social problem-solving in depression. Specifically, we investigate whether thinking about the consequences of a problem being resolved can improve social problem-solving in a clinically depressed sample relative to non-depressed controls. We also examine whether thinking about the consequences of a problem being unresolved impairs social problem-solving in a clinically depressed sample significantly more than non-depressed controls. Furthermore, we also explore whether impaired social problem-solving is related to impaired inhibitory control.

To this end, participants took part in three sessions. In the first session, participants were screened for depression using the MINI-Plus. In the second session, depressed and non-depressed participants were presented with 8 vignettes that consisted of a series of interpersonal problems using a modified version [ 23 ] of the Means-End Problem-solving Task (MEPS; [ 15 ]). Participants were asked to generate four consequences of the problem being resolved for three of the vignettes and four consequences for the problem being unresolved for another three of the vignettes. Subsequently, participants were given six of the vignettes (including two that had not previously been presented, which acted as a baseline measure of problem-solving) with their resolutions and were asked to describe the steps they would take to solve the problem in order to achieve the resolution described. Following a ten-minute distraction task, participants were presented with all of the original six vignettes and were asked to recall all of the consequences that they had previously generated.

In the third session, participants were given the Flanker task [ 37 ] and the Emotional Stroop task (adapted from Strand, Oram & Hammar, [ 38 ]) to assess inhibitory control for both emotional and non-emotional stimuli. Comparing the performance on these two tasks would allow us to assess whether poor inhibitory control is greater for emotional stimuli. For social problem-solving we predicted that depressed individuals would perform poorer than non-depressed individuals in the baseline condition and also when they generate unresolved consequences. We also predicted that depressed individuals would recall more unresolved than resolved consequences, compared to non-depressed participants. For the Emotional Stroop and Flanker Tasks, we predicted that depressed participants would show inhibitory impairments on these tasks, compared to non-depressed participants. Finally, we also predicted that there would be a relationship between social-problem solving and inhibitory control, with poorer social problem-solving abilities related to impaired inhibitory control.

Participants

One hundred and thirteen participants (51M & 62F; age M = 23.41; SD = 3.46) took part in the initial screening session. Participants were university students that were recruited using posters advertising the study at Goldsmiths, University of London and were reimbursed for their participation (£5 per session). Participants completed the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview-Plus (MINI-Plus; [ 39 ]) and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; [ 40 ]) in order to identify the depressed and non-depressed control groups. To be included in the depressed group, participants had to meet the criteria for current depression according to the MINI-Plus and have a minimum BDI-II score of 15. Eligibility for the controls required having no current or past Axis One disorders (e.g., anxiety disorders, dissociative disorders, mood disorders, psychotic disorders and substance use disorders) based on the MINI-Plus criteria and having a BDI-II score of 5 or below. These inclusion criteria resulted in a sample of 86 participants (41 White British; 23 British Asian (Pakistani, Indian or Bengali) and 22 Black British (African or Caribbean). A further 7 participants had to be excluded as they failed to complete all three study sessions. This resulted in 43 non-depressed control participants (17M, 26F; Mean age = 21.95; SD = 3.80) and 36 depressed participants (12M, 24F; Mean age = 21.06; SD = 4.41) in the final sample. For the currently depressed participants nine also met the criteria for dysthymic disorder, 11 met the criteria for panic disorder, 9 for social phobia, 2 for anorexia, 1 bulimia and 9 had mixed depression and anxiety. Seventeen reported taking antidepressant medications in the past and 12 had a history of past depression. The MINI-Plus was administered by a trained researcher. A second trained rater scored 25% of the interviews and there was 100% agreement regarding diagnostic status. The study was approved by the Psychology Ethics Committee, Goldsmiths, University of London. All participants provided written consent before taking part in the study.

The Beck Depression Inventory-II [ 40 ]. The BDI-II consists of 21 items that assess both psychological and physiological symptoms of depression. Participants rate the degree to which they experience each symptom over the past two weeks on a 4- point scale. The BDI-II scale has excellent psychometric properties with good internal consistency, re-test reliability and concurrent validity with other measures of depression [ 41 ]. In the present study BDI-II was found to be highly reliable (21 items; α = .97).

The Rumination Response Scale (RRS; [ 42 ]). The RRS scale consists of 22 items that assess how participants typically respond to sad or dysphoric mood. Each item is rated on a 4- point scale (with 1 = Almost never to 4 = Almost always ). Scores range from 22–88, with higher scores indicating greater rumination. RRS has good construct validity and internal consistency [ 43 ]. In the present study RRS was found to be highly reliable (22 items; α = .95).

The Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; [ 44 ]). STAI is comprised of two questionnaires each containing 20-items that assess dispositional and situational anxiety, respectively. Each item is rated on a 4- point scale (with, 1 = not at all to 4 = very much ). Scores range from 20–80 on each questionnaire, with higher scores indicating increased anxiety. Research has found that STAI has good construct and concurrent validity [ 44 , 45 ]. The STAI also has good internal consistency with dispositional anxiety ranging from α = .92- α = .94 and situational anxiety ranging from α = .88 - α = .93 [ 44 , 46 ]. In the present study both state and trait measures were found to be highly reliable (20 items each scale; α = .96, α = .97, respectively).

Emotional Stroop task

The Emotional Stroop task (adapted from Strand, Oram & Hammar [ 38 ]) was used to investigate emotional inhibition and attention. The task consists of lexical and visual facial stimuli in the form of an emotional word (i.e., positive or negative) being superimposed on an emotional face (i.e., happy or sad). The task is to identify the emotional valence of the word and ignore the emotion displayed on the face. Half of the trials were congruent and the other half were incongruent. Congruent trials were defined as emotional words whose semantic meaning corresponded to the emotion of the face that it was superimposed on (i.e., the word ‘depressed’ superimposed on a sad face). Incongruent trials were defined as emotional words whose semantic meaning differed from the emotion expressed on the face that it was superimposed on (i.e., the word ‘elated’ superimposed on a sad face, or the word ‘miserable’ superimposed on a happy face).

The stimulus material consisted of 10 photographic colour images of faces (5 male & 5 female; Strand, Oram & Hammer, [ 38 ]) unknown to the participants. The images were developed at the University of St Andrews [ 47 ] with the emotional expressions and valence based on the Facial Acting Coding system developed by Ekman and colleagues [ 48 ]. Forty emotional (20 positive and 20 negative) words were superimposed in black font across the nose. All of the faces were used in the experimental session, with each face appearing with 2 positive and 2 negative words. Each word was presented twice, once with a happy face and once with a sad face. Thus, in a block of 80 trials, participants saw each of the 10 faces 8 times, and each of the 40 words twice, with half of the words superimposed on happy faces and the other half superimposed on the sad faces. The block of 80 stimuli was repeated in random order two times. The second block contained the same emotional words and faces as the first block but differed in terms of the word-face combinations. In total participants were given 160 trials.

In the task participants had to report the emotional valence of the word irrespective of the valence of the facial expression. Participants were asked to press the left arrow “<” when the word was positive and right arrow “>” when the word was negative. Prior to the experimental blocks, participants completed a practice block. This was similar to the main block but differed in terms of the faces and words that were presented. The practice block consisted of emotional words (20 positive and 20 negative) being superimposed on emotionally neutral faces. The practice block consisted of 40 trials with each emotional word-face combination presented once. To determine if there were any group differences, stroop responses were scored. In the task both correct and incorrect responses were recorded and error rates for incongruent trials were analysed. Furthermore, participant’s reaction times for correct responses were also analysed. Mean reaction times for congruent and incongruent trials were calculated. In the present study, the split half reliability for the Emotional Stroop task was found to be good (α = .42).

Flanker task [ 37 ]

In the flanker task, participants were presented with a string of 5 letters (e.g., CCHCC) and were asked to focus their attention solely on the middle letter. Participants were instructed to press the left arrow if the target letter was H or K (straight-lined stimulus) and the right arrow if the target letter was C or S (curvy-lined stimulus). The remaining letters were one of the remaining three possible letters (H, K, C or S) and were either the same type of stimuli (e.g., HHKHH; compatible) or were a different type (CCKCC; incompatible). For the task, participants must exercise inhibitory control by ignoring the irrelevant stimuli (i.e., the outlaying four letters) and instead focus on the central stimulus.

Each trial consisted of a 1000ms fixation cross followed by the presentation of the 5-letter string. Participants were given unlimited time to respond, but were told to respond as quickly and accurately as possible. Accuracy and response times were recorded. Participants were given 2 blocks of 48 experimental trials to complete. After one block, participants were given a short 2-min break. The order of the blocks was fully counterbalanced across participants. In order to learn the response keys, participants were initially given 12 practice trials to complete. The practice trials were similar to the experimental trials but participants were given accuracy feedback (i.e., correct or incorrect response) after each trial. In the present study, the split half reliability for the Flanker task was found to be adequate (α = .42).

Means End Problem-Solving (MEPS; [ 15 ]).

We constructed a modified version of the MEPS using eight hypothetical scenarios (adapted from Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel, [ 23 ]). The scenarios consisted of hypothetical interpersonal problems that could be encountered by a student population, such as, your supervisor finding fault with your work or your housemates not doing their chores etc. The scenarios were matched on word count, openness, difficulty in solving the hypothetical problem and the number of consequences generated (see Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel [ 23 ] for more information).

Each scenario consisted of a problem and a positive resolution. During the consequence generation phase, participants were only presented with the problem and asked to generate possible consequences for the problem either being resolved or remaining unresolved. During the problem-solving phase, participants were presented with both the problem and the positive resolution and were asked to describe the steps they would take to solve the problem and reach the proposed resolution.

The number of relevant means taken to reach the proposed solution and the effectiveness of the solutions was scored by an independent coder blind to the participant’s group status. The number of relevant means was defined as the number of relevant (and detailed) steps taken to reach the proposed solution. Effectiveness was rated using a 7- point scale with 1 being not at all effective and 7 being extremely effective. Solutions to problems were considered to be effective if they maximized positive and minimized negative consequences [ 49 ]. A second coder, also blind to participant’s group status was employed to validate findings. This coder rated 30% of the proposed solutions. Inter-rater reliability was calculated through a Pearson correlation coefficient (relevant means, r = . 92 , p < .001; effectiveness, r = . 95 , p < .001). In the present study, the split half reliability for MEPs was found to be good (α = .70).

The study consisted of three sessions. In the first session, participants completed the MINI-Plus, BDI II, RRS and STAI. In the second session, participants were presented with six of the eight hypothetical problems. For each problem they were given 4 minutes to generate 4 possible consequences of the problem either being resolved or remaining unresolved. Consequences were defined as “the possible long or short-term outcomes IF the scenario was [or was not] resolved” . Participants were asked to make sure they did not attempt to solve the scenario but only list the consequences of it being resolved or remaining unresolved. For half the hypothetical scenarios, participants generated consequences for the problem being resolved and for the remaining scenarios participants generated consequences for the problem remaining unresolved. The order of scenarios was counterbalanced so that no two ‘resolved’ or ‘not resolved’ scenarios appeared together.

Participants then completed the problem-solving task which consisted of solving six of the eight problem scenarios. These consisted of 4 scenarios that participants had generated consequences for (2 resolved and 2 unresolved) and the remaining two scenarios that participants did not generate any consequences for (a baseline measure of problem-solving).

The allocation of the scenarios to the consequence generation (resolved and unresolved) and the problem-solving phase were fully counterbalanced across participants.

For each problem-scenario, participants were presented with the problem and the positive resolution and were asked to complete the missing part of the story. Participants were given four minutes to generate a solution. Participants were subsequently given a 10-minute distraction task which involved completing some math problems. Finally, participants were given a recall test for the consequences generated earlier. Participants were presented with the 6 hypothetical scenarios presented in the recall generation phase. For each scenario, participants were given four minutes to recall all of the consequences that they had generated previously (prior to the problem-solving phase). Participants were asked to recall all of the consequences as accurately as possible. Participants were asked to recall the consequences for the baseline condition followed by the unresolved consequences and then the resolved consequences.

In a third session, participants completed the executive tasks (the Emotional Stroop task and the Flanker task). The order of the executive tasks was counterbalanced. Furthermore, the order of the administration of sessions 2 & 3 were fully counterbalanced across all participants.

Group characteristics

The depressed group scored significantly higher than the non-depressed group on the BDI, t(36.39) = 17.33, p < .001, RRS, t(70.02) = 9.13, p < .001, and state, t(73.20) = 9.86, p < .001 and trait anxiety scales t(60.34) = 12.90, p < .001. There were no differences, however, between the depressed and non-depressed groups in terms of age, t(69.62) = .96, p = .34. See Table 1 .

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270661.t001

Social problem-solving ability: Relevant means

The mean number of relevant means (i.e., steps) taken to reach the proposed solution was assessed using a 2 (group: depressed vs. non-depressed) x 3 (condition: resolved vs. not resolved consequences vs. baseline) ANOVA. We found significant main effects of group, F (1, 77) = 33.66, p < .001, η 2 p = .30, and condition, F (2, 77) = 50.27, p < .001, η 2 p = .40. These were qualified by a group by condition interaction, F (2, 77) = 22.68, p < .001, η 2 p = .23, with the depressed group taking fewer steps than the non-depressed group in the baseline condition, t (61.36) = 3.32, p = .002, d = .76 and in the unresolved condition, t (67.54) = 7.04, p < .001, d = 1.60. There were no differences, however, in the relevant means between the depressed and non-depressed groups in the resolved condition, t (58.19) = 2.03, p = .047, d = .47.

Interestingly, we also found that the non-depressed group did not differ in the relevant means between the baseline condition and the resolved, t (42) = 1.25, p = .22, d = .24, and unresolved conditions, t (42) = 1.63, p = .11, d = .24. The non-depressed group, did, however, take significantly more steps in the resolved than unresolved conditions, t (42) = 2.36, p = .02, d = .46. The depressed group took significantly more steps in the resolved than baseline, t (35) = 3.47, p = .001, d = .57, and unresolved conditions, t (35) = 10.50, p < .001, d = 1.76. Depressed participants, however, took fewer steps in the unresolved than the baseline condition, t (35) = 6.29, p < .001, d = 1.12. We also investigated the effects of gender on social problem-solving, memory accuracy and on the Emotional Stroop and Flanker tasks. We did not find any significant main or interaction effects of gender on any of these variables, all p>.05.

Effectiveness

The effectiveness of the proposed solutions was assessed using a 2 (group: depressed vs. non-depressed) x 3 (condition: resolved vs. not resolved consequences vs. baseline) ANOVA. Our analysis found main effects of group, F (1, 77) = 11.35, p < .001, η 2 p = .13, and condition, F (2, 77) = 13.72, p < .001, η 2 p = .15. A significant group by condition interaction was also found, F (2, 77) = 3.96, p = .02, η 2 p = .05, with the depressed group less effective at generating solutions than the non-depressed group in the baseline, t (72.05) = 2.53, p = .01, d = .58 and the unresolved conditions, t (76.73) = 4.01, p < .001, d = .90. There were no differences, however in the effectiveness of solutions generated by the depressed and non-depressed groups in the resolved condition, t (72.73) = 1.0, p = .31, d = .23.

Subsequent analysis also found that the non-depressed group showed no significant differences in the effectiveness of solutions generated between the baseline and resolved, t (42) = .11, p = .91, d = .02, and unresolved conditions, t (42) = 1.58, p = .12, d = .30. There were also no differences in the effectiveness of solutions generated between resolved and unresolved conditions, t (42) = 1.32, p = .20, d = .26. The depressed group, however, were more effective at generating solutions in the resolved than baseline, t (35) = 2.49, p = .02, d = .39 and unresolved conditions, t (35) = 6.47, p < .001, d = 1.18. The depressed group was also more effective at generating solutions in the baseline than the unresolved condition, t (35) = 4.35, p < .01, d = .65. See Table 2 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270661.t002

Memory accuracy for consequences

In order to assess recall accuracy for the consequences generated, a 2 (group: depressed vs. control) x 3 (condition: resolved vs. unresolved consequences vs. baseline) mixed design ANOVA was conducted. There were no main effects of either group, F (1, 77) = .94, p = .36, η 2 p = .01 or condition, F (1.84, 141.65) = 1.64, p = .20, η 2 p = .02. However, a significant group by condition interaction was found, F (1.84, 141.65) = 22.89, p < .001, η 2 p = .23, which revealed that whilst the depressed group recalled significantly fewer resolved consequences than the non-depressed group, t (65.55) = 5.12, p < .001, d = 1.17. they recalled significantly more unresolved consequences, t (76.28) = 3.66, p < .001, d = .82. There was no difference, however, between depressed and non-depressed groups in their recall of baseline consequences, t (76.19) = .17, p = .87, d = .04.

Subsequent analyses also revealed that the depressed group recalled significantly more unresolved than resolved consequences, t (35) = 6.79, p < .001, d = 1.25, and baseline consequences, t (35) = 2.41, p = .02, d = .54. The depressed group, however, recalled significantly fewer resolved than baseline consequences, t (35) = 4.22, p < .01, d = .76. Conversely, the non-depressed group recalled significantly fewer unresolved than baseline consequences, t (42) = 2.21, p = .03, d = .36, but recalled significantly more resolved than unresolved consequences, t (42) = 2.84, p = .007, d = .74. There was no difference, however, between the non-depressed groups recall of resolved and baseline consequences, t (42) = 1.70, p = .10, d = .40. See Table 2 .

A 2 (group: depressed vs. control) x 2 (valence: positive vs. negative) x 2 (distractor: happy vs. sad face) mixed design ANOVA on accuracy was conducted. The results revealed main effects of valence, F (1, 77) = 27.60, p < .001, η 2 p = .26, distractor, F (1, 77) = 5.07, p = .03, η 2 p = .06, and group, F (1, 77) = 11.08, p = .001, η 2 p = .13. These main effects were qualified by a 3-way valence by distractor by group interaction, F (1, 77) = 5.26, p = .03, η 2 p = .06, with the depressed group recalling significantly fewer positive words superimposed on negative faces than the non-depressed group, t (50.97) = 3.48, p = .001, d = .80. There were no differences, however, between depressed and non-depressed groups in their recall for positive words superimposed on positive faces, t (40.65) = 2.07, p = .045, d = .48, negative words superimposed on negative faces, t (72.38) = .36, p = .72, d = .08 or negative words superimposed on positive faces, t (58.12) = 1.07, p = .29, d = .25.

Reaction time

A 2 (group: depressed vs. control) x 2 (valence: positive vs. negative) x 2 (distractor: happy vs. sad face) mixed design ANOVA found a main effect of group, F (1, 77) = 24.0, p < .001, η 2 p = .24, with the non-depressed group significantly faster at responding than the depressed group. We also found a significant valence by distractor by group interaction, F (1, 77) = 5.18, p = .03, η 2 p = .06, with the non-depressed group significantly faster at responding to positive words superimposed on positive faces, t (61.43) = 3.44, p = .001, d = .79, positive words superimposed on negative faces, t (71.42) = 3.14, p < .01, d = .71, and for negative words superimposed on positive faces, t (68.64) = 4.65, p < .001, d = 1.06 than the depressed group. There were no significant differences in reaction times between depressed and non-depressed groups for negative words superimposed on negative faces, t (75.17) = 1.25, p = .21, d = .28. We also did not find a significant effect of valence, F (1, 77) = 3.43, p = .07, η 2 p = .04, and distractor, F (1,77) = .42, p = .52, η 2 p = .01. See Table 3 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270661.t003

Flanker task

A 2 (group: depressed vs. control) x 2 (congruency: congruent vs. incongruent) mixed design ANOVA found a main effect of congruency, F (1, 77) = 16.35, p < .001, η 2 p = .18, with participants, overall, more accurate on congruent than incongruent trials. However, we did not find a significant main effect of group, F (1, 77) = .13, p = .72, η 2 p = .002, nor a group by congruency interaction, F (1, 77) = .39, p = .53, η 2 p = .005.

Reaction time.

A 2 (group: depressed vs. control) x 2 (congruency: congruent vs. incongruent) mixed design ANOVA found a main effect of congruency, F (1, 77) = 4.47, p = .04, η 2 p = .06. Overall participants were faster at responding to congruent than incongruent trials. However, we did not find either a significant main effect of group, F (1, 77) = .32, p = .57, η 2 p = .004, or a group by congruency interaction, F (1, 77) = .007, p = .93, η 2 p = .0.

The relationship between depression, rumination and social problem-solving

In order to determine whether there was a relationship between depression, rumination and social problem-solving, we conducted Pearson correlations. Our analysis failed to find significant correlations between depression, rumination and problem-solving abilities for the non-depressed control group; all tests p > .05. However, the correlations between depression, rumination, and the social problem-solving measures of relevant means (i.e., steps) and effectiveness for the depressed group were significant. These are presented in Table 4 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270661.t004

Regression analyses for relevant-means

Given that we found significant correlations between depression, rumination and social problem-solving ability in the depressed group, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted in order to determine whether rumination and depression predicted performance on the problem-solving task.

The analysis found that in the baseline condition (i.e., when no consequences were generated) depression predicted the number of relevant means, Beta = .55, t(35) = 2.78, p = . 009, with a significant model explaining approx. 26% of the variance (F (2, 33) = 7.16, p = .003, R 2 = . 30, R 2 Adjusted = .26). Rumination, however, failed to predict the number of relevant means, Beta = .01, t(35) = .03, p = .98. In the resolved condition, depression was also found to predict the number of relevant means, Beta = .56, t(35) = 2.92, p = . 006, with a significant model explaining approx. 32% of the variance (F (2, 33) = 9.11, p = .001, R 2 = . 36, R 2 Adjusted = .32). Rumination, however, again failed to predict the number of relevant means, Beta = .05, t(35) = .27, p = .79. In the unresolved condition, we found that both depression and rumination predicted the number of relevant means, (depression, Beta = .49, t(35) = 4.08, p< . 001; rumination, Beta = .46, t(35) = 3.83, p = .001). A significant model found that both depression and rumination explained approx. 74% of the variance (F (2, 33) = 49.57, p< .001, R 2 = . 75, R 2 Adjusted = .74).

Regression analyses for effectiveness of solutions

Regression analysis revealed that for the baseline condition, depression predicted the effectiveness of the proposed solutions, Beta = .49, t(35) = 2.77, p = . 01, with a significant model explaining approx. 43% of the variance (F (2, 33) = 13.95, p< .001, R 2 = . 46, R 2 Adjusted = .43). Rumination, however, failed to predict the effectiveness of solutions, Beta = .24, t(35) = 1.38, p = .18. For the resolved condition, it was found that both depression and rumination predicted the effectiveness of solutions (depression, Beta = .44, t(35) = 2.67, p = . 01; rumination, Beta = .35, t(35) = 2.12, p = .04). A significant model found depression and rumination explained approx. 50% of the variance (F (2, 33) = 18.16, p< .001, R 2 = .52, R 2 Adjusted = .50). For the unresolved condition, it was found that both depression and rumination predicted the effectiveness of the proposed solutions (depression, Beta = .47, t(35) = 3.20, p< . 01; rumination, Beta = .38, t(35) = 2.59, p = .01). A significant model found that both depression and rumination explained approx. 59% of the variance (F (2, 33) = 26.58, p< .001, R 2 = . 62, R 2 Adjusted = .59). Taken together, these findings suggest whilst depression predicts the effectiveness of the proposed solutions in the baseline condition, both depression and rumination predict the effectiveness of solutions in the resolved and unresolved conditions.

Regression analyses for consequences generated

Regression analysis were also conducted for the consequences that were generated. It was found that for the baseline condition (e.g., when no problems were solved) depression predicted the number of consequences recalled, Beta = .60, t(35) = 3.11, p< . 01. A significant model was found to explaining approx. 32% of the variance (F (2, 33) = 9.16, p< .01, R 2 = . 36, R 2 Adjusted = .32). Rumination, however, failed to predict the recall of consequences, Beta = .004, t(35) = .02, p = .98. In the resolved condition, it was found that depression predicted the number of consequences recalled, Beta = .44, t(35) = 2.34, p = . 03, with a significant model explaining approx. 34% of the variance (F (2, 33) = 10.11, p< . 001, R 2 = . 38, R 2 Adjusted = .34). Rumination, however, failed to predict the recall of consequences, Beta = .23, t(35) = 1.20, p = .24. In the unresolved condition, however, we found that rumination predicted the number of consequences recalled, Beta = .510, t(35) = 2.46, p = . 02, with a significant model suggesting that rumination explained approx. 22% of the variance (F (2, 32) = 5.79, p< .01, R 2 = . 26, R 2 Adjusted = .22). Depression, however, failed to predict recall of consequences, Beta = .01, t(35) = .04, p = .97. Taken together, these findings suggest that whilst depression predicts the recall of baseline and resolved consequences, rumination predicts the recall of unresolved consequences.

Emotional Stroop performance & problem-solving abilities

As depressed and non-depressed groups showed significant differences in only one condition of the Stroop task (i.e., positive word/negative face condition), we correlated depressed participants positive word/negative face accuracy & reaction times with relevant means, effectiveness ratings and recall of consequences across all three conditions: baseline, resolved and unresolved. The analysis revealed that Emotional Stroop accuracy performance was significantly positively correlated with self-reported depression and rumination, as well as with the number of means and effectiveness scores on the problem-solving task and the recall of baseline and resolved consequences. Furthermore, a negative correlation was found for the reaction times to the positive word negative face condition and self-reported depression, self-reported rumination, number of steps generated in the resolved and unresolved conditions, as well as, the effectiveness in the resolved condition. See Table 5 . We also correlated non-depressed participants positive word/negative face accuracy & reaction times with relevant means, effectiveness ratings and recall of consequences across baseline, resolved and unresolved conditions. This analysis only found a significant relationship between positive word/negative face reaction times and recall of unresolved consequences, r (43) = -.31, p = .02; all other tests, p > .05.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270661.t005

The impact of thinking about the consequences being resolved versus unresolved on social problem-solving

The aim of the current study was to determine whether thinking about the consequences of social problems being resolved or remaining unresolved would have different effects on social problem-solving in a depressed versus non-depressed sample. To this end, we presented participants with a hypothetical problem and asked them to generate consequences of the problem being resolved and remaining unresolved. We also took a baseline measure of social problem solving (i.e., where no consequences were generated). Our study found that the depressed group, compared to the non-depressed group was less effective at generating solutions and produced fewer relevant means in the baseline and unresolved conditions. These findings are consistent with previous research demonstrating that depression has a detrimental impact on social problem-solving [ 3 , 50 ]. The findings are also consistent with Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel [ 23 ] who found that generating the consequences of a problem remaining unresolved impaired social problem-solving in individuals scoring high in depression.

Interestingly, however, we found that there were no significant differences in the effectiveness of generating solutions and the number of relevant means between the depressed and non-depressed group in the resolved condition. Furthermore, we also found that depressed participants generated more relevant means and proposed more effective solutions to the problems in the resolved than baseline conditions. These findings are of clinical importance as they suggest that encouraging depressed individuals to think about the consequences of a problem being resolved prior to problem-solving enhances their ability to solve the problem. Given that research has found that positive problem orientation is an important factor for successful problem-solving [ 26 ], it is possible that thinking about consequences being resolved may naturally induce a positive problem-focused approach. Thus, this style of positive thinking may represent an effective strategy to improve social problem-solving in depression. Furthermore, the fact that depressed individuals were as able as non-depressed participants at generating effective solutions in this condition, suggests that depressed individuals may have intact social skills but, other cognitive-behavioural factors, such as excessive rumination or a negative-problem orientation may render them unable to select and implement these skills effectively.

Examining the relative contributions of depression and rumination on social problem-solving as a function of thinking about the consequences being resolved versus unresolved

The regression analyses revealed that whilst depression predicted the number of relevant means in the baseline and resolved conditions, both depression and rumination predicted the number of relevant means in the unresolved condition. These findings are partially consistent with Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel [ 23 ] who found that depression predicted the number of relevant means in the resolved condition, but only rumination predicted the number of relevant means in the unresolved condition. One reason for the discrepancy in findings may relate to depression severity. The present study consisted of participants that met the diagnostic criteria for clinical depression, whilst Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel’s [ 23 ] study consisted of dysphoric participants scoring high on measures of self-reported depression and rumination. Thus, it may be that more severe levels of depressive symptomology result in impairing social problem-solving abilities. This is consistent with research which has found that depressed individuals are less skilful then nondepressed participants in solving interpersonal problems and report significantly more difficulties in making decisions concerning interpersonal problems [ 4 , 51 – 53 ].

The fact that rumination predicted the number of relevant means in the unresolved but not resolved condition suggests that rumination, when triggered by negative thoughts or consequences, may represent an unsuitable problem-solving strategy in individuals with high levels of depression [ 54 ] and impair social problem-solving. This is consistent with research which suggests that although individuals believe rumination can help solve problems, i.e., by replaying the problem over in one’s mind and appraising it [ 55 ], when rumination is focused on negative thoughts, it can have a debilitating effect on social problem-solving [ 8 ] with individuals perceiving the problem as being more difficult to solve [ 14 ] and being less confident with the solutions they generate [ 56 ]. Thus, in the present study, when participants were asked to generate unresolved consequences, this may have triggered negative ruminative thoughts in the depressed group which led them to believe the problem was more difficult to solve. As a result, they took less steps to attempt to solve the problem.

The regression analyses also found that whilst depression was the only predictor for the effectiveness of the solutions generated in the baseline condition, both depression and rumination predicted the effectiveness of the solutions generated in the resolved and unresolved conditions. These findings are partially consistent with Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel [ 23 ] who found that whilst rumination predicted the effectiveness of the proposed solutions in the unresolved condition, only depression predicted the effectiveness of the solutions in the resolved condition.

One reason why rumination predicted the effectiveness of the proposed solutions in the resolved condition in this study but not Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel’s [ 23 ] study may relate to depression severity and the relationship between rumination and depressive symptoms. Research has found that rumination is associated with more severe and longer episodes of depression [ 57 ] and also predicts the onset of depressive episodes as well as their severity and duration [ 58 – 60 ]. It is important to mention that in Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel’s [ 23 ] study participants had moderate levels of depressive symptoms whilst in this study participants met a diagnostic criterion for depression. Therefore, it is possible that when individuals have moderate levels of depression, ruminative thinking is only triggered when negative information is presented. However, with more severe depression it is possible that both positive and negative information may trigger ruminative thinking. This is consistent with research which suggests that when currently depressed individuals recall positive memories their mood worsens [ 61 ], but when the positive memories are consistent with current view of the self then their mood improves [ 62 ]. Thus, recalling positive memories that are discrepant with current views of the self, worsens mood. It is possible that when depressed individuals think about the resolved consequences they might begin to ruminate about how positive resolution is discrepant with their current situation where they may have interpersonal difficulties. Future research should examine the self-relevancy of the problems to provide further insight on this issue.

The finding that rumination predicts the effectiveness of the solutions is consistent with a large body of research which has found that rumination hampers depressed individual’s problem orientation and problem-solving skills [ 14 , 63 ]; see Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco & Lyubomirsky [ 64 ] for a comprehensive review). Lyubomirsky & Nolen-Hoeksema [ 12 ], for example, found that by manipulating dysphoric participants response style by encouraging them to focus on their mood state impaired their ability to solve problems on the MEPS compared to dysphoric participants who were distracted from thinking about their mood state [ 14 ]. Taken together, these findings suggest that rumination may account for the deficits in social problem-solving in individuals high in depression.

The fact that our study found that depression, independent of rumination impaired social problem-solving in the unresolved condition may relate to the severity of depressive symptomology. Previous research has found that rumination, rather than depression impaired social problem-solving in individuals with high self-reported levels of depressive symptoms (Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel, [ 23 ]). Given that individuals who took part in the present study met the diagnostic criteria for clinical depression, it is possible that generating consequences for a problem remaining unresolved impairs social problem-solving in only those individuals that have more severe levels of depression. This is consistent with research which suggests that increased severity of depression is related to greater impairments in overall cognitive ability [ 65 ].

Impact of consequence instruction on recall of consequences

We also found that depressed participants recalled significantly more consequences in the unresolved than resolved and baseline conditions. In contrast the non-depressed controls retrieved more resolved than non-resolved consequences. One reason for these findings may relate to the valence of the consequences generated. Participants generated more positive consequences of the problem being resolved and more negative consequences of the problem remaining unresolved. These findings are consistent with research on mood congruency effects which suggests that depressed individuals exhibit enhanced memory for negative material whilst healthy individuals demonstrate the opposite pattern with a memory bias for positive material ([ 66 , 67 ]; see also Matt, Vazquez & Campbell, [ 68 ]) for a review of the early work in the area).

Alternatively, it is possible that depressed individuals may recall more unresolved consequences and be impaired at social problem-solving due to impaired inhibitory control. Indeed, it is possible that generating the consequences of a problem remaining unresolved encourages depressed individuals to ruminate on these consequences. As a result, they may mentally fixate on these items which subsequently impedes the generation of appropriate solutions. This is consistent with research finding that problem-solving relies on the ability to generate appropriate solutions whilst inhibiting inappropriate responses [ 69 , 70 ].

The role of inhibitory control in social problem-solving

The role of inhibitory control in impairing problem-solving is supported by the present findings. Our findings on the Emotional Stroop task revealed that depressed participants were significantly slower and less accurate at responding in the positive word/negative face condition compared to non-depressed participants. Furthermore, we also found that in the depressed group accuracy in this condition was positively correlated with the number of relevant means and the effectiveness of solutions generated on the problem-solving task, as well as self-reported rumination and depression. For response times, however, the opposite pattern of findings was observed with reaction times negatively correlated with the number of relevant means and the effectiveness of solutions generated on the problem-solving task, as well as self-reported rumination and depression. Given that the Stroop task is a measure of sustained attention and the depressed participants showed impairments in the incongruent (positive word/sad face) condition, suggests that depression is associated with an impaired ability to inhibit negative interfering information.

Interestingly, we found no effects of depression on the flanker test which was a measure of inhibitory control of non-valanced material. These findings are consistent with research which has found that both depression and rumination are associated with impairments in tasks that require inhibition of affective content [ 36 , 71 , 72 ]. Indeed, according to Koster, De Lissnyder, Derakshan & De Raedt [ 73 ], difficulty disengaging from negative material increases one’s susceptibility to rumination. Thus, it is possible that impaired cognitive control in depression leads to individuals ruminating on unresolved consequences which subsequently impairs problem-solving and leads to enhanced recall of the unresolved consequences.

Clinical implications

It is important to highlight that our findings have potentially useful clinical implications. The fact that depressed participants showed no deficits at solving social problems compared non-depressed participants when resolved consequences were generated suggests that this may be an effective strategy to improve social problem-solving. Indeed, it is possible that generating resolved consequences results in a more a positive problem orientation style, which is a belief that social problems can be solved with a positive outcome. As positive problem orientation is conceptualised as an adaptive problem-solving strategy (see D’Zurilla & Nezu [ 26 ] for a review), these findings suggest that generating resolved consequences may aid social problem-solving in depression. Furthermore, the fact that positive problem orientation is significantly related to good psychological health, such as adaptive behaviour, positive mood, life satisfaction, and a higher level of subjective well-being [ 25 ], generating resolved consequences prior to problem-solving may actually help to reduce or alleviate sad mood in depression. Future research may wish to investigate the impact of generating resolved consequences on depressed participants subsequent mood and well-being in a therapeutic context. It is important to mention that there may also be other benefits of thinking about the problem being resolved prior to problem-solving. One possibility is that having a more positive problem orientation may encourage greater motivation in thinking about strategies for solving problems. Increasing motivation has been identified as an important factor for increasing engagement with coping strategies that can reduce depression [ 74 ]. Thus, it may be that focusing on thinking about the consequences of a problem being resolved positively increases motivation to engage in more active problem- solving strategies. Future research should look at changes in motivation for solving problems as a function of thinking about the consequences in depression. Another benefit of thinking about the generation of positive consequences is that it might encourage more positive goal-directed imagination. There is evidence that positive goal-directed imagination predicts well-being even after controlling for baseline levels of mental health [ 75 ]. Given that therapists often ask their clients to describe current problems, encouraging them to think about positive resolutions before they think about how to solve the problem could be important to improve not only social problem-solving specifically, but well-being more generally.

Furthermore, given that our findings suggest that poorer inhibitory control on the Stroop task is related to less effective problem solutions in the depressed group, it suggests that interventions such as mindfulness -based interventions (MBI) which influence inhibitory control might be useful for improving problem solving performance in depression. Mindfulness is a form of meditation that involves sustaining attentional focus on a chosen object (e.g., part of your body, sounds, specific thoughts or your breathing) and returning it to this anchor every time your mind starts to wander [ 76 ]. Research has found that mindfulness meditation is effective at enhancing executive control ([ 77 – 79 ]; for a review see Casedas, Pirrucio, Vadillo, [ 80 ]) with inhibitory control being the most consistent executive function that is improved by mindfulness mediation training [ 78 ]. With improved inhibitory control, depressed individuals may more effective at ignoring inappropriate and negative interfering thoughts from memory when trying to generate effective solutions to social-problems Future research should examine the impact of mindfulness on inhibitory control and its subsequent impact on social problem-solving.

Limitations

It is important to mention however that the study does have some limitations. Firstly, although the study used participants that met the diagnostic criteria for clinical depression on the MINI Plus, participants were not clinically diagnosed with depression by a medical professional. Therefore, it is possible that the present findings may not be generalizable to clinically diagnosed depressed individuals. It is, however, important to mention that the MINI Plus is a structured diagnostic tool that is compatible with the diagnostic criteria of DSM-5 and is commonly used in clinical research. Furthermore, the fact that our findings of impaired social problem solving are consistent with previous studies [ 8 ] that have used clinically diagnosed depressed patients also supports the notion that our participants disorder related level of impairment is comparable to clinically depressed patients. It is also worth noting that our participants were also largely university students and therefore may not represent the general population. This is especially true of our depressed sample. By using university students, however, our depressed and non-depressed participants did not differ significantly in age or level of education, thus any differences across groups for social problem solving or inhibitory measures cannot be attributed to these factors. It is also worth noting that there are significantly higher rates of depression in university students compared to the general population [ 81 ], thus, making this population important to study.

An additional limitation concerns determining the impact of depression on social problem-solving relative to other mental disorders. There is evidence that social problem -solving is also impaired by other mental health disorders, such as, social anxiety disorder [ 82 ], eating disorders [ 83 ] and schizophrenia [ 84 ], which can co-occur with depression. In the present study we could not address this issue as we screened our participants for other psychological disorders. Therefore, the present findings cannot be attributed to the presence of any comorbid disorders. Nonetheless, future research may wish to use a larger and more clinically diverse sample size to explore the impact of comorbid disorders on social problem solving. Another limitation of the current study is that we did not ask participants whether they were currently on any psychopharmacological treatments for their depression. Indeed, it is possible that psychopharmacological treatments for depression may lead to individuals demonstrating a different pattern of findings on social problem solving and rumination. Thus, future research may wish to report whether participants are on any treatments and whether this impacts rumination and social problem solving. A final limitation is that the study was not preregistered, however it is important to note that the study predictions were based on robust previous research findings (Noreen, Whyte & Dritschel, [ 23 ]).

In conclusion, our study has found that depressed participants have intact social problem-solving skills when solving problems that they have previously generated resolved consequences for. We also found that depressed participants recalled significantly more consequences in the unresolved than resolved and baseline conditions. These findings suggest that encouraging depressed individuals to think about the consequences of a problem being resolved may be an effective strategy to improve social problem-solving skills in depression. Furthermore, we also found that depressed participants had difficulty disengaging from negative interfering material on an Emotional Stroop task, providing support for an impaired inhibitory control account of social problem-solving in depression. These findings advance our understanding of social problem-solving in depression by providing a more nuanced understanding of the mechanisms underpinning social problem-solving difficulties and have implications for therapeutic interventions.

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Children’s social problem-solving skills in playing videogames and traditional games: A systematic review

• Published: 22 February 2023
• Volume 28 , pages 11679–11712, ( 2023 )

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• Eyüp Yılmaz   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0336-1747 1 &
• Mark D. Griffiths   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524 2  

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Playing games can be one of the most important activities for children to improve their social problem-solving (SPS) skills. Studies that have examined the empirical evidence of playing games concerning children’s SPS skills have tended to focus on the function of a single game. Therefore, an overview study is needed to generalize the data by the game content and production purpose. Twelve databases were systematically searched. Four basic criteria were sought for studies to be included. A total of 35 studies meeting all the inclusion criteria were reviewed. The results showed that (i) experimental designs were the most utilized, and (ii) more studies using active control groups are needed to compare the effectiveness of the game playing. In non-traditional games research, half of the videogames used in the studies reviewed and classified, were primarily produced for educational purposes, followed by serious games (30%) and entertainment games (20%). These three types of videogames were effective in promoting children’s SPS skills. Moreover, simulation games were the most preferred videogame genre utilized by the researchers. In studies using videogames, children’s SPS skills did not differ significantly by gender, whereas in a study using traditional games (non-video games), male participants’ problem-solving ability progressed significantly more than that of females. Almost all the studies concluded that playing both videogames and traditional games positively influenced children’s SPS skills. However, only three studies utilizing traditional games were conducted during the two-decade period (2000–2019) and more studies are needed for comparable and generalizable results.

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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article (Appendix Table 2 ).

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Yılmaz, E., Griffiths, M.D. Children’s social problem-solving skills in playing videogames and traditional games: A systematic review. Educ Inf Technol 28 , 11679–11712 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11663-2

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12 Best Social Skills Activities for Kids of All Ages

1. Online Social Skill Games

2. show and tell with a twist , 3. “would you rather” questions, 4. puppet role-playing, 5. building blocks, 6. “feeling faces” mirror game, 7. telephone tag with a twist, 8. story time with feeling discussion, 9. board games, 10. group art project.

Have you ever wondered how well your child gets along with other kids? Strong social skills are what help children make friends, do well in school, and feel happy and confident.  In this blog, we’ll explore 12 fun and engaging social skills activities you can do with your child or students!

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A. Polyword Game

Polyword game is an interactive online multiplayer game where kids can have fun while improving their vocabulary and spelling skills. Players take turns forming words using a set of given letters, competing against friends or other players. How it helps: With various difficulty levels and engaging gameplay, it’s a great way for kids to enhance their language and social skills.

B. Two of a Kind

In this fun game, the goal is simple: match pairs of cards with similar images or words. With colorful graphics and easy-to-understand rules, it’s perfect for fostering teamwork and cognitive skills in children. How it helps: Whether playing with siblings or classmates, Two of a Kind promises hours of fun and learning. Additionally, it enhances memory and concentration abilities, vital for socializing and learning in various settings.

Looking for a more engaging way to practice communication in a group setting?  In this twist on Show and Tell, children bring an object from home.  However, they can’t reveal what it is! Instead, they must describe the object using its features, size, texture, or sound it makes.  The other players ask questions to try and guess the object. 

How it helps:  Children learn to express themselves clearly using details, while others hone their listening and questioning skills.

Would you rather game is one of the most thought-provoking social skills activities for kindergarteners to get them talking and considering different perspectives.  Take turns asking each other “Would you rather…” questions that have two silly or interesting options.  For example, “Would you rather fly or be invisible?” Encourage children to explain why they would choose one option over the other.

How it helps:  Children practice expressing their opinions and reasoning while also learning to see things from another person’s perspective.

Help your child develop their conflict resolution skills with some fun puppet role-playing.  Create scenarios with puppets where children need to resolve conflicts.  This could involve sharing toys, taking turns on the playground, or dealing with hurt feelings.  Encourage your child to act out different ways to handle the situation and discuss the outcome of each scenario.   

How it helps:  Puppet role-playing allows children to practice problem-solving and communication skills in a safe and controlled environment.  By acting out different scenarios, they can explore various approaches to conflict resolution and learn valuable social skills.

Building blocks is one of the best social skills games for preschoolers. Kids can take turns choosing blocks and stacking them together to build anything they imagine. They can talk about their ideas and work together to make their creation!

How it helps: Building blocks encourage teamwork and sharing as kids work together to create. They also help improve communication skills as kids discuss their ideas and make decisions together.

If you are looking for fun social skills activities for elementary students, here is a fun one. Make silly faces in a mirror together.  Ask your child to name the emotions the faces might represent.  For example, a furrowed brow could be “angry” while a big smile might be “happy.”  You can also take turns making faces and have your child guess yours! 

How it helps:  This playful social skills activity for preschoolers helps them identify and label their own emotions, as well as recognize emotions in others.  This is a foundational skill for building strong social relationships.

This classic game gets a makeover to focus on communication! Instead of whispering a message, have the first player describe an object in detail without saying its name. The next player listens carefully, then whispers their guess to the next person. Continue until the final player reveals the object. 

How it helps: This is one of the best social skills activities for students to practice giving and receiving instructions and actively listening to understand the message.

Reading stories together is a wonderful way to spark conversations about emotions.  Choose books with characters who experience a range of emotions.  As you read, pause to discuss how the characters might feel based on their actions and facial expressions. Ask your child questions like “Why do you think the character feels sad?” or “How would you feel if you were in that situation?”  

How it helps:  Engaging in discussions about emotions in stories allows young children to develop empathy and understand how their emotions and actions can impact others.

Board games are a classic way to have fun, but they can also be a fantastic tool for developing social skills!  Choose games that emphasize turn-taking, sharing, and following rules.  These are all fundamental aspects of social interaction. Many board games can be adapted for social skills group activities, making them a versatile tool for fostering positive social interactions.

How it helps: Board games provide a fun and engaging environment for children to practice turn-taking, sharing, and following rules, all of which are essential for building strong social skills.

Gather some art supplies like paints, markers, or crayons and a large piece of paper or cardboard.  Work together as a family or group to create a collaborative piece of art.  Discuss ideas, take turns adding to the artwork, and encourage creative collaboration. 

How it helps:   This activity is a great way for children to learn to work together towards a common goal and communicate their ideas effectively.

11. The Fort Building Challenge

Get some blankets, pillows, and chairs, and prepare for a fun social skills challenge.  The goal? To build the most epic fort together!  This activity encourages collaboration and problem-solving as children work together to design and construct their fort.  They’ll need to communicate their ideas, negotiate space usage, and solve any structural problems that arise.

How it helps:  The fort-building challenge is fun for children to practice teamwork and problem-solving skills in a creative and engaging setting.  These skills are essential for navigating social situations and working effectively with others.

12. “Simon Says” Gets Social

Give the classic game “Simon Says” a social twist to add a fun element to social development activities!  Instead of just physical actions, incorporate social actions like “Simon Says give a compliment to someone” or “Simon Says introduce yourself to someone new.” 

How it helps:  This twist on “Simon Says” injects a dose of social interaction into a familiar game.  It allows children to practice important social skills like giving compliments and introducing themselves in a safe and playful environment.

Helping your child develop strong social skills is an important part of their growth. By incorporating fun activities like these into your daily routines, you can equip them with the tools they need to navigate friendships, manage emotions, and build strong relationships. So have fun exploring these activities together and watch your child blossom!

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21 Mental Shifts to Boost Problem-Solving Skills and Become More Strategic

Posted: February 10, 2024 | Last updated: February 10, 2024

Discover transformative mental shifts to supercharge your problem-solving skills. From embracing uncertainty to the power of daydreaming, prepare to change the way you tackle challenges forever!

Embrace Uncertainty

Accept that not all answers are immediately clear. Uncertainty can be a powerful motivator rather than a source of stress. By embracing the unknown, we open ourselves up to a broader range of possibilities and solutions.

Seek Diverse Perspectives

Look beyond your own experiences. Different perspectives can provide unique insights and spark innovative solutions. Engaging with people from various backgrounds allows you to see problems through a new lens and discover paths you might not have considered.

Simplify the Complex

Break down big problems into smaller, manageable parts. When faced with a complex issue, deconstruct it to understand its fundamental components. This approach makes the problem less daunting and easier to tackle, leading to clearer, more effective solutions.

Adopt a Growth Mindset

Believe in your ability to learn and grow. A growth mindset encourages resilience and the pursuit of knowledge. Challenges are just undiscovered opportunities with potential for personal and professional development.

Question Assumptions

Challenge the status quo. The barriers to solving a problem are often based on outdated or incorrect assumptions. By questioning the basis of your thinking, you can uncover new paths and innovative solutions.

Think in Reverse

Start with the desired outcome and work backward. This reverse-engineering approach forces you to think differently and can reveal insights you might have missed when approaching the problem linearly.

Embrace Failure as a Teacher

Learn from mistakes and change your perspective. Nobody likes to fail, but each failure provides valuable lessons that can guide future decisions and strategies. Failure isn’t the end but the beginning of understanding.

Harness the Power of Daydreaming

Let your mind wander. Sometimes, the best ideas come when you’re not actively trying to solve a problem. Allowing your mind to drift can lead to creative breakthroughs and unexpected solutions.

Practice Empathy

Understand others’ perspectives and needs. By putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, you can gain insights into the emotional and practical aspects of a problem, leading to more compassionate and effective solutions.

Set Clear Goals

Define what success looks like. Clear goals provide direction and focus, making identifying the steps needed to solve a problem easier. They also help measure progress and keep you motivated.

Stay Curious

Ask questions and seek knowledge. A curious mind is always looking for new information and ideas, which can lead to innovative problem-solving strategies. Curiosity is the engine of achievement.

Use Analogies

Draw parallels from different areas. Analogies can help clarify complex problems by relating them to something more familiar. This can simplify the problem-solving process and spark creative solutions.

Focus on the Process, Not Just the Outcome

Enjoy the journey of problem-solving. Focusing too much on the end result can lead to frustration and missed opportunities. By valuing the process, you can learn and adapt as you go, leading to more sustainable solutions.

Prioritize Effectively

Set deadlines for achieving your goals. Know what matters most. Not all aspects of a problem are equally important. By prioritizing the key factors, you can allocate your time and resources more effectively and achieve better results.

Build Resilience

Give yourself time to recover, then bounce back from setbacks. Resilience is crucial for problem-solving, as it allows you to keep going despite challenges and failures. Resilience turns problems into opportunities.

Cultivate Patience

Give solutions time to unfold. Sometimes, the best solutions emerge over time, and immediate answers aren’t always the best. Patience allows you to thoroughly explore options and make more considered decisions.

Practice Reflection

Don’t overlook the power of self-reflection. Take time to think about what you’ve learned. Reflecting on your experiences and the outcomes of your problem-solving efforts can provide valuable insights and improve future strategies.

Encourage Collaboration

Work with others to find solutions and share goals. Collaborating with a team can bring in a range of skills and perspectives that enhance the problem-solving process and lead to more effective solutions.

Visualize Success

Imagine the desired outcome. Visualization can be a powerful motivator to enhance your performance and guide your actions toward achieving your goals. Focusing on the end result in your mind’s eye can make it a reality.

Adapt and Evolve

Be willing to change your approach. The most effective problem-solvers are flexible and open to new methods and ideas. Adapting your strategy in response to new information or challenges can lead to better solutions.

Maintain a Positive Attitude

Stay optimistic and focused. A positive outlook can keep you motivated and open to new ideas. An optimistic mindset can also make the problem-solving process more enjoyable and less daunting.

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