Social skills are the skills we use to communicate and interact with each other, both verbally and non-verbally, through gestures, body language, and our personal appearance. They are any competence that facilitates interaction and communication with others where social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. Social skills are used to communicate with others daily in a variety of ways including verbal, nonverbal, written, and visual. They include verbal and non-verbal communication, such as speech, gesture, facial expression, and body language. Some examples of social skills include persuasion, active listening, delegation, and stewardship, among others.
Developing social skills is about being aware of how we communicate with others, the messages we send, and how methods of communication can be improved to make the way we communicate more efficient and effective. Social skills are vital in enabling an individual to have and maintain positive interactions with others. Many of these skills are crucial in making and sustaining friendships. Social interactions do not always run smoothly, and an individual needs to be able to implement appropriate strategies, such as conflict resolution when difficulties in interactions arise.
The most commonly identified social skills in Western cultures include assertiveness, coping, communication, and friendship-making skills, interpersonal problem-solving, and social decision-making. Social psychology, an academic discipline focused on research relating to social functioning, studies how interpersonal skills are learned through societal-based changes in attitude, thinking, and behavior.
