poor social problem solving skills

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The Surprising Reason for Bad Child Behavior: “I Can’t Solve Problems”

By sara bean, m.ed..

What causes bad child behavior? James Lehman says it happens because children don’t yet know how to solve problems effectively.

To put it another way, they act out as an attempt to handle life’s problems. And they continue to act out, frankly, because it’s working for them.

But here’s the truth: If you don’t help him find a better way to solve problems, then the acting out will continue. And it will get worse.

Does this sound familiar?

• You tell your teenage son he can’t go out during the week, and he kicks a hole in the wall before storming out of the house anyway.
• You ask your preteen daughter to change her inappropriate outfit. She throws a screaming fit and calls you a b—-, all before 8 a.m.
• Your 10-year-old wants to watch TV, but he needs to finish his homework. When you put your foot down, he rages and has an hour-long meltdown that leaves you feeling frustrated, exhausted, and helpless.

The Types of Problems Kids Face

Keep in mind there are many different kinds of problems kids encounter, and each looks a little different in terms of behavior. These are the three main types of problem-solving challenges you might see:

• Emotional Problems. Everyone has moments of feeling angry, sad, frustrated, helpless, or excited. When you’re a child who hasn’t figured out how to deal with his emotions, having these feelings can bring on irritating or abusive acting-out behavior. For example, instead of dealing appropriately or even reasonably well with being told “no,” your child has tantrums, curses at you, yells, or punches holes in the walls.
• Social Problems. Some kids don’t get along well with others, particularly people their age. They don’t know how to introduce themselves to someone, how to say “no,” or how to handle it if a peer does something they don’t like. Bullies often lack social problem-solving skills and treat others poorly to compensate. A bully solves her problems at the expense of everyone else’s sense of security.
• Functional Problems. This is when your child has problems meeting responsibilities around the home, at school, or in the community. He might continually lose schoolwork, refuse to do chores, talk out of turn in class or talk back to teachers, and lie about having his homework done. For example, your son may lie and tell you he did his homework in school. The next day, you tell him you want to check his work, but he didn’t even bring it home. He says he forgot—another lie. Before you know it, the zeros are piling up, and he keeps lying about his schoolwork night after night while his grades fall lower and lower.

How to Teach Your Child to Solve Problems

The best way to start teaching your child better problem-solving skills is to have a conversation about a particular incident. Do this after things have calmed down and before you talk about consequences . Your goal here is to identify the problem, teach your child how to solve it, and then hold him accountable—not to punish him and make him miserable.

Find a quiet time to sit down with your child and talk. If your child refuses to participate without being abusive or refuses to participate at all, then put one privilege on hold until you get through a calm, cooperative conversation. Here are some tips to get you started.

Don’t Ask Your Child “Why” They Misbehave

“Why” invites excuses and blame. Ask deeper questions to identify the problem such as “What were you thinking when…?” or “What were you trying to accomplish by…?” This works well for both elementary school kids and teens.

Some kids, especially those in preschool and early elementary school, might have difficulty answering these questions. They may not know why they are misbehaving. If your younger child is over-tired and fighting with his sister, don’t ask him “why.” Instead, tell him why—tell him he’s overtired. Say to him:

“You’re not getting along with your sister because you’re over-tired. Go to your room, take a nap, and when you get up, you will feel better.”

Younger kids will develop the ability to talk about their thoughts more as they grow older. Be patient, take a break, and let your child think about things a bit more rather than pressure them to answer right away. Accept that they may not know “why” and deal in a practical way with the behavior itself.

Focus on One Issue at a Time

Talk about one problem and one problem only during this conversation. Don’t bring up something that happened two weeks ago or something else your child did today that upset you. If your child brings up another incident, let him know you will talk about that later. Tackling too many problems at once usually only results in frustration on your part because it’s overwhelming to address them all at the same time.

Identify Replacement Behaviors for Your Child

Talk about what your child will do differently the next time this problem comes up. Allow your child to try to come up with an idea on her own. Make some suggestions if she’s struggling. Perhaps you decide that when you tell your preteen daughter she can’t do something, she can go to her room and write in a journal instead of screaming and calling you names. Or maybe you decide that she might ask herself if it’s worth it to scream at you and call you names, or tell herself, “It isn’t the end of the world if I can’t wear this skirt to school.”

Don’t Accept Wishful Thinking Responses From Your Child

When you ask your child what he will do differently next time, many kids will give you an answer based on wishful thinking, such as, “I just won’t do it again” or “I’ll do better.”

Wishful thinking is a type of faulty thinking that indicates that your child truly believes he can just do something without really putting thought or effort into it. Get your child to be more specific. Ask him:

“How will you stop cursing at me? What will I see you doing instead?”

Be a Role Model for Your Child

Remember that kids study us for a living. If you yell and curse, your child will yell and curse as well. Act the way you want your children to act.

Observation is a key learning method for kids, especially younger ones, so be aware of this. You are the most important role model in your child’s life, even if he acts like you aren’t, so make sure to play the role well.

How Will I Know If It’s Working?

Many parents have unrealistic expectations about the problem-solving process. They talk with us in parent coaching after trying once, disappointed that it didn’t work and that their child turned right around and did it again.

This is extremely frustrating, but it’s no surprise. When kids are caught in the heat of the moment, it’s hard for them to remember that conversation you had a few days ago—or even earlier that day.

The replacement behavior you talked about is right there on the surface—it hasn’t sunk in yet. The negative behaviors that have become habits are like a well-worn groove, and it’s easier for your child to fall into one of them like they have a hundred times before. After all, these old, comfortable behaviors have been learned and reinforced for years, while the new behavior hasn’t.

Be prepared for the fact that you will need to be your child’s coach. Give him a brief reminder about what he’s supposed to do instead, and then walk away.

You also might need to experiment with several different replacement behaviors to find one that fits. For example, some kids cool down best with a bike ride or some exercise, and some like to listen to music in their room. Listen to your instincts—you know your child best, and you will find the right solution together.

Be Persistent in Addressing Your Child’s Behavior

This process isn’t always easy. There will be times when you take some steps backward, or maybe you’ll get off to a really slow start and won’t feel like you’re getting anywhere.

But rest assured that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve talked with many parents through parent coaching who felt hopeless and frustrated but were able to stick with it. I saw them make phenomenal progress with their child and themselves. They restored peace to their homes.

It’s important to focus on the positive and look for even the smallest improvements. Keep talking about what can be done differently and stay positive. Give your child some verbal recognition for noticeable changes and effort.

Incentive systems and reward charts are also helpful ways to reinforce replacement behaviors. Positive verbal recognition and earning incentives help keep you on track to create some long-term behavior changes. Continue to do your best and take one small step at a time.

Related content: Free Downloadable Behavior Charts

The reward? As you go through this process of having problem-solving discussions and coaching your child, you will see that he gradually uses those replacement behaviors more and more with less coaching from you. And as kids get better at solving various problems on their own, most will start to feel better about themselves.

As James Lehman says in The Total Transformation® , “you can’t feel your way to better behavior, you can behave your way to better feelings.”

Having strong problem-solving skills improves self-esteem. Kids feel good about themselves when they conquer something hard. And let’s face it: when kids feel good, parents feel good, too. It’s a win-win.

Like this article? Join the conversation below or jump to the top to share on social media.

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About Sara Bean, M.Ed.

Sara Bean, M.Ed. is a certified school counselor and former Empowering Parents Parent Coach with over 10 years of experience working with children and families. She is also a proud mom.

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Dear Parent Coach,

I am doing my best to help my son(13 years old)trying various of parenting methods, attented PPP, I've done SEN course, currently even studying psychology. Despite that my son is acting out exactly like his peers (sadly he is best friend with children who misbehave a lot). The major problem is him getting frustrated each time I am trying to explain something to him, he refuses to listen, sometimes calling names, once he hit me and than automatically said it was a joke. I set up limits but I can't use any form of punishment like taking phone for 2 h or switch off PlayStation as he will attempt to take it from my hand or not let me come even close to it. After his anger outburst I am letting him stay alone in his room to calm down and then trying to talk calmly about what happened but this seems not much result as he is getting frustrated even more cutting me off, shouting, calling names and making me feel miserable. After couple of cycles of trying I'm giving up. Than when he is seeing me sad(sometimes even crying) he is apologising but also always admit and talking about my mistakes for example when I shouted and I'm not supposed to. He is always talking back to teachers and trying to solve the problem immediately even if teacher is saying that they will talk later. It is making him furious and he is able to tap the door and leave the class. He is currently on behaviour plan(green) so there is a progress as he has been twice on amber and even twice on red, so there was a threat of exclusion from school for couple of days. It is very stressful for me as I am single mum worrying about bills and food, work etc. Sometimes I am not able to cope and feeling very down but I am repeating to myself I need to stay strong. In the past GP offered me talking therapy and again positive parenting programme which I did anyway but because I am working full time I am not able to attend all this support. If I made myself free I won't be able to pay bills. Is a hard situation.

Cathy My daughter is 14. I am a very protective parent. I am out of my mind right now. Over the past month I found out she stole 3000.00 from her grandma, stole 100.00 from sister, skipped school and has been doing dab, snuck out 3 times in the night and More I found condoms. She denied it forever and now she seems like she has no regret.

no thank u so much for this comment.

Rebecca Wolfenden, Parent Coach I hear you. It can be so frustrating when you discover that your child has lied to you, and it can be difficult not to take this type of behavior personally. As noted in the article above, kids usually act out because they lack effective problem solving skills, More and we encourage parents to view lying as a faulty problem solving skill. Lying is often used as a way to solve some type of problem, such as wanting to avoid a consequence, or to smooth over a potential conflict. It can also be helpful to focus less on the lying itself, and more on the underlying behavior, such as not following your rules around dating. For more tips on effectively addressing lying, be sure to check out How to Deal with Lying in Children and Teens . I recognize how challenging this behavior can be, and I hope that you will write back and let us know how things are going for you and your family. Take care.

Paigep If you raise kids from an early age to love reading, they will likely do better in school. Since the brain is 80percent developed by age three, make sure hat you read, talk, sing, dance and draw pictures with your young child. Children under 5 really shouldn't watch tv either. More Remeber that some kids have a more creative type of spirit and will do better at a school that is more creative and open minded. If your kid struggles in school, get them tutor. Don't allow obscene behavior or cursing and make sure that boundaries are very clear.

I have a 9 years old boy .he gets angry so easily

he doesn't like to do his homework. When i ask him to do homework he yells at me .he just like ti play and play .he doent like bed time he says i wish there is no sleep time .he always gets mad .when other kids do.esn't listen to him .iam so worried about him .what if he gets worse when he grow up

Many parents I have worked with have shared similar worries.

It can be easy to predict a poor future when your child seems to struggle with

everyday expectations. As much as possible, try not to worry about what might

happen in the future. Focus instead on what steps you can take today to help

your son develop better coping and problem solving skills as suggested in the above article.

Here’s another article

I think could be helpful: https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/end-the-nightly-homework-struggle-5-homework-strategies-that-work-for-kids/. We

appreciate you writing in. Take care.

No Where to Turn Dismayed Parent I know how you feel. I have a 16 year old son who has from the age of 5 been very defiant and destructive. For the last two years I have been fighting him about his school work and to no avail.  He only has 65 credits More so far.  Just recently I went looking for my laptop and no where was it to be found.  I also noticed that my emergency money was missing.  He denied it all.  That same day I noticed this I went out and bought a drug test and tested him when I got home from work.  It was positive for pot. I went into action.  I did not focus on the stolen money or the laptop (though I was really angry) instead I got him into a rehab program the next day and had my husband take him to NA.  Tonight was his first meeting at NA and when he came home he immediately went to his room and got his pipe and handed it to me.  I took him outside away from the other children and we talked.  He finally admitted that he had sold my laptop, his xbox, my nook, and stolen my money all for pot.  This was very new to me because out of all four of my children he is the one that always lies and will never admit to any wrong doing. My husband told me that all the people at the NA meeting told their life stories and how everything started with pot and then progressed onto harder drugs which destroyed their lives.  I did not want to break this new thing but I also did not want him to think he could get away with this either.  So I told him there would be a consequence (thank goodness that even though I took his phone away I was still allowing him to call his girlfriend for one hour every night).   I told him that for the next two nights he would not be able to use the phone to make that call. However, for coming clean at the end of this week he would get his phone back.  He accepted it with a little whining that he should not be punished for telling the truth.  This is from a child that has always used aggressive behavior to get his way.  He is well known to yell, call names, use foul language and destroy whatever is close by.  I have holes in my walls from his fist.  I am hoping I handled this correctly because the way I handled it was way different than I normally handle these issues.  Since I have been reading these articles I realized I punished harshly and long. To be exact this kid had been grounded for a whole year. By the way once he was released he went right back to his old ways. I was also on my way to doing it again but as I researched for ideas I discovered this site and though it goes against my nature I decided to try it out.  I held in my anger and listened to my son.  So now I want to learn more because I do know this is not the end and we as a family have a long ways to go. So to a dismayed parent from another dismayed parent you are not alone in this road of destructive behavior.  I hugged my son and told him that he meant the world to me and while he was under my roof he will obey my rules and I will not back down like before.

My 8 year old son showed his father the middle finger after he (dad) asked for the remote control. I was not at home when it happened. My husband (dad) says that it is the second time he has done. Well i am the discplinarian at home, but i am not sure what i can do about this What if he shows the teacher , other people the finger?

I am more frustrated with my husband's "relaxed approach".

I apprieciate all the answers.

Thanks for writing in with your question! Often times, behaviors

like what you describe are a child’s reaction to a limit they don’t like or

agree with. While it is disrespectful, we recommend not giving it a lot of

power by overreacting or giving consequences in the moment. What might be most

effective is to set a limit like “that is not ok”, and walk away. Later, when

the situation is calm, you can have a conversation with your son about what he

can do different next time, when asked to do something he doesn’t want to do,

instead of showing his middle finger. Often times, the less of a response a

behavior like this gets, the quicker it dies by neglect. I hope this is

helpful. Take care.

Marissa EP talemwam1

Thank you so much for taking time to reply. I really apprieciate it.

I have a 5 year old who is the smartest kid in his kindergarten class but he is also the most disruptive.

When he is at home or with one of his parents or grandparents he is an angle. I get compliments all the time over how well behaved he is. Once one of us are not around he is different.

He does things at school that he would never do at home, such as: throwing things in class while the teacher is talking, shoved a pencil in another child's mouth for fun, sword fights with scissors, takes his shoes off during story time...

Also he throws a verbal tantrum when he doesn't want to do work in class. He will yell and say that it is to hard but when I have him do it at home he is fine.

When he thinks he is in trouble at school he refuses to clip down and screams "No"... I talk to him every day about this behavior but every day is still bad for him...

I don't know how to get him to do the right thing when I am not around. I don't know what to do with my five year old!

@Helplessmomma5

Dealing with behaviors that occur outside of the home can be

quite problematic. A lot of parents have similar questions about how they can

influence their child’s behavior at school or other areas, so, you’re not

alone. The most important aspect of helping a child improve his behavior is

problem solving. As Sara Bean points out in the above article, the most common

reason that a child acts out is because he lacks the skills to effectively deal

with situations he finds upsetting or difficult. Including problem solving in

your conversations could be a big help. For example, when you get a report

about an acting out incident, you might ask your son what was going on before

the incident happened. You could also ask him what he was trying to do when he

responded the way he did. Once you have an idea about what may have motivated

the behavior, you can then help him finds ways he could respond differently in

the future. Another thing you might consider doing is implementing an incentive

plan that is focused on positive behaviors at school. He could earn a special

privilege when he has a day at school without any negative behaviors. Or, you

might utilize a more structured behavior chart where he could earn checkmarks

toward a bigger reward. For more information on behavior charts, you can check

out this article Free Downloadables! Child Behavior Charts: How to Use Them Effectively .

It includes templates that can be downloaded and printed off. I hope this

information is useful for your situation. Be sure to let us know if we can be

of further assistance. Take care.

He might just be, you know, 15.

I was the quintessential kid from hell -- merrily told my teachers I'd do my assignments and write the exams but felt my time would best be spent [not in high school class], went to waaaay too many parties and had the worst attitude ever. Why? Because, umm, I was 14, 15 and 16. There really wasn't anything anyone could do about it. My parent conceded that my attitude sucked but given that I'd completed the schoolwork/exams AND that the syllabus said 100% grades were based on written work (ie not being in class)... so the school ought to give me the grades I'd earned. All As.

I hated high school enough to leave early - with a 4.0 GPA. I started college at 16, graduated at 19 & had my Master's at 21.

(I didn't have a learning disability or mental illness, psychoanalyzing my awful behavior wouldn't have helped. There was no need to pathologize my obnoxious behavior... because I'd eventually outgrow it).

My 15 year old daughter solves her maths problems perfectly. However when she writes the final answer she writes it wrong.

Read more:  The Surprising Reason for Bad Child Behavior: “I Can’t Solve Problems”

alphonsacordeiro My daughter solves her maths problems perfectly. However when she writes the final answer she writes it wrong.

Responses to questions posted on EmpoweringParents.com are not intended to replace qualified medical or mental health assessments. We cannot diagnose disorders or offer recommendations on which treatment plan is best for your family. Please seek the support of local resources as needed. If you need immediate assistance, or if you and your family are in crisis, please contact a qualified mental health provider in your area, or contact your statewide crisis hotline.

We value your opinions and encourage you to add your comments to this discussion. We ask that you refrain from discussing topics of a political or religious nature. Unfortunately, it's not possible for us to respond to every question posted on our website.

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Disrespect... defiance... backtalk... lack of motivation...

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Backtalk... complaints... arguments... attitude... just plain ignoring you

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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.

READ MORE: Red Boost Reviews – Ingredients, Benefits, Pros and Cons

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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Teaching Social Skills to Kids Who Don’t Yet Have Them

Teachers: Do your students have trouble getting along with others — and getting along with you? Do you tell them to stop doing it — but they keep on doing it? Learn to understand and teach your students with social skills problems. Learn why they have these problems and how to teach them better behavior. Read about Social Skills training and the steps to follow in implementing it.

Do any of these comments sound familiar?

"I tell him to stop doing that, but he keeps on doing it. Darn. This kid must have been raised by wolves!"

"That kid knows how she is supposed to behave. She CHOOSES to misbehave."

"I ask him what he is supposed to be doing and he can tell me. He knows better, so why isn't he doing it?"

Yep. Some kids know "intellectually" what to do, but they've never "physically" done it before. It's difficult for all of us to all-of-the-sudden display a completely different behavior than we've been showing for years. Changing a habit is no easy task. To get an idea of what it's like, try this activity:

Do now activity (Yes! Right now.)

Cross your arms on your chest. Notice how one arm goes over the other with it’s hand tucked under it’s biceps (upper arm). At the same time, the hand of the lower arm has it’s hand resting on top of the biceps of the other limb. OK, now unfold your arms and switch their positions so that the one that was on the bottom is now on the top (and vice versa). All right. It took you awhile, but you were able to do it. Feel a bit uncomfortable and odd? Now, uncross the arms and fold them again in the new way. Again. And again. In fact, for the rest of your life, do it this new way. Don’t ever make a mistake or revert to the old way.

Think that’ll be difficult? Yep. Now imagine what we are asking our socially unskilled kids to do. We’re expecting them to immediately change a behavior that is indelibly etched into their brains, feels “comfortable,” and has been “assigned” to them by others who have labeled them as the type of person who “does that thing.” Kids who display the wrong behaviors as they interact with others will have a long and arduous path to travel as they work to change to “a better way.” Thank goodness they have a patient and supportive teacher like you. You’ll support them as they struggle to show the new behavior. You’ll focus on progress rather than perfection, seeing evidence of the new rather than vestiges of the old.

Why don’t our kids have social skills?

Social skills are those communication, problem-solving, decision making, self-management, and peer relations abilities that allow one to initiate and maintain positive social relationships with others. Deficits or excesses in social behavior interfere with learning, teaching, and the classroom’s orchestration and climate. Social competence is linked to peer acceptance, teacher acceptance, inclusion success, and post school success.

Many of our youngsters never learned “appropriate behavior” for social settings-situations in which they must interact/cope with others. Perhaps they did not receive this guidance in the home, either because of lack of training by elders or another system of values & behaviors being taught. Perhaps they did have good role models in the home and neighborhood who promoted “appropriate” behavior, but didn’t pick it up as well as most kids, just like some kids learn to read without formal instruction previous to school, and some need the structured process of reading instruction.

Displaying poor social skills is likely to get one rejected by others (other kids don’t like them and won’t associate with them). Others of our kids work hard to show the new and better behaviors they’ve been told to show, but are still rejected by others, perhaps due to past reputation or maybe because others don’t like the awkward and unsure demonstration of the newly learned behaviors which don’t appear “natural.” At other times, our pupils may still fail because they have difficulty monitoring and controlling their behavior when unexpected reactions occur. They misread social cues given off by others. For example:

• Not noticing the rejection actions by others that non-verbally/verbally say, “Get lost.”
• Viewing the positive social forays of others as being threatening. If rejected because of their behavior (past or present), they’ll rarely-if ever-get the chance to display the “correct” behaviors under naturalistic circumstances and fail to incorporate them into their behavioral repertoire.

Others of our kids will not respond positively to social skills instruction because they don’t see the skills as being necessary or useful. For example:

• assisting the teacher
• avoiding conflict with adults
• disagreeing in a non-confrontational manner

The behaviors they display now seem just fine to them. They obtain the attention, objects or power they seek.

A note to teachers of students with Emotional & Behavioral Disorders (EBD)

If you are a teacher of students with behavior disorders, are you teaching social skills to your students? Are you doing so in structured daily lessons? If not, why not? The defining characteristic of kids with EBD is their inability to build and sustain positive relationships. Kids with EBD are 3 times more likely than general ed kids to be rejected because of their behavior. It’s time to use more than point systems to “manage” the behavior of these pupils. We need more than “the curriculum of control.” We must teach the skills we wish to see.

What exactly is social skills training?

If our kids don’t have ‘em, we’ve got to teach ‘em. “Social skills training” is a general term for instruction conducted in (behavioral) areas that promotes more productive/positive interaction with others. We teach social skills to students who are, at present, socially unskilled in order to promote acceptance by teachers, other adults and peers. A social skills training program might include (among other things):

• approaching others in social acceptable ways
• asking for permission rather than acting
• making and keeping friends
• sharing toys/materials
• work habits/academic survival skills
• attending to task
• following directions
• seeking attention properly
• accepting the consequences of one’s behavior
• counting to 10 before reacting
• distracting oneself to a pleasurable task
• learning an internal dialog to cool oneself down and reflect upon the best course of action
• using words instead of physical contact
• seeking the assistance of the teacher or conflict resolution team

Examples of Social Skills for Pre-Schoolers

• Skills that will help in later instruction (example: listening skills)
• Skills that enhance success in school/daycare settings (example: asking a question)
• How to make and keep friends (examples: asking for something, asking others to play)
• awareness of own and other’s feelings (called “Theory of Mind” - being able to predict how others might feel in a situation and understanding that others might not feel as you do)
• coping with negative feelings
• Positive, non-aggressive choices when faced with conflict
• what to do when you make mistakes
• handling teasing and taunting

Social skills terms/definitions

Socially skilled: the ability to respond to a given environment in a manner that produces, maintains, and enhances positive interpersonal (between people) effects. Social competence: one’s overall social functioning; a composite or multitude of generalized social skills. Social competence can be improved by teaching social behaviors/social skills.

Steps to follow in teaching social skills

Essentially, we teach social skills like we teach academics. Assess the level of the students, prepare the materials, introduce the material, model it, have them practice it, and provide feedback. If you purchase a social skills curriculum, it will probably include an assessment device, lessons, and activities. Teaching is a matter of following the directions in the kit. If you’re on your own in developing a curriculum and devising lessons, here are the specifics:

Pre-teaching

• Select the students who need training in certain skills, via assessment.
• Identify powerful re-enforcers that will motivate the students to attend to lessons and attempt new behaviors. (examples: group and/or individual points, raffle tickets, progressively moving a paper dog along the wall toward a food bowl which earns a reward.)
• Identify and specifically define the target behaviors to be taught. Decide which behaviors are needed. Define them precisely so that everyone agrees on what is to be accomplished, or what the student will be able to do/show after instruction.
• Task analyze the target behavior(s), if this listing of sequenced actions is not done for you by a packaged program.

Teaching social skills

• Create groups of 2-5 youngsters with similar skill deficits. Small groups give students a chance to observe others, practice with peers, and receive feedback.
• Remove obstacles to learning (examples: close class door, remove corrections officers.)
• Meet early in the day so that kids are attentive and have the whole day to practice what they learn in your lesson.
• Introduce the program, it’s content, and why and how it will benefit them (examples: it will help them to return to general education classes, help them obtain and keep a job, result in less trouble with teachers/parents, impress their boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s parents when they meet them, be able to convince the police to let them go if stopped).
• Set up the rules and regulations. Identify the behaviors you’ll reward during lessons-one person speaks at a time, pay attention, be positive-all of which may need to be taught in the initial lessons.
• Teach the easy-to-learn skills first to ensure student (and teacher) success and reinforcement. Use the traditional teaching model of telling and showing them.
• learn what to do when you make mistakes
• role play at least two different scenarios, displaying right and wrong behaviors
• from oneself
• from the teachers
• Practice, practice, practice through homework assignments, review sessions, assignments to real life settings, and surprise “tests.” For example, your student has been learning to handle interactions with authority figures. Send the student on an errand and have an unknown teacher confront him/her, accusing the pupil of “forging” a hall pass. See if the student performs poorly, runs, is rude, etc. The teacher can then say, “This is a test. How did you do?”
• Teach to the high status kids in your group first. Have them demonstrate the new behaviors and be rewarded. Have your lower status kids demonstrate the behaviors after the leaders do so. Make sure the lessons are interesting and fun so that kids look forward to the lessons. Start the teaching of “following directions” by having them cook, make candy or do magic tricks. Then move to more school-based examples.
• practicing in different settings and under various conditions
• prompting and coaching the student in naturally occurring situations
• having the student submit self-report forms for each class period
• meeting with the student to discuss performance throughout school or life
• Monitor the behavior outside of the lessons. Keep track of the display of the behavior for IEP documentation, motivation of the student, etc. Have the student self-monitor/self-assess in order to build internal motivation/control.
• Recognize and reward its display in everyday school situations. When you see a good situation for a student to display a “new” behavior, prompt its use with cues and hints as subtle as possible, but as strong as necessary.

Example: Pedro is going to be congratulated by the principal for being the “most improved student,” with regard to behavior. As the principal approaches, the teacher whispers into Pedro’s ear, “Remember to wipe the booger off your finger before shaking hands with Mr. Yoon.” Wording for more socially advanced student “What do we do with boogers before we shake hands?” The student must decide on correct course of action.

Social skills training helps individuals make better choices in situations.

• saying please and thank you
• dealing better with anger and frustration
• asking questions appropriately
• accepting the consequences administered by the teacher
• accepting responsibility for one’s own behavior
• dealing with losing/frustration/making a mistake/insults in an appropriate manner (without yelling or physical aggression)
• initiating a conversation with others
• accepting “No” for an answer
• joining a group activity already in progress
• making friends
• complimenting others
• understanding the feelings of others (and accepting them as valid or OK)
• compromising on issues
• cooperating with peers
• coping with taunts and verbal/physical threats/aggression from others
• seeking attention in an appropriate manner
• waiting one’s turn
• asking permission
• avoiding fighting with others
• interrupting others appropriately
• showing sportsmanship
• respecting the opinions of others
• accepting praise from others
• apologizing for wrong doing
• familiar/family/friends
• same gender
• different gender

We want to strive for the lofty goal of all of our students interacting positively with others — particularly us! In order to promote more socially skilled and appropriate actions among our pupils, we must move beyond simply telling them to stop what they are doing wrong. While we might tell them which behaviors to avoid, we then need to teach them what they should be doing in those situations.

Sometimes, the process involves pre-teaching, in which we work to prepare a pupil for the change process through a discussion of the drawbacks of displaying the present inappropriate behavior (e.g., rejection by peers, penalties from school administration), and the benefits of adopting a particular replacement for it.

Humans show specific behaviors because there is a benefit to doing so. In order to fully convince the student to change his or her ways, the benefits of the new actions must outweigh those of continuing the old patterns of behavior. The new ways must also be viewed by schoolmates as being acceptable. Often, packaged social skills programs promote social actions that, while esteemed by adults, would never be shown by any socially accepted kids in the mainstream. In that case, becoming skilled in the new behavior does little to promote acceptance and positive interactions.

As with the teaching of academics, begin with the prerequisite skills and then move on to the more advanced ones. Your curriculum will be comprised of the skills that are most important to classroom decorum and your students’ social needs.

While the teaching of social skills consumes time during the school day, over the weeks and months we gain back lost academic instructional time as our students display more acceptable behavior. Our school life becomes easier and more rewarding. The same applies to the school-based and outside lives of our students.

Related resource from our partner: 

Treatment Options for Social Skills Issues (opens in a new window)

External related content

• 7 Principles for Serving Students With Disabilities and Intersectional Identities Through Social-Em…
• When social-emotional learning leaves out students with disabilities

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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.

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Are Young People's Social Skills Declining?

New research eases fear of technology’s negative impact on youth..

Posted April 15, 2020 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

For more than a decade, adults have argued that technology is having a detrimental effect on young people's social skills. New research may clear up this debate.

Theories about how children and teens have lost their ability to communicate effectively due to technology have become popularized and circulated widely on social media by authors with little evidence to back up their assertions. Research has reinforced this speculation too, including a UCLA study that conducted an experiment with 51 sixth-graders for five days, hardly a large enough sample for reliable conclusions.

One fact that most people agree upon is the importance of social skills to young people's life success. If social skills are truly declining, then researchers should be sounding the alarm. But are they? In the latest edition of the American Journal of Sociology , researchers compared parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of children’s social skills from data collected in three longitudinal studies (Downey & Gibbs, 2020).

This new study, led by Douglas Downey of Ohio State University, is the first to take a deeper dive into a large, representative sample of American youth during years when children’s use of the internet at home increased substantially. Aimed at answering the question, “Are children’s social skills declining?” researchers used statistics collected by the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of 1998 and 2010 and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. In all, more than 60,000 K-8 children were represented.

In each study, teachers and parents were asked questions related to children’s social skills, including their ability to form and maintain friendships, express feelings in positive ways, and get along with people different from themselves. The same questions were asked of teachers and parents over the 12-year span.

From 1998 to 2010, teacher perceptions of children’s social skills remained relatively unchanged, as did their evaluation of kid’s self-control . The same pattern of perceptions continued as children progressed through first, third, and fifth grades. In fact, teachers rated children’s social skills slightly higher in 2010 than in 1998.

A similar narrative was reported by parents. Parents rated their children’s social skills much as teachers had, with slightly higher evaluations at the end of the 12-year period than at the beginning.

The bottom line is that no decline in social skills was noted by teachers or parents during this period of increased internet activity.

Social Skills Are One Aspect of Thriving

While this new study presents a reassuring picture that social skills have not suffered as the result of technology use, it is important to note that sociability is only one aspect of thriving. Abilities like resilience , self-awareness, and resourcefulness, among others, play an integral role in child and adolescent development.

A growing number of scholars are studying these and other developmental attributes of thriving, including the potentially positive effects of internet usage on children. For example, researchers have observed how email and social media help students build and maintain social networks. New media can enhance existing friendships, negotiate parent-child relationships, and link kids to online interest-driven groups that boost their creativity .

Recent research about graphic animations (GIF’s) suggest these images can convey nuanced and complex layers of meaning that are not possible with text-only or face-to-face communication. Hence, studies are beginning to show that people may overestimate the negative consequences of technology, not only on social skills but in other areas as well. In fact, studies suggest that new technologies may be enabling more effective face-to-face connections.

Why Social Skills Are Not Declining

Downey and his associate reflected on the results of their study, asking, “Why did children’s face-to-face social skills not decline in the way most would have expected?”

They believe that “moral panic ” over the predicted consequences of new technology led adults to believe that children’s social skills were in a free fall. This belief implied the assumption that sociability evolves in a linear manner. For example, if one believes that more time on the internet leads to fewer face-to-face interactions, one might also believe a decline in social skills will follow.

Kids develop social skills in much more complex and nonlinear ways. The internet may reduce social skills in some ways and promote them in others. It is not a zero-sum experience.

A 1998 study initially showed a negative relationship between kids’ screen time and social skills, including an increase in depression and loneliness . A follow-up study by the same researchers in 2002 no longer found those negative associations. Why?

The change in data may suggest that as children have become more adept at using technology, the negative consequences have diminished. Rather than undermining social relationships, the authors suggest that “screen-based technologies may be better understood as providing a new platform by which children seek autonomy from parents, develop group norms and sanction peers, build and maintain identities, and in some ways, develop social skills.”

Based on this study, should children’s screen time be limited? If parents are concerned with a decline in children’s social skills, this study shows no evidence that limiting screen time would have meaningful benefit.

That said, there may be other good reasons to limit screen time. There are many differing opinions and research, including surprising insights from teens on the disadvantages of social networking and internet usage.

Downey, D. B., & Gibbs, B. G. (2020). Kids these days: Are face-to-face social skills among American children declining? American Journal of Sociology , 125(4), 1030-1083.

Kraut, R., Kiesler, S, Boneva, B., Cummings, J., Helgeson, V., and Crawford, A. (2002). Internet paradox revisited . Journal of Social Issues 58 (1): 49–74.

Kraut, R., Patterson, M., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukophadhyay, T., and Scherlis, W. (1998). Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? American Psychologis t 53 (9):

Miltner, K. M., and Highfield, T. (2017). Never gonna GIF you up: Analyzing the cultural significance of the animated GIF, Social Media1 Society 3 (3).

Uhls, Y. T., Michikyan, M., Morris, J., Garcia, D., Small, G. W., Zgourou, E., & Greenfield, P. M. (2014). Five days at outdoor education camp without screens improves preteen skills with nonverbal emotion cues. Computers in Human Behavior , 39, 387-392.

Marilyn Price-Mitchell, Ph.D., is an Institute for Social Innovation Fellow at Fielding Graduate University and author of Tomorrow’s Change Makers.

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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

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How to Teach Kids Problem-Solving Skills

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• Steps to Follow
• Allow Consequences

Whether your child can't find their math homework or has forgotten their lunch, good problem-solving skills are the key to helping them manage their life. 

A 2010 study published in Behaviour Research and Therapy found that kids who lack problem-solving skills may be at a higher risk of depression and suicidality.   Additionally, the researchers found that teaching a child problem-solving skills can improve mental health . 

You can begin teaching basic problem-solving skills during preschool and help your child sharpen their skills into high school and beyond.

Why Problem-Solving Skills Matter

Kids face a variety of problems every day, ranging from academic difficulties to problems on the sports field. Yet few of them have a formula for solving those problems.

Kids who lack problem-solving skills may avoid taking action when faced with a problem.

Rather than put their energy into solving the problem, they may invest their time in avoiding the issue.   That's why many kids fall behind in school or struggle to maintain friendships .

Other kids who lack problem-solving skills spring into action without recognizing their choices. A child may hit a peer who cuts in front of them in line because they are not sure what else to do.  

Or, they may walk out of class when they are being teased because they can't think of any other ways to make it stop. Those impulsive choices may create even bigger problems in the long run.

The 5 Steps of Problem-Solving

Kids who feel overwhelmed or hopeless often won't attempt to address a problem. But when you give them a clear formula for solving problems, they'll feel more confident in their ability to try. Here are the steps to problem-solving:  

• Identify the problem . Just stating the problem out loud can make a big difference for kids who are feeling stuck. Help your child state the problem, such as, "You don't have anyone to play with at recess," or "You aren't sure if you should take the advanced math class." 
• Develop at least five possible solutions . Brainstorm possible ways to solve the problem. Emphasize that all the solutions don't necessarily need to be good ideas (at least not at this point). Help your child develop solutions if they are struggling to come up with ideas. Even a silly answer or far-fetched idea is a possible solution. The key is to help them see that with a little creativity, they can find many different potential solutions.
• Identify the pros and cons of each solution . Help your child identify potential positive and negative consequences for each potential solution they identified. 
• Pick a solution. Once your child has evaluated the possible positive and negative outcomes, encourage them to pick a solution.
• Test it out . Tell them to try a solution and see what happens. If it doesn't work out, they can always try another solution from the list that they developed in step two. 

Practice Solving Problems

When problems arise, don’t rush to solve your child’s problems for them. Instead, help them walk through the problem-solving steps. Offer guidance when they need assistance, but encourage them to solve problems on their own. If they are unable to come up with a solution, step in and help them think of some. But don't automatically tell them what to do. 

When you encounter behavioral issues, use a problem-solving approach. Sit down together and say, "You've been having difficulty getting your homework done lately. Let's problem-solve this together." You might still need to offer a consequence for misbehavior, but make it clear that you're invested in looking for a solution so they can do better next time. 

Use a problem-solving approach to help your child become more independent.

If they forgot to pack their soccer cleats for practice, ask, "What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again?" Let them try to develop some solutions on their own.

Kids often develop creative solutions. So they might say, "I'll write a note and stick it on my door so I'll remember to pack them before I leave," or "I'll pack my bag the night before and I'll keep a checklist to remind me what needs to go in my bag." 

Provide plenty of praise when your child practices their problem-solving skills.  

Allow for Natural Consequences

Natural consequences  may also teach problem-solving skills. So when it's appropriate, allow your child to face the natural consequences of their action. Just make sure it's safe to do so. 

For example, let your teenager spend all of their money during the first 10 minutes you're at an amusement park if that's what they want. Then, let them go for the rest of the day without any spending money.

This can lead to a discussion about problem-solving to help them make a better choice next time. Consider these natural consequences as a teachable moment to help work together on problem-solving.

Becker-Weidman EG, Jacobs RH, Reinecke MA, Silva SG, March JS. Social problem-solving among adolescents treated for depression . Behav Res Ther . 2010;48(1):11-18. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2009.08.006

Pakarinen E, Kiuru N, Lerkkanen M-K, Poikkeus A-M, Ahonen T, Nurmi J-E. Instructional support predicts childrens task avoidance in kindergarten .  Early Child Res Q . 2011;26(3):376-386. doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2010.11.003

Schell A, Albers L, von Kries R, Hillenbrand C, Hennemann T. Preventing behavioral disorders via supporting social and emotional competence at preschool age .  Dtsch Arztebl Int . 2015;112(39):647–654. doi:10.3238/arztebl.2015.0647

Cheng SC, She HC, Huang LY. The impact of problem-solving instruction on middle school students’ physical science learning: Interplays of knowledge, reasoning, and problem solving . EJMSTE . 2018;14(3):731-743.

Vlachou A, Stavroussi P. Promoting social inclusion: A structured intervention for enhancing interpersonal problem‐solving skills in children with mild intellectual disabilities . Support Learn . 2016;31(1):27-45. doi:10.1111/1467-9604.12112

Öğülmüş S, Kargı E. The interpersonal cognitive problem solving approach for preschoolers .  Turkish J Educ . 2015;4(17347):19-28. doi:10.19128/turje.181093

American Academy of Pediatrics. What's the best way to discipline my child? .

Kashani-Vahid L, Afrooz G, Shokoohi-Yekta M, Kharrazi K, Ghobari B. Can a creative interpersonal problem solving program improve creative thinking in gifted elementary students? .  Think Skills Creat . 2017;24:175-185. doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2017.02.011

Shokoohi-Yekta M, Malayeri SA. Effects of advanced parenting training on children's behavioral problems and family problem solving .  Procedia Soc Behav Sci . 2015;205:676-680. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.09.106

By Amy Morin, LCSW Amy Morin, LCSW, is the Editor-in-Chief of Verywell Mind. She's also a psychotherapist, an international bestselling author of books on mental strength and host of The Verywell Mind Podcast. She delivered one of the most popular TEDx talks of all time.

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Home » Blog » General » Developing Social Problem-Solving Skills: A Guide for Elementary Teachers

Developing Social Problem-Solving Skills: A Guide for Elementary Teachers

Teaching social problem-solving skills is an essential aspect of elementary education. These skills not only help students navigate social interactions effectively but also contribute to their overall social-emotional development. In this guide, we will explore the importance of social problem-solving skills and provide strategies for elementary teachers to incorporate them into their classrooms.

Understanding Social Problem-Solving Skills

Social problem-solving skills refer to the ability to identify, analyze, and resolve social conflicts or challenges. These skills enable students to navigate various social situations, make informed decisions, and develop positive relationships with their peers. The components of social problem-solving skills include:

• Identifying the problem: Students learn to recognize and define the social problem or conflict they are facing.
• Generating possible solutions: Students brainstorm and come up with multiple solutions to address the problem.
• Evaluating solutions: Students evaluate the pros and cons of each solution and consider the potential consequences.
• Implementing the chosen solution: Students put their chosen solution into action and monitor its effectiveness.
• Reflecting on the outcome: Students reflect on the outcome of their chosen solution and learn from their experiences.

Strategies for Teaching Social Problem-Solving Skills

To effectively teach social problem-solving skills, elementary teachers can implement the following strategies:

Creating a Positive and Supportive Classroom Environment

A positive and supportive classroom environment sets the foundation for developing social problem-solving skills. Teachers can create such an environment by:

• Establishing clear expectations and rules: Clearly communicate behavioral expectations and establish classroom rules that promote respectful and empathetic interactions.
• Encouraging empathy and understanding: Foster a sense of empathy by encouraging students to consider others’ perspectives and feelings.
• Promoting effective communication: Teach students active listening skills, assertive communication, and conflict resolution strategies.

Explicitly Teaching Problem-Solving Steps

Breaking down the problem-solving process into manageable steps helps students understand and apply the skills effectively. Teachers can do this by:

• Breaking down the problem-solving process: Introduce each step of the problem-solving process explicitly, providing examples and modeling the process.
• Providing guided practice opportunities: Offer opportunities for students to practice problem-solving skills in a structured and supportive environment.
• Offering feedback and reinforcement: Provide constructive feedback and reinforce positive problem-solving behaviors to encourage growth and improvement.

Incorporating Cooperative Learning Activities

Cooperative learning activities provide opportunities for students to collaborate, communicate, and solve problems together. Teachers can incorporate these activities by:

• Collaborative problem-solving tasks: Assign group projects or tasks that require students to work together to solve a problem.
• Group discussions and role-playing scenarios: Engage students in discussions and role-playing activities to practice problem-solving skills in different social contexts.
• Peer feedback and reflection: Encourage students to provide feedback to their peers and reflect on their problem-solving experiences.

Integrating Social Problem-Solving into the Curriculum

Integrating social problem-solving activities into various subjects helps students see the relevance and application of these skills in real-life situations. Teachers can do this by:

• Connecting problem-solving skills to real-life situations: Provide examples and scenarios that relate to students’ everyday lives to make problem-solving skills more relatable.
• Embedding problem-solving activities in various subjects: Incorporate problem-solving tasks and discussions into subjects such as language arts, social studies, and science.
• Encouraging critical thinking and creativity: Promote critical thinking skills by challenging students to think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions.

Assessing and Monitoring Social Problem-Solving Skills

Assessing and monitoring students’ social problem-solving skills is crucial to track their progress and provide targeted support. Teachers can use the following strategies:

Using Observation and Anecdotal Records

Observe students during social interactions and make anecdotal records of their problem-solving behaviors. This qualitative data can provide valuable insights into students’ strengths and areas for improvement.

Implementing Self-Assessment Tools

Provide students with self-assessment tools, such as checklists or rubrics, to evaluate their own problem-solving skills. This encourages self-reflection and empowers students to take ownership of their social-emotional growth.

Collaborating with Other Professionals and Parents

Collaborate with other professionals, such as school counselors or speech-language pathologists, to gain additional perspectives on students’ social problem-solving skills. Communicate with parents and caregivers to gather insights from different environments and support students consistently.

Supporting Students with Social Problem-Solving Difficulties

Identifying students who may need additional support in developing social problem-solving skills is essential. Teachers can provide targeted interventions and strategies by:

Identifying Students Who May Need Additional Support

Observe students who consistently struggle with social problem-solving skills or show signs of social-emotional difficulties. Collaborate with other professionals to assess and identify students who may benefit from targeted interventions.

Providing Targeted Interventions and Strategies

Offer individual or small-group interventions to support students with social problem-solving difficulties. These interventions may include explicit instruction, role-playing, social stories, or social skills groups.

Collaborating with Parents and Caregivers

Involve parents and caregivers in the process of supporting students’ social problem-solving skills. Share strategies, resources, and progress updates to ensure consistent support across home and school environments.

Teaching social problem-solving skills is a vital aspect of elementary education. By prioritizing social-emotional learning and incorporating strategies to develop these skills, teachers can empower students to navigate social challenges effectively and build positive relationships. Start your EverydaySpeech Free trial today to access a wide range of resources and activities designed to enhance social problem-solving skills in elementary students.

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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
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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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Free resources, how social problem solving and social skills deficits in autism impact behavior.

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In this episode, I am exploring how social skills deficits, and specifically difficulties with social problem solving, impact the behavior of students with autism, particularly those who are working in general education classrooms. One of the areas that I see many students struggle with in schools is how to handle those situations that occur in recess, at lunch, in group assignments or other unstructured times when something unexpected happens. Those are the times that our students with ASD may respond in a way that makes sense to them, but may not always make sense to those around them.

Social competence, which is how I often refer to the larger approach to social skills, is a very huge deal. It encompasses a lot of different skills and abilities. Some of these are specific, definable skills. For instance, when to say hello to someone. But others involve more esoteric, less easily observed skills.

Episode 69 Highlights

In this episode, I’m talking about how deficits in social problem solving puts our students at risk for negative behavior.

I will also talk about why we need to look at social skills and social problem solving as part of our functional behavior assessment .

And why we need to incorporate social problem solving instruction into our students’ curriculum to prevent challenging behavioral issues.

Finally, I’ve got a free tool that to download in the post for this episode that can help to remind them of some social problem solving strategies.

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This week, I am exploring how social skills deficits, and specifically difficulties with social problem solving, impact the behavior of students with autism, particularly those who are working in general education classrooms. One of the areas that I see many students struggle with in schools is how to handle those situations that occur in recess, at lunch, in group assignments or other unstructured times when something unexpected happens. Those are the times that our students with ASD may respond in a way that makes sense to them, but may not always make sense to those around them.

The Student In the Gym

For instance, a student who found himself in a gym locker room unsupervised. Other kids were teasing him and giving him a hard time. He was feeling threatened and wanted them to stop. But he didn’t know how to remove himself from the situation or ask them to stop. He didn’t have the skill or know the right thing to do. So, he said something threatening that he had heard in a movie when someone was feeling uncomfortable. He told them he would come back and beat them up. They left him alone (so it worked), but they also told the principal and he was suspended. Knowing him, he had no intention to act upon that threat. But the other students and administrators wouldn’t know that.

It was poor social problem solving on his part. He didn’t know how to ask them to leave him alone or remove himself from the situation in a more appropriate way. He didn’t have social skills at his finger tips for handling that situation.

But he also couldn’t figure out why they were teasing him and how to address it. He didn’t have the ability interpret what they might be thinking. He simply didn’t have good social problem solving for the situation. And his behavior got him into trouble.

In this episode, I’m talking about how deficits in social problem solving puts our students at risk for negative behavior.

And why we need to incorporate social problem solving instruction into our students’ curriculum to prevent challenging behavioral issues.

Finally, I’ve got a free tool that to download in the post for this episode that can help to remind them of some social problem solving strategies. You can find that at autismclassroomresources.com/episode69.

So let’s get started.

The Impact of Social Problem Solving on Behavior

Students on the spectrum often have difficulty interpreting others’ behavior, predicting what others might be thinking, and determining that right action to take based on particular situations. They often struggle with reading the nonverbal cues of body language and tone of voice. And all of that together means that they can have difficulty knowing how to respond in social situations.

Like the student in the gym, that means that the way they respond to situations may not be the best options. These are students whose challenging behaviors are often more esoteric than just aggression. It might be categorized as a “meltdown.” Or it might be a group of behaviors that get conveyed as being rude, uncommunicative, shutting down, refusing to participate in activities, etc.

Sometimes these behaviors look just rude or antisocial rather than being a result of not being able to “read the room” or understand the social context. But they also sometimes lead to some big social misunderstanding that can get these students into bigger trouble.

The Importance of Social Problem Solving in Behavior Assessment and Support

Given the impact that social problem solving deficits can have on these students’ behavior, it’s critical that we address them in our assessments and interventions. That leads to two avenues.

In the FBA, we need to include a focus on their social skills and problem solving. We probably don’t need a formal assessment tool. But in our interviews and observations, we should be looking for how the student manages in social situations.

Then, in our interventions, we should be including strategies for addressing social problem solving. These are critical replacement skills given that some of the challenging behaviors may be the result of poor social problem solving and deficits in social skills. And we need to make sure that this training is intensive and not just happening as needed. If students are demonstrating challenging behavior, they need explicit interventions.

Teaching Social Problem Solving to Prevent Challenging Behavior

If the student’s behavior does not rise to the level of needing an FBA (yet), then we should be thinking about how we can prevent that from happening. Many of our students on general education standards don’t get social skills instruction because it isn’t part of their academic curriculum. But they will struggle in the long run without it. So we need to make it a priority. So here are 2 strategies that are fairly easy to implement in the classroom that can help.

Social Narratives, Role Playing, Reinforcement

Social narratives are one strategy that we can use to teach our students how to solve social problems. Narratives are like Social Stories™️ and are designed to describe social situations. The most important component of social narratives for these students are that they should highlight others’ perspectives of the social situation. They should also present options to the student about how to handle the situation and how those actions might be interpreted by others.

Social narratives are also used in combination with other interventions. They aren’t a quick fix that works on their own. I have had some students who respond really well to them. Others who didn’t respond at all. Typically, they have worked as a great way to introduce information to the students. But they aren’t necessarily the behavior change agent for instruction. That is going to take practice.

For practice we need to do role playing, practice, and feedback. We can use video modeling. Students can practice with others or with adults. And we need to reinforce them. So there is a lot of explicit instruction that needs to happen as well as part of a social skills curriculum. Tools such as Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking and Scott Bellini’s Building Social Relationships are both good resources for these.

Option Cards

And that brings me to a second tool that I wanted to highlight in this episode. Option cards are simply visual supports that remind students of what their options are. You know that student who always calls out whenever he needs help? He doesn’t know to wait his turn. Or he doesn’t know to ask a friend. And instead he’s always calling out in class and interrupting.

Option cards are a way of reminding him what he could do instead. So in the case of the interrupting student, you might have an option card that says, If I don’t know what to do, I could raise my hand and ask for help, or I could ask a friend. You can tape it to his desk or put it in his pocket or notebook as a reminder.

You can also use them to help prevent more significant challenging behaviors. So some students I’ve worked with have an option card that says, “If I get upset, I can ask for a break or get a fidget.” I’ve had option cards for students during PE that said, “If I lose the game, I could congratulate the other team or go get a drink of water.” The second option may not be the most socially appropriate, but it’s better than screaming at the other team and denying that they won.

And I have a free option card that you can download in the resource library. You can sign up and grab it at autismclassroomresources.com/episode69.

Other Tools

Obviously there are tons of other tools that we can use to address social problem solving, like contingency maps , some of the self-regulation tools I talked about in episode 67 and social skills instructional strategies. But the key is that we need to be addressing these issues for these students. Often times we forget that they need this as explicit instruction. And it’s not included in the general education academic curriculum. We need to advocate for the needs for these students to learn these skills to avoid behavior but also to promote success within and after school.

So head over to the website page for this episode at autismclassroomresources.com/episode69 to grab your free option cards and contingency maps. And if you are interested in learning more about how to teach social competency, we have a whole course on teaching the specific skills for all different populations, including autism, in the Special Educator Academy. So, come join us for a 7-day free trial of the Academy at specialeducatoracademy.com

And I would love to hear about how you teach social problem solving to your students. So if you are an educator, hop over to the free Facebook group at specialeducatorsconnection.com and share.

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Social Problem Solving – Toddlers

Social problem solving with toddlers.

A step-by-step strategy to help toddlers work through challenging social situations

Playing together is not always easy for young children. That’s because they are just beginning to develop the skills needed to solve problems with others. This strategy highlights three key steps for supporting social problem solving with toddlers.

Hallmarks of This Strategy

1. recognize the problem.

Narrate children’s actions and emotions to help them recognize when a problem occurs.

2. Model and encourage a solution

Propose solutions and allow children to choose how they would like to solve the problem.

3. Acknowledge children’s efforts

Let children know their actions helped solve the problem for everyone.

Introduction: Supporting Positive Peer Relationships

In this video, we explore the reasons why conflicts may happen in the classroom and introduce the three steps for social problem solving.

Scenario 1: Sharing Trains

In this scenario, two toddlers need some guidance and support to share a set of trains fairly. Observe how the educator uses the three steps for social problem solving to guide children to a workable solution.

Scenario 2: Taking Turns

In this scenario, two children are having a hard time taking turns with some tools. Observe how the educator models and encourages multiple solutions to help the children take turns with classroom materials. 

Scenario 3: Trading Chairs

In this scenario, one child becomes upset when another child has taken her seat. Notice how the educator helps the children navigate this unexpected conflict in a positive and supportive way. 

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