Lecture 9
Social Skills and Communication
Skills
Dr. Paul Wong D.Psyc.(Clinical)
E-mail: paulw@hku.hk
Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention (CSRP)
What is SOCIAL
SUPPORT?
Structure
•
Size – the number of people with whom we have regular
contact;
•
Frequency of Contact – how often we see these people;
•
Composition - who they are;
•
Intimacy – the closeness of individual relationships and
mutual willingness to confide in each other
Functions
•
Instrumental support – e.g., finances
•
Informational support – e.g., giving advice,
directions, suggestions
•
Emotional support – e.g., expression of
empathy, caring, and concern towards the
person
•
Appraisal support – e.g., letting you know
what is right or wrong
Who don’t gets social support?
Recipients:
•
Unsociable
•
Don’t help others
•
Don’t let others know that they
need help
•
Not assertive enough to ask for
help
•
Feel that they should be
independent or not burden
others
•
Don’t know whom to ask
Providers:
•
May not have the resources
needed;
•
Under severe stress
•
In need of help themselves
•
Insensitive to the needs of
others
Does social support always help?

Social support does not always reduce stress and benefit health
because:
•
Although support may be offered or available to us, we may not
perceive it as supportive (it’s about perception, again);
•
The type of support we receive may not match the needs that the
stressors has produced ( I need money, not warmth and care).
•
Bad influences e.g., smoking and drug use, overprotective
Types of Relationship
There are different types of relationships

Self-love

Non-love relationships

Platonic relationships

Adult-child parent relationship

Romantic Love relationships
Self-love

to have a successful relationship with others, you MUST have a
successful relationship with yourself

If you don’t respect yourself, you won’t expect others to

If you don’t love yourself, in the sense of seeing yourself as
lovable, you won’t believe it when someone says “I love You”

My advice – to find out whether you love yourself or not:
Watch your self-talk when someone says “I love you” to you.
Non-love relationship

Likely to be your working relationships with many of the people in
your day-to-day life, people with whom you share no significant
intimacy. For whom you feel no passion, and have no great
commitment.

BUT, you may still feel respect for and you still need to be able to
conduct a successful relationship with

To have a successful non-love relationships, you may need to
practice assertiveness skills or conflict resolution skills.

This is an important relationship because it is a rich potential
source of new love relationships
Platonic relationships

Your friendships with other older adults
Adult-child parent relationship

Probably the most rewarding one
Love relationships

A love relationship includes:
•
Passion – is the motivational component of love, including
physiological arousal and an intense desire to be united with your
beloved.
•
Intimacy - including closeness, sharing, communication, support,
and the behaviours through which the two people express their
emotional interdependence.
•
Commitment - is the cognitive or thinking component of love, which
involves the initial choice to become involved with this person, and
then the repeated choice to develop and maintain that love
relationship by behaving in appropriate ways.
Robert Sternberg proposes that the 3 components singly or in
various combinations produce seven different kinds of love:

Liking has only one component--intimacy. Intimate liking characterizes true
friendships, where we feel bonded, warmth and closeness but not passion or long
term commitment

Infatuated love has only one component - passion and is often what we feel as
love at first sight - without intimacy and commitment infatuated love may
disappear suddenly

Empty love consists of the commitment component without intimacy or passion.
sometimes a stronger love deteriorates into empty love-the commitment remains,
but the intimacy and passion have died. In cultures where marriage is arranged,
relationships often begin as empty love

Romantic love is a combination of intimacy and passion. Romantic lovers are
bonded emotionally (as in liking) and physically through passionate arousal
Robert Sternberg proposes that the 3 components singly or in
various combinations produce seven different kinds of love (cont):

Fatuous love has the passion and commitment components but not the
intimacy. This type of love is often found in whirlwind courtship and
marriage where commitment is motivated by passion without the
stabilizing influence of intimacy

Companionate love consists of intimacy and commitment. This type of
love is often found in marriages in which the passion has gone out of the
marriage but a deep affection and commitment remains

Consummate love is the only type that has all three components intimacy, commitment an passion. Consummate love is the most
complete form of love and it represents the ideal love relationship for
which many people strive but few achieve. Sternberg cautions that
maintaining a consummate love may be even harder than achieving it
Social Skills and
Communication Skills
To begin a relationship, you need these two skills –
Social Skills and Communication Skills

Social Skills are used to mix successfully with people in social
situations, and through which you meet people, and make and
build friendships.

Communication is the basic process through which you share
feelings and information, reach an understanding of each other,
and solve the problems facing the relationship.

THESE skills are important and essential in human
relationships, but most of us have not been taught about
that. More, they are difficult to teach and takes time to be
good at them!!
Verbal and Non-verbal Communication

Verbal (10-40%)

Non-verbal (60-90%): ROLES
•
Relax
•
Open postures
•
Lean forward
•
Eye contacts
•
Square face
Social Skills

Initiating conversations – use more open-ended questions

Giving compliments – people like to be liked and are then more
likely to like you back

Receiving compliments – ignoring or belittling compliments
punishes the other person for trying to be friendly towards you

Accept silences – people often go silence because they are
thinking about something or thinking about what to say next.
Don’t jump to conclusion that the person doesn’t like talking to
you
The Ultimate Gesture

“Ultimate gesture" is known everywhere in the world.

It is rarely, if ever, misunderstood.

Scientists believe this particular gesture actually releases
chemicals called endorphins into the system that create a feeling
of mild euphoria.

This gesture may help you slip out of the prickliest of difficult
situations.

What gesture is that?
Communication Skills

Common obstacles
•
Judging - 總是論斷別人 (e.g., 標籤 診斷 批評)
•
Sending solutions too quickly – 急於告訴別人解決方法
•
Dogging the other’s concerns - 偏離對方關心的事
•
I’ve seen that! - 「我見得多呢！」
Words of cautions
This way of communication is used
when situations induce strong
feelings for you
The three components of communication skills



1. Levelling – telling the other person clearly and non-defensively how
you feel, or how you think about a particular issue
•
“When you did X (an observable behaviour), the effect on me was Y (a
behaviour/thought), and I felt Z (a feeling).”
•
E.g., “When you keep ringing me this afternoon, I couldn’t concentrate at
work, and I felt frustrated.”
2. Listening – actively trying to hear what the other person really
says. Remember: Don’t assume what you guess is what people are
saying.
•
If you are not sure, ask.
•
Try reflecting what you have heard.
3. Validating – accepts as true what the other person tells you about
her feelings, rather than denying her feelings, or insisting that she
feels as you would, or as you think she should.
What to do ?
Practice the social skills and pretend that
the tutorial is a place where you don’t
know anyone, AND you must talk to
someone!
Enjoy and have fun!!!
References

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Sternberg, R. J. (1998). Cupid’s arrow: The course of love through time. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Sternberg, R. J. (1998) Love is a story. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cohen S. Psychological models of social support in the etiology of physical
disease. Health Psychology. 7:269-97, 1988.
Cohen S. Social supports and physical health: symptoms, health behaviors and
infectious disease. (Greene A L, Cummings M & Karraker K H, eds.) Life-span
developmental psychology: perspectives on stress and coping. Hillsdale, N J:
Erlbaum. 1991.p.213-34.
Cohen S. Stress, social support and disorder. (Veiel H & Baumann U, eds.) The
meaning and measurement of social support. New York: Hemisphere Press.
1992. p. 109-24.
Wills T A. Social support and interpersonal relationships. (Clark M S. ed.) Review
of personality and social psychology. Newbury Park. CA: Sage, 1991. Vol. 12. p.
265-89.