Social Skills and Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Positive Relations with Others

The ability to communicate and interact effectively with other people is associated with a number of positive psychological and social consequences. This ability has variously been referred to as social skill, communication competence, or social competence (e.g., Riggio, 1986; Spitzberg, 1987). For example, people with good social skills or communication competence tend to have higher selfesteem (Riggio, Throckmorton, & DePaola, 1990), satisfaction with social interactions (Flora & Segrin, 1998), and perceived social support (Riggio & Zimmerman, 1991), relative to those with inadequate social skills. It is also the case that deficits in social skills are associated with an extensive list of psychosocial problems such as loneliness, anxiety, and depression (Segrin, 1992, 2000; Wenzel, Graff-Dolezal, Macho, & Brendle, 2005). Now that a fairly reliable association between social skills and psychosocial well-being has been established, social scientists are beginning to turn their attention to variables that could potentially explain this association.Social skill is an individual difference that can have profound effects on the nature of interactions with other people as well as people's psychological well-being. Indeed, these two phenomena are theoretically related as the nature of social interactions can affect and be affected by a person's state of mind and mental health. In Lewinsohn's behavioral theory of depression, social skill is defined as the ability to enact behaviors that are either positively or negatively reinforced and to not emit behaviors that are punished by others (Libet & Lewinsohn, 1973). Others have defined social skills as "the ability to express both positive and negative feelings in the interpersonal context without suffering loss of social reinforcement" (Hersen & Bellack, 1977), and the ability to interact with others in a way that is both appropriate and effective (Segrin, 1992). Implicit in all of these conceptualizations is the concept of positive consequences. According to the behavioral theory, the possession and demonstration of good social skills should bring about positive social consequences, whereas a lack of social skills should be associated with negative social outcomes (Libet & Lewinsohn, 1973). The importance of these social outcomes lies in their obvious connection to a positive or negative state of psychological wellbeing.Well-being is a broad term capturing the importance of both psychological and physical exploration and health in one's life. The concept of well-being can be used to understand happiness, an individual's outlook on life, and life satisfaction. The definition and description of well-being is grounded in two distinct paradigms; the first is hedonism, "the view that well-being consists of pleasure or happiness," and the second is eudaimonism, grounded in the idea that "well-being consists of fulfilling or realizing one's daimon or true nature" (Ryan & Deci, 2001). The latter is the focus of Ryffs research and subsequent scale on psychological wellbeing (Ryff, 1989a, 1989b; Ryff & Keyes, 1995; Ryff & Singer, 2000). It is based on the assumption that individuals are working towards selfactualization (Ryan & Deci, 2001). Understanding well-being in college students reveals more about their college experiences, including how they are impacted by specific stimuli on campus. As college students move through their educational experience, understanding the factors that shape their well-being contributes to the literature regarding the multitude of ways those college impacts students.The construct of positive relations with others (Ryff & Keyes, 1995; Ryff & Singer, 2000) refers to having satisfying and trusting relationships with other people along with a capacity for empathy and intimacy. It was proposed that positive relations with others provide a theoretical link between possession of social skills and the experience of positive psychological well-being. …