social skills

Social skillsare related to getting along with others. Social skills allow youth to interact productively in social contexts and to respond to emotions or conflict in socially appropriate, non-aggressive ways. Social skills can be generally conceptualized as the ability to interact positively and pro-socially with others. Social skills predict workforce outcomes and are highly sought by employers. In the violence prevention literature, social skills are operationalized as including “interpersonal skills,” the ability to take prosocial approaches to conflicts, engaging positively with others, and the positive attribution of others’ intentions. The evidence for a link between youth’ssocial skills and violence prevention outcomesin the literature is strong and appears consistently across all categories of outcomes and contexts. Researchersand practitioners also endorsed social skills as essential for youth violence prevention.