ABSTRACT
In contrast to the phenomenal growth of research and theory on social skills in the last decade (cf. Arkowitz, 1981), it is now of some concern that several recent reviews have suggested serious inadequacies in current research and thinking about social skills:
We simply know much less about the assessment of social skill than we must.
(Bellack, 1979a, p. 173)The pace of social skills training over the past few years has hardly allowed for the orderly assimilation of scientific knowledge from social psychology and other disciplines.
(Trower, 1979, p. 3)In our research in the years to come, we must address the many methodological issues …if social skills training is to remain a viable treatment alternative.
(Curran, 1979, p. 347)Everyone seems to know what good and poor social skills are but no one can define them adequately.
(Curran, 1979, p. 321)Nowhere is the contrast between conceptual rigor and applied convenience more apparent than in the assessment of social skills.
(Bellack, 1979b, p. 75)