21Social communicative competencies across the life span
Abstract: Five areas of social communicative competencies are considered. The areas explored are pragmatic competencies; emotional and social support; conflict management; emotional interpretation and expression; and interactive media competencies. Most research in these areas has centered on early childhood/adolescence and the elderly, and thus they are the focus here. Social communication competencies are important to study due to their link with positive attributes, especially satisfying relationships, throughout life. The same skills that serve us well as children such as regulating our emotional expressions, offering support to others, and managing conflict, remain relevant in old age. It is typically assumed that social competencies grow until young adulthood where they level off and are maintained until old age, at which time declines begin. This position is questioned. Though some pragmatic competencies may begin to decline (e.g., the use of complex grammatical constructions), other pragmatic competencies, such as conversational skills, may continue to improve. Our ability to offer social support is maintained or even increases. Our conflict management skills may continue to evolve well into old age. Communication competencies over the life span are perhaps better characterized as adaptions to life, rather considered as a model of development and decline.
Keywords: communication competence, social competence, lifespan, pragmatic competencies, social support, emotional regulation, conflict management
Terms such as communicative competencies, conversational competencies, social competencies, and social skills are used interchangeably by some and are defined uniquely by others. Overall, little agreement exists as to the terms used or the demarcations among them. Despite multiple related constructs and myriad definitions, Segrin and Givertz (2003) proposed that on an abstract level social skills refer to the “ability to interact with others in a way that is both appropriate and effective” (p. 136). In a similar vein, social communicative competencies have been considered as the “ability to achieve personal goals in social interaction while simultaneously maintaining positive relationships” (Rubin and Rose-Krasnor 1992: 285). Indeed, the central theme in much current scholarship on communication competencies is the entwinement of social communicative competencies and social connections; positive social relationships are the sine qua non of social communicative competencies.
It is important to consider social communicative competencies throughout the life span as at virtually every life stage they are associated with successful relationships with friends and family as well as with occupational and academic success. Similarly, deficits in social communicative competencies have been linked to depression, loneliness, low self-esteem and a lack of self-efficacy throughout life. Before outlining the social communicative competencies reviewed herein, issues surrounding their development are first considered.
1Controversies and questions
Several questions or controversies surround the study of the development of social communicative competencies during the lifetime. Stafford (1993) summarized these as: What are the roles of heredity versus environment? What is the influence of earlier versus later experiences? What are the processes and paths of development; and what are the cultural constructions?
The question of nature verses nurture continues to be debated in regard to communication competencies and like many other aspects of human development, there is general agreement that both nature and nurture play a role (see Beatty and Pascual-Ferra, Chapter 11, in this volume). Hart, Newell, and Olsen (2003) summarized and acknowledged the contributions of molecular genetics research, behavior-genetics research, temperament research and research from physiological perspectives in helping us understand the nature part of social communicative development. As scholars of interpersonal communication however, we have placed much more emphasis on the nurture part of the development of social communicative competencies.
When it comes to the development of communication competencies in children and young adults, the quest has been to unearth the optimal parenting practices, be they styles such as authoritative, authoritarian or permissive (e.g., Darling and Steinberg 1993), or interaction patterns such as conversational or conformity orientations (e.g., Koesten 2004) that facilitate communication competencies. In summarizing the literature on the relationship between parenting and social communicative competencies Stafford (2013: 265) concluded that, “To date, we can offer global conclusions that appropriate levels of parental warmth and control, positive (or at least non-conflicted) interaction between co-parents, perceived equitable treatment of siblings, and positive sibling relationships appear to facilitate the school age child’s short term social and academic competencies as well as long-term adolescent and adult socialization.”
As amorphous as this conclusion is, we know even less about what types of interactions might influence social communicative competencies into middle and old age. Rather than focusing on what facilitates development when it comes to the elderly, research has tended to focus on what contributes to decline. It has been forwarded that the limited and frequently negative ways in which individuals interact with the elderly are related to losses in communicative competencies. That is, individuals repeatedly interact with the elderly based on stereotypes of dependency or incompetence (Hummert et al. 2004). Individuals may over-accommodate or engage in patronizing speech. Consistent exposure to such interaction styles results in self-fulfilling prophecies and the decline of competencies, whereas elderly individuals who are not subjected to such problematic environments, but enriched ones instead, should not only not decline, but should continue to flourish (Barker, Giles, and Harwood 2004). Alternatively, communication skills in old age might be thought of not in terms of growth and decline, but rather as adaptation (see e.g., Pecchioni, Wright, and Nussbaum 2005).
In addition to understanding the role of nature and nurture in facilitating optimal competencies or stemming their decay, some work has considered reasons why individuals might have deficits. In summarizing this body of research, Segrin and Givertz (2003) noted several environmental factors have been linked to poor skills. Some people lack role models as children from which to observe and learn. Emotional or psychological problems, such as depression or anxiety, or experiences of traumatic life events can be factors. Such problems and events sometimes lead to a withdrawal from social interactions and an atrophy of abilities or a lack of confidence or self-efficacy. Some individuals have limited opportunities or experiences to practice and thus fall short in environments where the skills are needed.
These reasons are relevant throughout the life span. The absence of a socially competent model is perhaps most relevant in young children as the lack of a model during the childhood might well set the stage for decreased abilities throughout life. Traumatic events however, can occur at any age. A lack of opportunities can also occur at any age, but is most often raised as a concern among the elderly.
The second controversy raised is, what is the influence of earlier versus later experiences? In other words, what is the importance of early parenting and other early life experiences in predicting adult communicative competencies? As noted above, there is some evidence that early parenting does have an association with adult social communicative competencies. However, the question remains as to how much influence and how immutable these influences might be. It is difficult to ascertain the extent to which early childhood interaction is a unique contributor to adult competencies (Stafford 2013). Yet, it is unlikely that early childhood experiences are immutable.
In general, in Western societies, there is a strong cultural belief that social communicative deficits can be remediated through interventions at any age. Most work centers on addressing deficits in childhood and most work within childhood is focused on addressing skill deficiencies in various clinical populations. However, there are a number of training programs aimed toward middle-aged adults, who are already considered competent in efforts to further enhance abilities. Examples include career-specific skills such as patient–provider communication or marital enrichment, or programs such as Toast Masters or Dale Carnegie. Improving competencies or learning new competencies does not stop in middle age. For example, programs for teaching elderly individuals social interactive media competences are emerging (see e.g., Magsamen-Conrad, in press).
The third question raised is what are the processes and paths of development? Most work considers ages and stages of development and has assumed a rather continuous developmental path. Understanding development as a series of continuous stages does not allow for much consideration of individual differences or the possibility that development is discontinuous. It also does not consider the possibility that courses of development are constantly changing as individuals interact with their environments (Stafford 2013). Nonetheless, an ages and stages approach is a convenient way to organize literature on the development of communication competencies.
A final question is that of cultural constructions. The optimal or even acceptable skills or behaviors considered as communicative competencies vary across cultures and even within cultures over time. Social competence is very much a subjective evaluative term. Social communicative competencies might be considered as those skills that aid individuals in achieving socially desirable outcomes, and as those socially desirable outcomes change over time, so do the needed social skills to achieve those outcomes. For example, in the last century we have seen a shift in the desired attributes of a child from compliance and obedience to independence (Smith 1999). In addition, the current focus on friendships as the mark of successful socialization in children and adolescents has not always been the case. Though no answers to these continuing questions and controversies are attempted here, it must be acknowledged that it is against the backdrop of these issues that the pursuit of understanding the development of social communicative competencies occurs.
2Competencies considered
Before middle childhood, primary, though not exclusive, research attention is on language development. In regard to communication development, the primary use of communication in children from the fourth month to the third year of life is creating effects. Children come to recognize that communication is interpersonal in nature; children use it to create effects or achieve responses from others. From the ages of three to five, children begin to exhibit conversational competence (e.g., give and take in conversation). Around age five, children start to acquire skills in monitoring their own and others’ communication. By middle childhood, primary interest has shifted from language development to social competencies and there is a substantive body of research on the social communicative competencies of middle childhood.
Until old age, there is progressively less research on each life stage. The dearth of research on other age groups seems to imply that social communicative competencies are generally assumed to be relatively stable throughout life, until supposed declines with old age are manifest. However, as already indicated, many skills improve in old age. Further, in some research a life-span perspective to communication competence is adopted. This perspective rejects the idea found in much scholarship that ageing is equated with decay and decline. Rather, from a life-span perspective, development is seen as adaptions of gain and loss; positive development continues to occur throughout life (Baltes 1987; Pecchioni, Wright, and Nussbaum 2005).
Keeping in mind the subjective and changing nature of social competencies, it is possible to identify some global areas of competencies that are generally valued in Western culture today and also are considered important for individuals from childhood to old age. Stafford (2004, 2013) in discussing communication competencies of middle-childhood listed three core global areas of social behaviors including the provision of emotional and social support, conflict management, and emotional interpretation and expression. Samter (2003), in discussing competencies needed for maintaining successful friendships across the life span, noted similar categories and added pragmatic competencies. The four global categories of pragmatic competencies, emotional and social support, conflict management, and emotional interpretation and expression are considered here. Last, a fifth group of competencies, interactive media competencies is also discussed. Of course, across all social communicative competencies, individuals must be able to make inferences about others’ inner states and have an understanding of social contexts, social rules and social conventions, as well as be motivated to invoke those competencies.
Pragmatic competence refers to “the appropriate use of language in context” (Gertner, Rice, and Hadley 1994: 914). Samter (2003) included in this category not only the ability to participate appropriately in conversations, but also abilities related to speech production. By extension, the abilities related to comprehension are included here as well. Some pragmatic competencies may well decline in old age. For example Underwood (2010) reported that, vision and hearing loss impacts both language production and comprehension. However other skills, such as many conversation skills, do not appear to decline. Rather, older adults adapt to losses in such a way that conversational interactions remain unaffected (Hooper and Cralidis 2009).
The second group of competencies, emotional interpretation and expression is often only considered relevant during childhood as it is assumed that the ability to interpret the emotions of others and to regulate our own emotional displays is a skill that is successfully achieved by the end of childhood and maintained throughout the life span. A similar construct, emotional competence, has been defined as “the ability to identify and describe emotions, the ability to understand emotions, and the ability to manage emotions in an effective and non-defensive manner” (Ciarrochi et al. 2003: 104). Research indicates that emotional competence continues to develop at least through adolescence and there is some indication that individuals may continue to enhance these abilities through old age (e.g., Scheibe and Carstensen 2010).
The third group of social communicative competencies discussed is the ability to provide emotional support and caring. This refers to “the support efforts directed at overcoming sadness, anxiety, fear anger, and other negative emotions” (Burleson and Kunkel 1996: 111). Older adults continue to provide emotional support to their grown children and grandchildren as well as their friends and siblings.
Next, conflict management is considered. Competent conflict management involves the ability to engage in conflict resolution and employ persuasive argumentation. This can entail finding mutually acceptable solutions to problems such as the ability to provide emotional support. It appears that conflict management skills continue to improve through old age (Luong, Charles, and Fingerman 2011).
Finally, computer mediated communication competencies are considered. The ability to use interactive media may be considered a skill and research interest in computer mediated communication competencies is emerging (e.g., Spitzberg 2006). Interactive media is also a way in which social communicative competences, such as providing support or managing conflict, may be enacted. That is, interactive technologies have been argued to be the means to the same types of interactions we have always had. “We discuss common interests, provide social support, express affection, coordinate activities, engage in small talk, play games, share humor, argue viewpoints, offer offence, annoy, anger and ignore our friends and families regardless of communication mode” (Stafford and Hillyer 2012: 307). Thus, questions about the relationship between interactive media use and global social competencies, as well as social connections, have been raised.
3Middle childhood and early adolescence
There has been a great deal of research attention on peer acceptance, peer rejection and friendship during middle childhood and extending into early adolescence. The social competencies required during adolescence are marked by an increasingly complex set of social demands and expectations (Samter 2003). All areas of competencies are assumed to continue to develop throughout childhood and those who are more advanced are more likely to be accepted by and be friends with their peers. Also, some research centers on the links between social competencies and deviant behavior such as drug use and other risky behaviors. The general consensus is that those who are less socially skilled are more likely to engage in these risky behaviors. This link is thought to occur as those who are less socially competent during middle childhood are less likely to be accepted by peers and peer rejection is linked to risky behaviors in adolescence (Dishion, Nelson, and Yasui 2005).
Children with language impairments or language difficulties are viewed less positively than their peers by late childhood. Furthermore, individuals with language difficulties are also typically less skilled in conversation. Conversational interaction skills include the “the ability to take turns, respond when spoken to, maintain coherent discourse, be a receptive listener, make appropriate requests, and communicate clearly” (Samter 2003: 645). Popular children are more likely to possess these pragmatic competencies than less popular ones (Wolters et al. 2014).
3.2Emotional interpretation and regulation
Around the age of five, children begin to monitor and evaluate their own communication and begin to become adept at altering messages to be socially appropriate (Haslett and Samter 1997). Children also begin to understand and follow cultural “display rules”. Display rules refer to the appropriate suppression or expression of emotions (Ekman and Friesen 1975). During early childhood, children come to realize that the emotions they feel do not necessarily correspond to the emotions they should display. A child learns to mask the happiness sometimes felt with a rival’s loss or to substitute gratitude for disappointment with the less than ideal birthday present. Understanding and enacting these rules is significant as peers tend to ostracize children who fail to exhibit the required emotional fronts. Importantly, a child must learn to manage anger. Children unable to express anger in socially acceptable ways, which often means masking or hiding anger, have difficulty with peers. Children who successfully project appropriate emotions are more likely to be accepted and befriended (Stafford 2004). Along with projecting appropriate emotions is the ability to read those emotions in others. Research indicates that children increase in the ability to read facial emotional expressions from the age of two into adolescence (van Beek and Dubas 2008). Research also indicates that children who are skilled at decoding emotional displays of others and those who are better at this skill from ages of about six to ten are also more popular than those lagging in this ability (Nowicki and Duke 1992).
There is less research on emotional communicative competencies during adolescence than during middle childhood. However, some research has indicated that the ability to interpret emotional facial expressions continues to increase throughout adolescence. It has even been proposed that the ability to decode nuanced facial expressions may not develop until well into adolescence (Thomas et al. 2007). Teenagers who are better able to interpret the emotions of others are less likely to behave aggressively and are more likely to be perceived as friendly by their peers. Alternatively, teenagers who have difficulty in interpreting the emotions of others and regulating their own emotions are more likely to be at risk for early engagement of sexual activities and the use of hard drugs (Hessler and Katz 2010).
The “capacity to provide emotional support is a central component of the child’s social competence” (Burleson and Kunkel 1996: 108). Providing emotional support is linked to the ability to engage in perspective taking and to empathize, both of which are believed to emerge during middle childhood. The provision of emotional support includes comforting, expressing sympathy, advising, helping and sharing (Clark, MacGeorge, and Robinson 2008). Burleson and Kunkel (1996) outlined three general skills a child must have to capably provide emotional support: the ability to acquire knowledge about their feelings, to integrate information, and to take another’s perspective.
The importance of emotional support is seen during this time as children begin to describe friends as people who help and support each other, instead of simply being those one plays with (Merrell and Gimpel 1998). Further, the ability to provide emotional support becomes increasingly important for children through middle childhood and into adolescence as they turn more and more to peers for emotional support and less to parents and families. As Buhrmester (1990: 1102) pointed out, “Adolescent friendship demands great facility in a number of close relationship competencies”.
3.4Conflict management
In attempts to get what they want, two and three year-olds offer requests or issue demands. Around age four, children are capable of offering reasons for requests and attempt to persuade others. In early middle childhood (ages 4–8), children follow more politeness rules in their persuasive techniques and become more sensitive to the desires of others. As children move toward adolescence, they offer more reasons, find more holes in their opponents’ arguments, and offer longer arguments (Stein and Albro 2001).
Throughout childhood, children’s persuasive abilities continue to mature. Children are better able to motivate others and act as advocates for proposals (Kline and Clinton 1998). Children increase in sophistication in persuasion and argumentation during their pre-teen years (Kline 1998). However, children continue having difficulty analyzing the reasoning of others until adolescence (Kline and OseroffVarnell 1993).
In regard to conflict resolution, by around the age of eleven or twelve, the ability to identify and offer alternative solutions to conflicts increases (Kline 1998). Adolescents are more able to seek consensus to resolve problems (Kline and Clinton 1998). Children and teenagers who can arrive at amicable conflict resolution and avoid aggression are more likely to be well-liked.
The ability to use interactive media may be considered a skill and research interest in computer mediated communication competencies is emerging (e.g., Spitzberg 2006). Interactive media is also a way social communicative competences, such as providing support, may be enacted. Additionally, questions about the relationship between interactive media use and global social competencies, as well as social connections, have been raised.
Among children, little work has specifically addressed interactive media skills. This lack of research is perhaps due to the assumption that today’s children are “digital natives”. There has been much recent interest in digital natives versus digital immigrants, though the question remains as to how much of the population are truly digital natives as wide varieties in technology use are still found within and between different populations. For example, parental income, as well as education and familiarity with new media are highly predictive of interactive media use by children (e.g., Bittman et al. 2011). However, interest is emerging in new media literacy skills of children and their potential link to educational achievement (Alper 2013). When it comes to social connections and new media use and children, more attention has been paid to potential risks (e.g., cyber-bullying) than to potential positive features.
When we consider teenagers, the same risks, such as cyber-bullying and sexting, are of concern. However, the potential relationships between interactive media use and both social connections and social communicative competencies are also beginning to be explored. The question has been raised as to whether face-to-face social communicative competency deficiencies among adolescents might be further impaired or remediated through online connections. Some research indicates that those with limited social skills and poorer friendship qualities may be able improve their social communicative competencies and lessen social anxiety through online interaction, thus facilitating their face-to-face communication competencies (Stritzke, Nguyen, and Durkin 2004).
However, others have reported that although those lacking social communication competencies develop online ties, the most severely socially challenged allow these online relationships to interfere with face-to-face relationships rather than aiding them (Kim, LaRose, and Wei 2009). That is, young people’s use of interactive media has been found to increase social anxiety and loneliness as well as to enhance communication skills and create broader social connections (Clifton et al. 2013). In general, however, it appears that face-to-face communication competencies and mediated interpersonal communication competencies go hand-in-hand (Hwang 2011).
There is no agreed upon marker of when one becomes “elderly”, however age 65 is frequently invoked. The span of 65–80 which has been referred to as the “young old” (Baltes 1987), commands the majority of research attention. The usual presumption when it comes to communication competencies among older adults is one of deficits and loss. However, a life-span developmental perspective views aging as adaptation. A life-span perspective in regard to communication “allows us to consider how individuals respond adaptively to the physical, mental, and emotional changes which accompany aging” (Underwood 2010: 146). From this perspective comes the exploration of gains, as well as study of successful adaptions, in addition to losses.
The need for social communication competencies has sometimes been said to be more pronounced for the elderly than for young or middle-aged adults given the often increased dependence on others due to limited physical mobility. Similarly, there has been much concern for the elderly in regard to social connections as research has frequently indicated that the elderly tend to have smaller networks than younger adults. However, Luong, Charles, and Fingerman (2011) concluded that although older adults might have smaller social networks, they tend to be more satisfied with those networks. Indeed, Mares and Fitzpatrick (2004) concluded that in contrast to the assumptions of isolation, older people maintain strong family ties. Social connections are indeed vital to continued well-being into old age and social competencies remain important to those connections just like any age. As Harwood (2007) pointed out, people are less likely to visit and interact with those who are less socially adept.
4.1Pragmatic competencies
Harwood (2007) outlined several challenges that older adults face in the course of “normal aging”. As we age our short-term memory capacities change impacting language comprehension. Cognitive changes have also been linked to some changes in language production such as the use of less complex language structures. The general findings are that increased age is associated with increased difficulties in both comprehension and production (Underwood 2010). Furthermore, as we age we also encounter varying degrees of difficulty with psychomotor skills and sensory skills, including vision loss and hearing loss. These are related to comprehension and production. The inability to hear a sentence of course negates the ability to understand it.
In summarizing the literature however, Harwood (2007) proposed that normative aging usually has a relatively small impact on most communicative abilities. First, he argued that differences may be exaggerated to some degree. That is, statistically significant effects found in laboratory studies may be negligible outside of the lab. In addition, the loss of some abilities, for example the loss of complex grammar comprehension and construction, is likely of little importance in daily activities. Williams and Nussbaum (2001: 81) concluded that “despite the evidence suggestive of language and processing effects of age-related changes in older adulthood, the implication that such effects are equal to reduced communicative competence is not supported”.
Moreover, some areas appear to improve. Vocabulary steadily increases at least into the 70s, though age influences on vocabulary are over-shadowed by education (Verhaeghen 2003). Conversational skills hold their own or continue to increase as do abilities to create shared meaning and understanding (Samter 1993; Williams and Nussbaum 2001). Older adults are also frequently master storytellers with the ability to relate complex narratives and adapt those stories to their audience (Kemper et al. 1990).
4.2Emotional interpretation and regulation
The ability to invoke display rules to suppress or manipulate one’s outward expressions has been linked to social adjustment throughout the life span (Bonanno et al. 2004). Findings suggest that older adults are both less reactive to negative emotional information and are better able to regulate their emotional expressions than adolescents and young and middle age adults (Mattias et al. 2005). When it comes to interpreting the emotions of others, some research suggests that this skill continues to develop and other research suggests that though the ability may not continue to increase, it also does not decline (Bucks et al. 2008).
4.3Emotional support
The expectations for friends in old age are quite similar to those beginning in late adolescence (Rawlins 2004). From late adolescence on, a friend is “someone to talk to, to depend on for practical and emotional assistance, and to enjoy spending time with” (Rawlins 2004: 274). The ability to provide emotional assistance continues to be an important component of friendship. Likewise a significant part of older adults’ intergenerational communication is the provision of social and emotional support to adult children and grandchildren (Williams and Nussbaum 2001).
Research indicates that elderly individuals tend to be more skilled at offering social support to their friends than younger individuals. It has been suggested that social support competencies may continue to evolve given that abilities to empathize seem to continue to grow with older adults’ life-experiences (Nussbaum et al. 2000).
Effective conflict management may be a skill that continues to improve across the life span. Older adults may bring greater social expertise to bear in avoiding confrontations in order to preserve harmonious relationships (Luong, Charles, and Fin-german 2011). Similarly, Bergstrom and Nussbaum (1996) argued that conflict skill is learned throughout the lifetime and that elderly adults bring their life experiences in order to derive solution-oriented, cooperative means of conflict management. Sillars (1980) found older adults to be less likely to engage in passive-indirect conflict, to be less controlling, less concerned for their own needs and self-interests and more concerned with the needs of others in conflict situations. In addition, in potential conflict situations, older adults have been found to have a positivity bias, a decreased focus on negative exchanges, and are more likely to overlook or forgive (Luong, Charles, and Fingerman 2011).
4.5Social interactive media
Though the competencies of younger people in regard to interactive media have been given relatively little attention, there is a great deal of interest in the competencies of older individuals. In contrast to the predominate fears of the risks encountered by teens and the potential for negative impact on social lives, the almost uniform assumption is that interactive media will improve the social connections of older adults. That is, research interest is due to the presumed isolation from others and thus the connections that might come from the use of social media.
Older adults are less likely than other ages to be skilled in interactive media. Given the timing of the advent of social media, it is not possible to say such skills have declined; they are simply less likely to have been developed in the first place. Acquiring these skills as a senior has been equated with the same difficulty as learning a new language (Logan 2000).
Concerns have been raised about limited access, unfamiliarity, or inability to use such devices. Barriers to older adults’ use of interactive media technologies include some functional capabilities such as physical limitations. For example, a loss of manual dexterity or poor vision can make mobile devices difficult to use. Hearing loss can interfere with the ability to understand speech over a smart phone or tablet. The structural barrier of cost also sometimes occurs. For many, limitations include a lack of knowledge concerning the technology, a lack of knowledge as to personal relevance, a lack of self-efficacy, performance anxiety, and attitudes toward the media (Charness and Holley 2004).
Despite some potential barriers, the use of social media can play an important role in social and family connections (Leist 2013). Those who do use new media in conjunction with more traditional means, effectively maintain and even improve their relations with others, especially younger relatives who may rely more on social media (Cornejo, Tentori, and Favela 2013). Interactive media use has been found to strengthen the ties of older adults to individuals they have face-to-face relationships with (Cornejo, Tentori, and Favela 2013). Thus, the competencies of older adults with interactive media technologies are certainly an important area of both research and societal interest.
5Cautionary comments
Some notes of caution must be mentioned in regard to the generalizations offered in this chapter. First, despite the positive association between social communicative competencies and a cornucopia of valued societal outcomes, and the association between skill deficits and a plethora of undesirable ones, a cause-and-effect relationship is not necessarily at play. For example, individuals with emotional problems may have both poor relationships and poor social communicative competencies. If a cause-and-effect relationship is at play, it is possible that the direction is not known. A child who is aggressive might alienate peers leading to decreased social opportunities, and thus deceased abilities which in turn further restrict opportunities.
Second, most research is conducted based on ages or stages. Consideration must be given to the great variability of social skills within any age group as well as the oft-times great ranges of ages within one category. For example, some research includes those as young as fifty in the elderly category. There is tremendous variably in abilities at any particular age and even greater variability when one considers individuals over a particular age as all belonging to a singular age group. As Rawlins (2004) pointed out, “old age” may span forty or more years; some individuals may be retired for as many years as they spent in their previous occupations. Individuals continue to evolve and gain life experiences during this time.
Other problems also exist with age (or stage) approaches to the development of social communication competencies. Using age to understand development offers many advantages for research and practice. It is comparatively easy to develop statistical norms for competencies at any given age. However, consideration of age as the driving factor in development usually leaves out other variables such as social class, education, cognitive development, emotional development, or life-experiences, which in many cases may be more relevant for the competency at hand than age per se (Stafford 1993).
Third, though individuals might have the requisite skills, their motivation or their ability to enact them may be highly contingent upon their relationship with the other individual and the situation at hand. For example, young children are much more likely to use appropriate social display rules with their peers than with their parents. Negotiation among peers from early childhood to early young adulthood increases whereas the use of coercion declines. The ability to disengage or walk away from a conflict or potential conflict with peers also increases. Interestingly, though this trend is seen with peers, it is not seen with siblings. Children continue to attempt to resolve conflict with coercion when it comes to their brothers and sisters well into young adulthood (Laursen, Finkelstein, and Betts 2001)
Context is also meaningful. The most readily seen contextual factor is the difference in social skills needed in different cultures. With increasing globalization comes increased concern with intercultural communication competencies (Hajek and Giles 2003). Being proficient in another country’s language does not ensure that one is skilled in the social competencies required for successful social interactions.
Context does not necessarily refer to a different culture. In general, individuals are less likely to be able to perform social skills in novel situations for example, and this seems to be even more the case for elderly individuals. In routine situations, the majority of older adults are able to compensate for age-related issues by relying upon their strengths. However, in unfamiliar settings and with time constraints, the ability to enact some competencies may be lessened (Ryan 1996). In some situations, individuals might not lack the knowledge, but may experience too much anxiety or a lack of self-efficacy to be socially competent. Of course, adaptability may be seen as a social skill itself and some people are not hindered by unfamiliar surroundings as much as others.
In the introduction, the idea of cultural constructions of social competencies was introduced. It is important to note that most research on the development of communication competencies has been conducted on white middle-class children and white middle-class elderly adults. Also, this chapter is based on research conducted almost exclusively in North America, Europe, and Australia. Furthermore, the role that social class or ethnicity might play in what is valued as socially appropriate competencies has been given limited consideration in the extant literature.
Finally, it is important to remember that differences in the ways individuals communicate at different ages are not necessarily related to maturation. Most studies of communication competencies are cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. The extent to which cohort effects versus maturation occurs in competencies is not clear. For example, older adults have been found to be more interested in preserving relationships through conflict avoidance than young adults. However, when today’s older adults were children it is possible that a greater societal emphasis was placed on harmony than for today’s young adults, who are encouraged to be independent and self-sufficient. Thus, it is possible that when today’s young adults are elderly, this focus on harmonious relationships might not be apparent. People might not mellow with age; they might simply be enacting the values they learned when they were young.
6Conclusion
In sum, despite these numerous limitations, some tentative generalizations based on the extant literature have been offered. Social communication competencies are important to study due to their link with positive attributes, especially satisfying relationships, throughout life. The same skills that serve us well as children such as regulating our emotional expressions, offering support to others, and managing conflict, remain relevant in old age. It is typically assumed that social competencies grow until young adulthood where they level off and are maintained until old age, at which time declines begin. This is often not the case. Though some pragmatic competencies may begin to decline (e.g., the use of complex grammatical constructions), other pragmatic competencies, such as conversational skills, may continue to improve. Our ability to offer social support is maintained or even increases. Our conflict management skills may continue to evolve well into old age. Communication competencies over the life span are perhaps not best characterized by a model of development and decline, but rather as adaptations to life.
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