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The ability to communicate effectively with those around us is one of the most important and essential aspects of human beings. We are social beings by nature, and socialization itself leaves its mark on our way of relating to the world since we are babies. At first, it is the family nucleus that serves as a model for us and they are the ones who train these skills day by day. Later, as we grow, these skills will be perfected both in school and with the peer group. What is clear is that our models are going to be key so that we can develop a socially skilled behavior or if, on the contrary, we are going to have the tendency to relate to others in a “clumsy” and maladaptive way. The maladaptive thing is not a fortuitous aspect, since being socially skilled allows us to adapt effectively in any social context, however difficult it may seem at first..
Caballo (1986) considers a socially skilled behavior as that set of behaviors emitted by an individual in an interpersonal context that expresses the feelings, attitudes, desires, opinions or rights of that individual, in a way appropriate to the situation, respecting those behaviors in others, and which generally solves the immediate problems of the situation, while minimizing the likelihood of future problems.
The fact of having difficulties to communicate effectively or the fact of not having the capacity to handle ourselves in different contexts, can have numerous consequences for us in the different spheres of our life. Failure to control the automatic thoughts associated with our social inefficiency can lead to social anxiety problems; This in turn can lead us to not want to relate, leading us to feel useless and to see our self-esteem shatter. Isolation is usually a direct consequence of this type of problem and, failing to receive these positive reinforcements, the result of interpersonal relationships, can open the doors to suffer depressive symptoms. Patients with schizophrenia often have significant deficits in social skills and this makes a normalized and autonomous life in their community extremely difficult. Relationship problems usually come preceded by a difficulty in skills as basic as listening, making requests, expressing both positive and negative feelings, solving conflicts in an assertive way ... in short, "clumsiness" when communicating. Addictive disorders and substance abuse are triggered, on many occasions, because the person is not able to solve or manage conflict situations, express feelings of anger or anxiety, or because they directly feel unable to initiate social relationships and use drugs to disinhibit themselves and get over the embarrassment they have when approaching someone when you're sober.
For those who consider themselves unskilled or for those who believe that this social "awkwardness" cannot be changed, it is my pleasure to communicate that we are not hopelessly destined to be poorly competent on a social level. This is just one more aspect of our behavior and, you can work with an expert training various strategies, constantly. You're not like that, you just act like that. Social ability refers to a characteristic of behavior and not of the person, it is also considered to be specific to the situation, and therefore not universal (it can occur on certain occasions and not manifest on others).
I want it to be clear that when working on social skills, this problem is usually understood and conceptualized from three different but complementary explanatory models:
To work on the second model, the approach should be focused on learning and practicing techniques that favor the control of anxiety conditioned to social situations (eg relaxation and / or breathing). On the contrary, in the third model, our intervention should focus on a work focused on cognitive strategies to favor the management of those thoughts that block the person (eg cognitive restructuring, thinking stop).
In this article I am going to focus on the first model, which is about improving or teaching a series of procedures and strategies in order to maximize the social competence of all those people who may have difficulties when it comes to relating. If you have these difficulties and they generate discomfort or deterioration in your interpersonal relationships, take the step and put yourself in the hands of a professional. With motivation and perseverance, you will achieve excellent results and obtain benefits in all the areas in which you interact, that is, in all areas of your life.
It manifests itself when, through certain behaviors, we indicate to the interlocutor that we are paying attention to them and thereby make it easier for the person to want to continue talking. Elements related to active listening are: short verbalizations, attentive posture, nods of the head, smiles, direct eye contact, imitation of facial expression, limiting the use of distracting gestures. To maximize the benefits of active listening: we must not carry out another activity while the other is speaking, we must concentrate on what the other person is trying to convey to us and not anticipate what we are going to tell them later, we must wait for the other ends and not try to guess what he wants to tell us, we should not interrupt him or make value judgments like: "that's bullshit", "that's nonsense", "that's nothing" ...
The moment a topic of superficial conversation is exhausted, there is a pause where there is no type of reaction. If the conversation is not enlivened, it will either wind down or wander aimlessly around the exhausted topic. To rescue a terminal pause it is convenient to use a transition phrase to lead to a new topic or to recover a previous topic, a formula similar to: "by the way, there is something we haven't talked about ...", "on purpose the subject we were talking about before this ... ".
There is no conversation that is free from certain moments of silence. For effective communication, it is essential to manage the anxiety caused by them, normalizing this situation and controlling the negative self-verbalizations that we have about him. It is not the physical silence itself that makes us nervous, but what we think about it and the unconscious attributions that we make of the type: “silence is uncomfortable”, “silence means that we have nothing to talk about”, "I'm not going to know how to handle silence" ...
When we provide information that was not required with the question, we are opening ourselves to the other person and generating interest in our interlocutor. Example: “do you like literature? - Yes, I really like detective novels. I have been a fan of them since they gave me a Sherlock Holmes book when I was 14 years old ".
It consists of sharing with our interlocutor, both verbally and non-verbally, aspects of what makes you a person, which they will not know if you do not show them. Self-disclosure is the first stone for building a friendly relationship. By this, we normally refer to sharing objective facts, personal opinions or evaluations, and intimate emotions or feelings..
Example: “I believe that bullfighters are the gladiators of the XXI century”, “I consider that bullfighting is an art and that culture must be respected”, “I am sad because my father is going through a hard illness”, “I my partner has left and the truth is that I feel very sad ".
They are an essential variable to maintain a social relationship since the fact of asking denotes interest in knowing more about the other. It is more appropriate to ask open questions since it generates a greater degree of freedom in the interlocutor to decide what to answer. They usually start with "why" or "how." On the other hand, closed questions have a high probability of being answered with monosyllables.
Example: open question: "What is your ideal man like?", Closed question: "Do you like women with blue eyes?".
As you all know, this well-known technique consists of continuously repeating the main point that we want to express, thus ceasing to pay attention to other points of the conversation that do not interest us. With this technique we can: redirect the conversation to the other's attempts to deviate from our objective, reject unreasonable requests that we cannot access, as well as reaffirm ourselves in our objective. We also save explanations, excuses or personal reasons. This tool can cause irritation in the other person, so it is recommended to use it with a moderate tone of voice, without showing signs of anger and without being ironic.
Example: - "Are you interested in a new promotion for the purchase of a television with a 25% discount?" - "No thank you very much." - "It is a great opportunity to have a new TV at a great price." - "No thank you very much." - "Do not miss this great offer sir." - "No thank you very much". At this point, if the seller is also an assertive person, you will understand that if he has the right to tell you to consider his promotion, the other person also has the right to refuse..
As its name suggests, this technique consists of providing a minimum amount of information to force the other person to express themselves openly when we feel that they want to convey something to us indirectly. Normally, it is used when we are being attacked and we are not sure we have made a mistake. We answer yes or no, hoping that the other person will clarify the matter without revealing our letters ahead of time. It is a way of probing what the situation is. Once the person clears the matter, we will communicate more naturally.
Example: our boss tells us: "the samples from the laboratory that I asked for are not ready yet", to which we respond: "yes, it is true" and we wait for the other person to clarify the question before we respond and risk screw up.
This strategy consists of admitting the possibility of an error and immediately switching to positive verbalizations aimed at a solution, so that we do not have to excuse ourselves for it by showing guilt and without giving too many excuses and justifications. With this, we tend to reduce the aggressiveness of our critics, to gain the respect of others after acknowledging a mistake and to strengthen our self-esteem.
Example: our project manager tells us: - "It took you a long time to finish the first part of your task", we answered: - "The truth is that yes, you are right, excuse me".
This technique consists of attending or not attending, selectively, to aspects of the content of the other person's speech that may represent both topics of interest and offensive or unfair manifestations. In this way, what we do is extinguish certain responses that do not interest us and we reinforce, on the contrary, those expressions that may be constructive. The difficulty of this technique lies in making an adequate discrimination of the aspects that we are going to ignore from the interlocutor's speech.
Example: our partner tells us: - "You are not picking up your things, you are not aware of me, let's see when you take me out to dinner", we respond by selectively attending to the constructive aspect: - "This Friday I am going to book a Japanese restaurant in the center".
When the other person introduces several intermingled topics in his speech, it is convenient for us to separate them and address them in a different way, since otherwise they can generate confusion, anxiety or guilt. In this way, we organize the topics by their importance and place the less relevant aspects for later..
Example: our father tells us: - “you never make the bed, you leave without saying goodbye and you make your sister feel very bad”, we respond by focusing first on the discomfort that we unconsciously provoke in our sister: - “what can I do so you don't feel like that? " and then we proceed to deal with the other issues: - "With regard to making the bed, I promise to leave it made every day before going to the institute" and "if I do not realize that I am saying goodbye it is because I go out listening to music but I promise to pay more attention hereinafter".
By apologizing, we are acknowledging the feelings of the other person, allowing it to be known that we have realized what happened and that we understand their possible discomfort regarding the issue. It is a direct expression of empathy in interpersonal communication.
Example: "I'm sorry I made you wait so long, I would understand if you were angry".
With this technique we try to help the other person to notice an impulsive reaction, not thought, especially when the interlocutor has been aggressive in a non-verbal way.
Example: a store clerk pouts when he sees a customer enter, he attends to him between unpleasant murmurs and constantly looks at his watch, we ask him: "Are you in a hurry?" or "Did something I have done seemed wrong to you?".
This procedure implies that we ignore the content of the angry and aggressive message and that we focus our attention and conversation on the fact that the interlocutor is angry. It is a change from the content to the process, since we change the focus of the conversation from the content to some process observed in the other person, such as an emotion or a behavior that is manifesting (eg volume of voice). It is convenient to express openly and with a moderate tone of voice, that the content of the conversation will be resumed as soon as the other person calms down and we must politely refuse to continue with the conversation until our interlocutor does not relax.
This technique is used to stop a possible escalation in the conflict. With this we are going to get the other to cool down emotionally, to be able to think better and we are also going to have a greater probability of successfully solving the issue in question. At first, our interlocutor may explode in an explosion of anger (there is nothing that bothers people more than inviting us to calm down when we are angry) that we must endure patiently and without losing our nerves. Obviously, in case our physical integrity is in danger, we must abandon the situation.
Example: "whenever you want we can clarify the issue, but first calm down".
This procedure consists of avoiding a criticism that another person has just expressed to us by returning the message that you may be right, but they do not openly say that they are. In this way, we serenely accept that their point of view may be correct and that we respect it but, at the same time, we do not stop respecting that we have the main assertive right to have a different opinion and that our way of seeing the situation also may be correct. Ultimately we are the ones who judge everything we are and everything we do.
By receiving criticism without defending ourselves: we prevent the other person from generating more arguments against, we maintain our immovable position of not giving in to someone who tries to achieve something through criticism of our person and we stop the aggressiveness of the other by granting the possibility of that his words may be true. Thus, we manage to receive criticism without feeling violent or anxious and we open the possibility of communicating in another way, without giving in to manipulative criticism. To understand it graphically, it is like putting a cloud of protective fog between the interlocutor who criticizes and tries to manipulate us and ourselves..
Example: our partner criticizes us: - "You never do anything at home, you are lazy", to which we respond: "It's true, sometimes I behave like a lazy person", instead of answering with a defense such as: "I bring the money home ”, that the only thing we would achieve with this would be to add fuel to the fire and stoke the conflict.
It is a procedure that helps elicit honest criticism from others. The essential thing is to request more information about what the other expresses and, never questioning the person who criticizes us or their behavior. It is a useful technique to know what others feel or think, facilitating a more open and direct communication process when our interlocutor criticizes us. In addition, by requesting that the criticism be expanded or clarified, we are more likely to know what is really hidden behind that first criticism and if that information is useful or if it is merely manipulative. We must listen to the comments without internalizing them, treating them as mere information, or using them to assemble our reply.
Example: a friend tells us: - "On Fridays you always go to dinner at a restaurant with your girlfriend", we ask him: - "What's wrong with me going to dinner with Isa on Fridays?" In this way, our friend can tell us: - "I would like to go out with you some day, as we did before", so we can know the background of his initial criticism. If we had answered defending ourselves: - "Well, there is no one to see you on Saturday matches", our communication would escalate in hostility and would not lead us to any constructive point of understanding. Other examples of this technique can be: - "What do you not like about the way I speak?", "What do you mean by that?", "What do you mean specifically?".
This procedure involves presenting a positive idea before and / or after a negative one. In this way, a disagreement or a request for behavior change is expressed in a very subtle and polite way..
Examples: someone asks us to go to the cinema to see a zombie movie and we hate that genre. They ask us: - "Do you dare to see the new Zombie Apocalypse movie?", We answered: - "Thanks for your proposal, I really want to go to the movies with you (positive), but I don't like zombie movies, I find them unpleasant (negative), I would be delighted to go with you to see another one whenever you want, surely you will find someone to accompany you to see this zombie "(positive). Another typical example is when they ask us if we like something: - "Do you like how I prepared the meat?" and we are not very convinced: - “it is very tasty (positive), I would add a little less pepper the next time (negative), but it is at its point” (positive).
When we think that we are not being properly heard, we ask the other person to repeat what we were saying. In this way we increase the probability that they will listen to us.
Example: "What do you think of what I am telling?".
When we ask something of our interlocutor and he responds by detours and without clarity, we ask him to answer "yes" or "no". This way we get, not only that the other gets wet, but we also increase the probability that in the next few occasions they will answer us “yes”, since people remember our direct negative answers better than the indirect ones and we try to be fair with whom we have in front of us, balancing the positive answers with the negative ones.
Example: we asked a friend: - "Would you like to come and have a drink?", He replied: - "Well, I don't know the truth, on the one hand I feel like it, but I don't know, I have to go to ...", we proceed to investment: "tell me yes or no".
The strange name of this technique responds to a communication strategy widely used when we reveal the fear that something we are going to say may annoy or irritate the other person. Therefore, it consists of anticipating how our interlocutor may react using a buffer phrase.
Example: a friend asks us to take a ride on our new motorcycle and we say: "don't think that I don't trust you but I won't leave my motorcycle to anyone".
It fills me with joy to see how more and more people are running, going to the gym, surfing, practicing yoga, joining crossfit ... Little by little we are becoming aware of the positive impact that physical exercise has on our health at different levels; at a cardiovascular level, such as when it comes to preventing infectious diseases or reducing risk factors for emotional problems.
In addition, we tend to take more care of our diet and make the Mediterranean diet, one of the most complete and healthy, the basis of our diet.
I consider it essential to make the world aware that it is also important to know that, if we dedicate time to train our thoughts and our emotions, we are going to notice a great change in different areas of our life. In this article we talk about different techniques to enhance social skills. Train them, try to practice them, think that communicating better means relating better to the world. Knowing how to say no is as important as saying I love you or knowing how to say goodbye at the right time.
Being strong in something as basic as assertiveness is going to bring you great benefits, both with others and with yourself. Do not forget to dedicate the time it deserves. It is not necessary to take time to train your physique or that you have to neglect your diet, nor is it necessary to buy new shoes to practice it. Try these techniques in everyday activities, practice assertiveness in your day-to-day life and you will get great results. They will understand you better, you will not give rise to double meanings or misinterpretations, you will be able to defend what you think while respecting the opinions of others, you will be able to feel secure in any social environment, you will handle conflicts better, you will reduce your fear, you will appease your anxiety… in short; your communication will be more effective, more effective and more efficient.
Keep in mind that social reinforcement is the most powerful reinforcement that people have and, to top it off, it's free. Don't just send negative messages to the one next to you. Of course you can criticize something that seems wrong to you, you have every right, but do it constructively and valuing the objective act of the person and not judging him, in this way he will feel attacked and will defend himself. Value the situation and not the person.
Don't forget to compliment, hug, reinforce and be grateful to the world. Only in this way, the world will also do it with you.
Mens sana, in corpore sana, amigo.
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