Social skills of psychotics and its relations to partners’ behaviors

This research investigated the social skills of psychotics in relation to its partners’ behaviors in social interactions. Two trained judges observed a sample of 35 psychotics compared to 35 non-clinical subjects interacting with trained partners in 4 video-taped role-play situations, regarding giving and receiving criticism. Types of situations and gender of partners were varied. Results showed that subjects’ behaviors were positively related to their partner’s non-verbal feedbacks and looking behavior while listening to them and were negatively related to theirs partners’ looking behavior during silence. Patients' group was more sensitive to partner’s behaviors, their behaviors being also positively related to their partner’s verbal feedbacks. These results replicated data from international literature in this area and suggest specific behaviors as incentive to the social skills of the patients in rehabilitation programsand suggest specific behaviors as incentive to the social skills of the patients in rehabilitation programs. Keywords: social skills; partners’ behavior; psychotics; desinstitucionalization; role-play.