Potentialities and interpersonal difficulties of college students: a characterization study

Abstract

The interpersonal development can stimulate quality social relationship and promote people´s health. Interpersonal relationships are demanded by the university context, which requires the students to develop and to express socially skillful behaviors. However, difficulties in interpersonal relationship in the university are common. Characterization studies can help the identification of difficulties and behavioral potentialities of students and promote efficient trainings with college students This research aimed to: a) describe the prevalence of reports of university students who sought for psychological help, as the behavior called social skills, (b) identify the partners (family, boyfriend (a), friends, colleagues, teachers) with whom such responses are issued, (c) describe consequences reported by students that occur in the interaction with such parties. Data were obtained from semi structured interviews and IHS-Del Prette instrument. The interviews data were categorized by the analysis content and IHS-Del Prette data were computed according to concerning instructions. The outcomes describe potentialities and difficulties that the students presented in relation to the social skills according to different aspects: university, work, love relationship, friends and family. The behaviors reported with higher frequency are related to speaking in public, talking to the partner about the relationship, speaking with friends and family members and flirt. It was also observed that in all the categories the behaviors had as consequence more punishing than reinforcing events. The outcomes obtained of IHS-Del Prette found out that 50% of the sample showed [ok] poor social skills repertoire demanding training.