DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL SKILLS IN MIDLE – AND LATE ADOLESCENCE.

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present the results of empirical research of age –related features of social skills development in adolescence. Based on the conclusions of previous research we supposed the decreasing of communicative empathy and social intelligence combined with the increasing of aggression and competitiveness in relationships with peers and adults. Therefore we examined the levels of multicomunicative empathy, communicative aggression, emotional intelligence and the type of conflict behavior among middle- and late adolescents. The obtained results confirmed the expectations regarding the empathy declining and aggression increasing in late adolescence. We found strong gender differences regarding the aggression. Surprisingly, older girls demonstrated higher levels of communicative aggression in comparison with younger groups whereas boys tended to keep the stable level of aggression. Some age-related changes were found in the process of development of emotional intelligence. We noted the reducing groups with high level of emotional intelligence at the late adolescence and extension the middle- and low-level-groups. Analyzing the features of interpersonal interactions in this period we found that adolescents tended to choose competitive strategy more often than other types of behavior. Moreover girls demonstrated greater age-related positive tendency of using competition as a background of interpersonal relationship. It was discovered that all these intrapsychic constructs are correlated. But the significance of those correlations is different in middle and late adolescence.