87 Examples of Social Competence

John Spacey, updated on October 12, 2024

Social competencies are the social, behavioral, emotional and cognitive abilities that underlie all social processes. These include foundational abilities such as self-control and language and more advanced abilities that are built on top of these such as relationship building, influencing and handling criticism. Social competencies can also be character traits that tend to be beneficial to social processes. The following are common social competencies.

Active Silence	Adaptability & Flexibility
Anticipating Objections	Argument
Assertiveness	Attunement
Body Language	Building Trust
Candor	Challenging Assumptions
Charisma	Communicating Information
Compassion	Conflict Resolution
Consensus Building	Constructive Criticism
Coolness	Cooperation
Creative Tension	Cross-Cultural Communication
Cultural Capital	Debate
Emotional Intelligence	Emotional Interactivity
Empathy	Expressing Emotion
Eye Contact	Facilitation
Following Directions	Forgiveness
Friendliness	Handling Criticism
Handling Difficult People	Honesty
Humor	Improvisation
Independent Thinking	Influencing
Initiating Conversation	Language Comprehension
Languages	Leadership
Listening	Managing Emotions
Manners	Message Framing
Negotiation	Nuanced Communication
Nudges	Observational Learning
Openness	Patience
Perception of Emotion	Perseverance
Personal Presence	Personal Space
Persuasion	Politeness
Positive Criticism	Public Speaking
Questioning	Rational Thought
Reading People	Relationship Building
Remembering Names & Faces	Resisting Peer Pressure
Respect	Saving Face
Self Awareness	Self Control
Self Monitoring	Self Regulation
Setting Expectations	Sharing
Small Talk	Sociability
Social Engagement	Social Initiative
Social Judgment	Social Resilience
Storytelling	Sympathy
Taking Turns	Teaching & Coaching
Tolerance for Disagreement	Trusting Others
Wit

The list above includes basic skills that may be developed as a young child and advanced social competencies that are difficult for adults to master.

Cultural capital is the ability to socialize in a culture. For example, the ability to follow important norms in a particular context.

There are many approaches to communication such that lacking certain competencies is common. For example, many adults who have thrived in social pursuits are terrible listeners.

In some cases, lacking a competency can be turned into a strength such as an individual who often doesn't pick up on insults and criticisms such that they are unusually resilient to these things.

87 Examples of Social Competence

What is the most impressive or difficult to cultivate type of social competence?

Social Competence

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