Social skill deficits in socially anxious subjects

Research into the aetiology of social phobia can contribute to the prevention and treatment of socially anxious people. Based on the theory of social skills deficits, we reviewed several studies that examined the adequacy of social behaviour through behavioural experiments with the purpose of evaluating the existence of lack of social skills in socially anxious people compared with the general population. In addition to electronic searches for papers published since 1970, using Medline, Scielo and Lilacs, references from articles were identified. In general, the results indicate that socially anxious people perform poorly in spontaneous social interactions than control participants, are classified by observers as less assertive, friendly and shy but present only discrete differences in structured situations. Social skills deficit seems to be more easily identified when children and adolescents are observed, since they probably still have not developed coping strategies. Differences between social phobics appear to be found on the more global measures of performance rather than specific skills measures.