Are You a Good Friend? Assessing Social Relationship Competence Using Situational Judgments

Individual differences in social relationship competence (SRC) should have significant implications for social relationship success and well-being. Ability-based measures of SRC are scarce, though, particularly in social-personality psychology, and these considerations led to the present research. In specific terms, a situation judgment method was used to create and examine the correlates of a scenario-based assessment of SRC termed the Social Relationship Competence-Ability Measure (SRC-AM). Four studies (total N = 994) were conducted. Study 1 used item-total correlations and factor analyses to select scenarios from a larger pool. Studies 2 and 3 then showed that the SRC-AM predicted outcomes consistent with social relationship success (Study 2) as well as psychological well-being (Study 3). Study 4, finally, linked SRC levels to peer ratings of social competence and popularity. The research highlights a class of social inferences and abilities that possess novel implications for social relationship success.