Social skills deficits and self-evaluation among depressed and nondepressed psychiatric inpatients

Depressed psychiatric inpatients, nondepressed psychiatric inpatients, and nonpsychiatric controls role-played responses to 28 standardized interpersonal situations. Judges blindly rated these responses on overall social skill and component measures, and subjects rated their own social skills. Judges rated depressed and nondepressed psychiatric patients as having significant problems in social skills compared to normals. No differences were found between the two patient groups in judges' ratings of social skill. Depressed patients rated their own recent interpersonal behavior and optimal social skills significantly lower than did subjects in the other groups. Results suggest that social skills deficits are not specific to depression and that depressives and other psychiatric groups may differ primarily in their self-appraisals of social competence.