Social functioning and delinquency: a return to basics

Studies of social functioning among delinquent samples have traditionally looked at social performance skills and various aspects of social cognition. The social skills model proposed by Argyle and Kendon (1967) offers one way to understand the inter-relationships between these various components of social functioning. The present study is a preliminary attempt, with a delinquent sample, to examine the association between social cognition and social performance. In keeping with previous studies, the findings showed overall that the social functioning of the delinquent sample showed a degree of disadvantage. Sex offenders did not differ from non-sex offenders on any of the measures. However, while social perception scores correlated with social performance scores; scores on a social problem-solving task did not correlate with either social perception or social performance. The implications of the study for future methodology and theory are discussed.