The study of social interaction was being agelong research. Nowadays, experts have continued to engage in social competence research. This is no coincidence, as we have more and more data on the extent to which social behavior influences individuals’ private and professional well-being.
The social aspect Jozsef Nagy’s (2002) interpretation of social values, social competence (social reasons, skills, knowledge, and skill system), and social activities (social behavior, behavior). Antisociality, loyalty, and prosociality are the three “value scales” of social development.
The interests of the other party ignore the placing self-interest above all else, a moral habit and order, legal order and values accepted by that society and violate violating behavior. The loyalty of social behavior is in which a person follows a different system of its customs and moral values from expectations and rules to enforce self-interest and to avoid the disadvantages, thus the interests of the other party can prevail.
Social Competence
The social competence in organizing social behavior, elements necessary to achieve the target activation, changing system, which is made up of social motives and social skills from.
Social competence is the psychic system of social activity, in which the system of social abilities is organized from complex and simple abilities, elements of abilities (skills, routines, knowledge) (Nagy – Zsolnai 2001). While the social skills system presumably works with dozens of skills, the number of social skills can be in the hundreds. The effectiveness of social behavior depends to a large extent on the richness and development of the set of social skills. The richer this set, the greater the chance that the skill that effectively helps to solve the current situation will be activated (Nagy 2000).
What does it depend on to become an individual with advanced or underdeveloped social competence? Research has shown that one of the preconditions for the development of advanced social competence is that the individual has positive self-esteem and a positive attitude towards his environment. Positive acceptance of others, active participation, and effective communication are also important elements of social competence. All three help the individual to be successful in their interactions and, based on feedback from the interaction partner or partners, to change their behavior correctly if necessary. The development of social competence has a developmental effect if the individual can solve problems creatively in an alternative way while taking into account the interests of both himself and the group.
Developing Social Competence
The development of social competence can be influenced mainly in childhood. This is because social development is a two-way process by which children are simultaneously integrated into their community and differentiated as separate individuals. One side of this is socialization, in which children learn the norms and values of society. The other side is personality development, when children come to the specific feelings and behaviors with which they respond to diverse circumstances.
The main arena of early childhood socialization is the family. The emotional relationships formed here, the patterns and values provided by the parents, the social competence of the parents, the mother-child attachment directly affect the child’s social development. Of these, the mother-child attachment determines most what the child’s social behavior will be like later on, which underpins the development of social competence (Lázár 2005). Research analyzing the relationship between attachment patterns and basic dimensions of personality shows that individuals who are bound to bind are less neurotic and more extroverted than those of the avoidant and ambivalent attachment types. It is also important to recognize that people with a secure attachment have higher personal and social self-esteem than those in the other two attachment types (Waters – Wippman – Sroufe 1979; Bus – Ijzendorn 1988; Zsolnai 2001).
After the family, the school has the greatest influence on the development of social competence in childhood. This influence is exerted by the combined effect of the physical environment, social structure and culture of the school and the class, the range of social values conveyed by the school. The warm, open school atmosphere, learner-centered learning and teaching, the use of cooperative forms of learning, the provision of a wide variety of learning resources, and the multitude of interpersonal relationships all have a developmental effect. However, today’s school life provides little opportunity for these to be fulfilled. Spatial organization and time frames are unfavorable, there is little room for independent tasks, as children learn according to a fixed curriculum and solve tasks assigned by teachers. Teaching methods are one-sided, for thinking following most of the tasks to be practiced, does not build on creativity. Classroom work is individual and does not require collaboration. The spontaneous cooperation of students is an undesirable phenomenon and is sometimes even considered a disorder. School life is over-regulated, so there are few real decision-making situations.
Radical changes are needed to make the development of social competence within schools effective. One such condition is the placement of students in the classroom. This should be done in a way that allows for active learning in heterogeneous groups in addition to traditional frontal classroom work. Among other things, this has the advantage that due to the common tasks it is impossible to isolate, joint work leads to mutual acceptance, understanding, and cooperation (Nagy 2005). The other condition is to develop developmental programs that are suitable for developing children’s different social skills and abilities. These may be subject-related but may be different, involving tasks and practices whose implementation is not closely related to subject content.
Conclusion
It is important to note that every strata of society have a role to play in the development of social behavior as highlighted in this article. Consequently, there is an urgent need to remodel our society as a panacea for effective social behavior which by extension mirrors the attitude of children to be modest and upright in their dealing and doing. Social behavior is influenced by external influences and internal factors (patterns, habits, etc.). These develop mainly under the influence of social standards and activity. The rich repository of tales and stories and readings provides ample opportunity to interpret and analyze right and wrong social behaviors. Children are very happy to identify with a fairy-tale hero, professing their qualities and actions. Both positive and negative fairy tale characters are suitable for role-playing, and “hiding in the skin of another” is a very good opportunity to convey and interpret different emotions and attitudes. Unfortunately, storytelling at school is also relegated, even though elementary school children would be in great demand of it.