Measuring social skills: cultural adaptation and validation of the SSI-Del Prette

Abstract

PurposeIdentifying and assessing social skills has been a powerful way of linking human behaviour and human interaction with their consequences at significant developmental levels. There are some data connecting social skills with interpersonal violence but not yet with elder abuse. The reason might be the scarcity of quick and easy-to-apply measures of social skills. This study aims to adapt and validate the social skills inventory (SSI) (Del Prette and Del Prette, 2001) to the Portuguese population.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted two studies. In Study 1, the authors gathered the psychometric characteristics of the SSI-Del-Prette through exploratoryfactor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In Study 2, the authors correlated the new measure with measures of depression and empathy to test for divergent and concurrent validity.FindingsThe obtained version of the SSI-Del-Prette showed a good model fit and internal consistency. This measure presented six factors: conversation and social confidence, easiness of self-exposure, self-expression of positive affect, coping assertively with risk, defending interests and opinions and giving and receiving praise. The indicators of convergent and divergent validity supported the integrity of the measure.Research limitations/implicationsThe adaptation of this measure of social skills opens new possibilities for studying these skills.Originality/valueThis paper provides an adaptation of a measure of six social skills expanded to the older adult population.