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Decoding deficits and social competency: A continuous rating approach

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Abstract

Males who self-reported heterosocial difficulties and whose performance in a role-played interaction was judged to be of low social competence were compared to high-competent males on a continuous rating task. The rating task required that subjects make continual, ongoing social competency ratings of their own and six other males' performance in a role-play situation. The continuous measurement of performance provided a “profile of ratings” that was compared on frequency, latency-to-first ratings, profile elevation or level, scatter, and patterning. Low-competent males had longer latencies-to-first ratings than high-competent males and less scatter in their continuous ratings than did the high-competent group. The reduced scatter effect for continuous ratings replicates previous work done with global ratings and suggests that the low-competent group may not be able to discriminate among social stimuli as well as the high-competent group. The research also suggests that the continuous rating methodology may hold promise as a tool to investigate social perception processes.

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Conger, J.C., Conger, A.J. & Cowan, G. Decoding deficits and social competency: A continuous rating approach. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 13, 73–87 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00960741

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