Some people tend to feel inferior, even look down on themselves, lack self-confidence, have no courage to do things, are timid, follow others' advice, and have no opinions of their own. If this kind of psychology is not overcome, it will wear away people's unique personality.

Second, cowardice

Mainly seen in inexperienced, inexperienced, introverted and inarticulate people. Because of cowardice, they dare not express what they think is right after careful consideration in social interaction. This kind of psychology will also be observed by others, and as a result, they have opinions on themselves and are unwilling to become good friends.

Third, doubt.

When some people socialize or entrust friends to do things, they tend to look at each other with distrust, make unwarranted suspicions, catch shadows and make irresponsible remarks. For example, some people entrust their friends to do things, but when they do things themselves, they will ask others what their friends said.

Fourth, rebellious psychology.

Some people always like to argue with others to show that they are different. I think everything, regardless of its merits, is bad if you say yes; If you're right, I'm wrong, making others dislike themselves.

Fifth, the game psychology

Some people treat making friends as a joke, constantly changing their minds, dealing with it everywhere, bragging and saying good things. When they meet a person, they will say how much they have contacted a person. This kind of interpersonal communication is only superficial, so there are no friends with deep feelings.

Sixth, greed.

Some people think that the purpose of making friends is to "use each other", and only associate with useful friends who can bring benefits to themselves, often "kick down the ladder". This bad psychology of greedy for money will damage a person's personality.

Seven, indifference.

Some people are indifferent to all kinds of things that have nothing to do with themselves, or mistakenly think that sharp words, aloof attitude and domineering are "personality", which makes others afraid to get close to themselves, thus losing some friends.

Social competence is closely related to social experience. If we can improve our social skills, people's daily social life will also be improved. People can not only reduce conflicts with others, but also make themselves have a more pleasant experience with others.

Some people think that social skills are innate qualities or attributes. For example, a person with high social skills is naturally outgoing and sociable. As the saying goes, "a leopard cannot change his spots", and it is more difficult to change his social skills than to move mountains. Most psychologists disagree with this view. On the contrary, they think that as long as they can identify the factors that can predict social ability, they can design some courses to train this ability.

To effectively improve social skills, we can start from two aspects, one is the ability to distinguish social situations, and the other is to improve the ability to gain insight into the psychological state of others.

In order to achieve social goals effectively, we must act accordingly. The social environment is changing rapidly, and the objects of communication also have different characteristics. To adapt to different social environments and people, it is necessary to have elite observation and cognitive ability.

The ability to identify the environment is an important part of social skills. If a person can distinguish the subtle differences between situations, he can often master the changes of social environment and make appropriate behaviors to adapt to different and ever-changing environments.

This statement of "conforming to the times" is not only advocated by modern western psychology. In fact, it is often mentioned in China's ancient books. For example, The Doctrine of the Mean says: "The way of state ownership and the words of * * * are enough to rejuvenate the country; The country has no choice, and its silence is enough. " This shows that remonstrance and silence are both appropriate ways to deal with things, but which way courtiers take can produce better results, and it depends on whether the country they are in is a country with Tao or no Tao. Take Yang Xiu mentioned at the beginning of this chapter as an example. He is a witty wit, but his master Cao Cao is a suspicious person. Yang Xiu was smart enough to say what Cao Cao thought many times, so Cao Cao was killed. If his master is a magnanimous man, Yang Xiu will not be killed, but will be entrusted with an important task. Although some people will lament that Yang Xiu was born at an untimely time, it seems that Yang Xiu only cares about the speed of speech at the moment, ignoring the thought and character of the other party (Cao Cao), so he said something that was in line with the facts but not the other party's mind, and ruined his life in vain. It can be seen that in order to successfully achieve social goals, we must judge the changes in the objective situation and adapt to various social situations.

In one study, we used some fictional situations and then asked the subjects how they would react in these situations. Two of them are:

(1) You are afraid of going to the dentist, but now you have to go there to have your teeth filled.

(2) You were taken hostage by a group of armed terrorists in a public building.

In both cases, people can choose to carefully observe the surrounding danger signals. For example, in the second case, we can pay attention to what weapons terrorists have. They can also try to divert their attention from some dangerous signals that will make them nervous. Of course, in the case of seeing a dentist, actively monitoring the danger signals will only make you more nervous, more tense and more painful. But in the case of threats, paying attention to the danger signals can improve the chances of escape. Among the tested people, some people can better distinguish the difference between the two situations, choose to distract themselves when they see a dentist, and choose to observe the environment when they are threatened. Some people's discrimination ability is obviously low, and they will choose to observe the environment under different circumstances.

Our research also shows that the higher the discriminating ability, the higher the social skills. When they associate with parents, teachers, friends and people they don't like, they can better achieve the purpose of communication and enhance friendship.

There is also evidence that people with high discrimination will experience more pleasant dating experiences and they will be less depressed.

It should be emphasized that "conforming to the times" does not mean blindly following the changes of the situation and changing one's behavior, nor does it mean blindly following the other's will.

A person with high discrimination ability is not necessarily a social chameleon, but only knows to go along with it blindly. They have their own goals in life, which can also be altruistic goals (such as raising money for a hospital). People with high discriminating ability, when pursuing these goals, know how to judge the situation, which can not only help those who are unwilling to donate at first, but also make them feel happy after donating. This is the application goal of discrimination.

Insight into the psychological state of others

Insight into the psychological state of others is also an important part of social skills. Some people see other people's behavior and do things without trying to understand their own situation and feelings, and immediately judge what kind of person they are from other people's behavior. This orientation of emphasizing judgment over understanding is a major obstacle to the development of social ability.

In our research, we describe a person's behavior to the subjects, and then ask them to pass on this person's information to another subject. In the process of reporting, some people spontaneously add some judgments on the character and morality of the story characters (for example, "He is a bitch"), and some people actively join the analysis of the inner world of the story characters (for example, "Because they want to qualify as lawyers, they turn a blind eye to the bad things done by powerful people").

In this study, we also measured the interaction results of subjects with their parents, teachers, friends and people they don't like, and found that the more people tend to judge their personality and morality, the worse their social skills. On the other hand, the more people tend to do internal analysis, the higher their social skills.

Since positive personality judgment and moral evaluation hinder the development of social ability, and trying to understand people's inner feelings is beneficial to social ability, how can we reduce the tendency of the former and strengthen the tendency of the latter?

Our research points out that a person's view of personality and morality is a very important factor. Some people think that Wyck and morality are immutable personal qualities, and that everyone has a fixed moral level and character. Therefore, when interacting with people, their attention is focused on inferring each other's character from their words and deeds. Others think that personality and morality are variables, and a person's morality and personality can be changed. Therefore, these people are in no hurry to judge others' sexual orientation and moral level in social situations. On the contrary, they will pay more attention to the relationship between some variables and behavior. For example, they will pay more attention to how changes in environmental factors affect a person's psychological state and how changes in psychological state affect a person's behavior.

In one study, we asked the subjects some very simple questions. For example, "A gave the same fact some souvenirs when traveling, probably because-". Or "B poured a box of orange juice on a classmate's picture, probably because-". People who think that personality can't be changed put forward more explanations such as "A is a kind person and B is a rogue". On the contrary, people who believe that personality can be changed will often put forward explanations such as "A wants to please colleagues and B is jealous of classmates".

It can be seen that people who believe that their own personality cannot be changed pay more attention to evaluating the personality and morality of others, while those who believe that their own personality can be changed pay more attention to the behavioral motivation and emotional state of others.

There are also studies that show that people who think their personality can't be changed prefer to judge other people's behaviors compared with those who think their personality can be changed. After seeing others do something, they are more inclined to immediately evaluate whether the behavior is good or bad. Because they focus on evaluating the good or bad of the behavior itself, it is easier to ignore the background of the behavior and the psychological state of the actor.

People who tend to judge others' behavioral and moral qualities are not only easy to ignore the psychological state of others, but also prone to paranoia and prejudice because they make too many biased comments on people. There is research evidence that people who believe that their personality cannot be changed in the United States are more prejudiced against ethnic minorities in society than those who believe that their personality can be changed. In Hong Kong, we also find that people who believe that morality cannot be changed discriminate against mainlanders more than those who believe that morality can be changed. For example, they think that mainlanders have more negative characteristics than positive ones, and they also think that mainlanders should be punished more severely for breaking the law in Hong Kong.

It can be seen that the moral concept of character is not only related to social skills, but also related to whether ethnic groups in society can be treated fairly and equally.

To sum up, if you want to improve your social skills, on the one hand, you should improve your insight into the needs, thoughts and feelings of yourself and others, on the other hand, you should carefully observe different situations and people, distinguish the differences and understand and analyze them, so as to strengthen your grasp of the ever-changing social environment. Although psychologists believe that social skills can be improved through training, it is not easy to really improve social skills, nor can it be achieved overnight. Success depends on one's motivation, determination, hard work and perseverance.