This article continues with another six reports that demonstrate the value and importance of social skills in various contexts,

Workplace incivility and rudeness are contagious

Much has been written on psychological safety in the workplace, particularly its impact on mental health. Flinders University workplace safety expert Valerie O’Keeffe, co-author of a report on harmful behaviours in the workplace, says once harmful behaviours are accepted as the norm they can snowball into a systemic issue. Policy implication 3 of the report states:

‘Greater awareness of the destructive nature and early warning sign of incivility is needed in workplaces. Incivility must be controlled to prevent escalation into more severe harmful behaviours including bullying, harassment and discrimination. Incivility is also likely to spread through a workplace via witnesses, by eroding social norms and organisational culture.’

Effective leaders and managers understand the importance of civil workplaces and have the knowledge and skills to ensure that they model civil behaviour and take action to build and maintain civil behaviour amongst staff.

Room for improvement in assessing misinformation

A significant focus of research is misinformation and disinformation. One national survey on online misinformation suggests areas of concern. Park et al’s study found that most Australian adults do not have the ability to assess information sources and verify information online across websites and social media.

While the results are useful to capture, they are based on self-reporting and may not be fully accurate. And while research on misinformation and disinformation is essential, a comparable amount of attention needs to be given to people’s ability to conduct effective, live interpersonal communication.

Strong social capital has many medical benefits

The UK Demos’ Social Capital 2025 report makes the case for a greater focus on social capital in policy and practice. The report sets out ‘strong evidence to suggest that strengthening social ties can have all sorts of medical benefits down the line – from building resilience and emotional health, to preventing the decline into physical health problems. The evidence is nuanced: there are also suggestions that close and closed social ties can intensify some communities’ problems; while more benefits are derived from the ‘bridging” social capital that brings different communities together’. p. 5

The report examines the effects of social capital on mental health, mortality risk and health behaviours. The analysis ‘reveals no significant regional variance in this relationship across the UK: where social capital is high, population health is good; where social capital is low, health outcomes are poorer across the board’. p. 6 The report also cautions that social capital ‘is no panacea’, with subtle and sometimes paradoxical effects.

Measuring the nuances of social connection

Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology have provided a toolkit to measure social connection, a vital aspect of individual and community wellbeing. Defined as ‘an individual’s subjective evaluation of the structures of their relationships, access to resources and support, quality of their relationships and their perceived feelings of connection’, social connection has suffered from a lack of clear conceptualisation resulting in inconsistent applications.

This document provides an overview of social connection dimensions, the questions to measure social connection, and the average results from two nationally representative samples.

Explaining the multi-dimensional nature of social connection, the researchers identify four dimensions for measurement:

• The structural dimension refers to the physical or objective qualities of social connection such as the number of people or connections a person has.
• The social support dimension relates to the resources an individual perceives they have available to them through their relationships, such as reliability and emotional support.
• The affective dimension describes how an individual feels in relation to others, such as closeness, comfort, acceptance.
• The quality dimension refers to ‘the positive and negative emotional nature of our relationships’. This dimension evaluates explicitly whether the relationships an individual has are positive.

Links between loneliness and social isolation

A lack of social connectedness has emotional, social, physical and mental health consequences. COTA NSW’s study of loneliness and social isolation among older adults in NSW found a ‘staggering 60% of individuals aged 50 and over report feelings of loneliness, while 50% are socially isolated.’ These interconnected experiences highlights a cyclical problem that can be challenging to break.

Trust as a mode of dynamic, relational and interactive social capital

The Trust Flows project at the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies examines government trust in communities, to what extent it is present, how it can be built, and what factors contribute to trusting relationships. The project is based on the premise that reciprocity is a key element of trust and that, for a successful trust relationship to be created and maintained, trust must flow both ways – not just from communities to government but from government to communities. 10

The project focuses on the role of trust relationships in the areas of disaster recovery, emergency response and dealing with violent extremism, and the ways in which government officials implement related programs and policies.

Data ‘underlines the importance of personal relationships and indicates that, for trust to grow, such relationships need to be tended and carefully maintained. Key to the creation and maintenance of trust are behaviours and attitudes such as openness, reliability, accountability, respect and confidentiality’.

Summary of learnings

These reports highlight:

• The importance of social skills in specific contexts – schools, workplaces, career education, disaster recovery, mental and physical health.
• How context is important to responding to situations – consent, trust-building, social connections.
• The diversity and multi-faceted nature of social skills – emotional intelligence, social capital, trust-building.

Social skills warrant attention that recognises their importance and diversity, talks about them in specific, non-disparaging terms, and explores them in context to tease out their nuances.

See Part One of this two-part series.