Social skills of and social environments produced by different Holland types: A social perspective on person€nvironment fit models.

Abstract

A critical aspect of the environment in person-environment models is the nature and density of the social interactions of the members who populate the environment. Because social types solve problems through social mechanisms, it was hypothesized that they would have greatest skills in social coping and that the further the Euclidean distance (in Holland's hexagon) from social, the lower the skill level in these social skills, but that there would be no differences among Holland types in skill level for problem-focused social skills. On the basis of an assessment of vocational interests and self-reported social skills of 134 undergraduates, this hypothesis was corroborated. Chemistry laboratory groups were qualitatively studied to describe the social interaction environment of persons with relative deficits in the social-coping skills. These chemists interacted often, enjoyed and benefited from the interactions, but constrained their social interactions to minimize the dependence on social-coping social skills.