Target Selection of Social Skills for Children

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Abstract
The present studies represent a preliminary test of the template-matching procedure as a means of empirically identifying critical social behaviors for individual client children. Study 1 assessed the consistency with which female child informants identified behaviors they preferred in their friends (template behaviors). Study 2 validated these template behaviors on the same subjects by manipulating the behaviors in nonscripted confederates and assessing the impact of the manipulations on behavioral and sociometric measures. It was found that: (1) subjects were consistent when identifying most preferred template behaviors; (2) subjects reciprocated template behaviors in kind; (3) different patterns of acceleration of template behaviors in confederates were associated with collateral increases in untrained behavior in subjects and in subject responsivity to confederates; and (4) sociometric ratings obtained from some subjects increased, but these increases were not statistically significant. Implications of these findings for future development of the template-matching procedure are discussed.