Relationship between Social Skills and Happiness: Differences by Gender

Social Skill Abilities and Demographic Correlates of Older Volunteers

Older age is associated with reduced social networks while social skill abilities are important assets for older people to cope with these situations. To better understand older people's social skill ability and important demographic correlates, the present cross-sectional survey research interviewed 1000 Taiwanese older volunteers from 73 community care centers. Findings of a mixed model indicated that education and serving area outweighed other demographic factors significantly correlated with older volunteers' social skill ability. Latent class analyses further identified different latent ability groups for different education (high vs. low) or serving-area (urban vs. suburban) older volunteers. Specifically, low-education or suburban volunteers were correlated with disadvantageous social skill profiles. Notably, the suburban eclectic ability group exhibited a skill pattern signifying the risk of loneliness. Overall, the findings called for further investigation into the relationship between older people's socioeconomic factors (e.g., education and serving area) and their social skill ability.

Group Segmentation as a Strategy for Implementing the Intervention Programme in Emotional Education for Infant and Primary Teachers

Emotional intelligence is a key social skill for teachers. The teaching profession requires programmes that are geared towards emotional education that will enable teachers to develop emotional intelligence in order to foster their general well-being. The aims of this paper were: firstly, to test the effectiveness of the programme in emotional education implemented through group segmentation based on teachers' sociodemographic and work profile factors, and secondly, to ascertain whether there were any significant differences in the factors that make up the model of emotional intelligence with regard to the sociodemographic and work variables of teachers in the experimental group in a pre-post analysis study. The design of the research was experimental. The sample was made up of 351 infant and primary education teachers, 190 in the experimental group and 161 in the control group. We used the Trait Meta-Mood Scale-24 together with a questionnaire to define teachers' sociodemographic and work profiles. Implementing the emotional education programme led to significant differences in the three factors of emotional intelligence (perception, understanding and emotional regulation) depending on the sociodemographic and work profile of the teachers in the experimental group. Applying segmentation allows us to conclude that intervention programmes should be adapted to the sociodemographic and work profile of the participant group. When designing programmes, the method considered should be active, participative, flexible and focused on the teachers' own experience.

The Impact of Internet Use on the Happiness of Chinese Civil Servants: A Mediation Analysis Based on Self-Rated Health

With the rapid socioeconomic development of China, studies related to Internet use and civil servants' happiness have become a research hotspot in Chinese academia. This study empirically analysed the impact of Internet use on the happiness of Chinese civil servants using a sample of 3793 civil servants in Hunan Province, China. It showed that Internet use significantly enhanced the subjective well-being of Chinese civil servants. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis revealed significant heterogeneity in the effect of the Internet on civil servants' happiness, which varied across civil service groups with different education and gender. Moreover, the effect of Internet use on the happiness of the male and better educated civil servant groups was more pronounced than in the female and less educated civil servant groups. Additionally, mediation analysis revealed that Internet use and the happiness of civil servants were not linear, with health having a significant mediating effect. This indicates that Internet use helps civil servants maintain good health, and thereby enhances the happiness of civil servants. In addition, we also use a propensity score matching model (PSM) to address the endogeneity problem due to sample selectivity bias. The results show that the estimates are more robust after eliminating sample selectivity bias. The effect of Internet use on civil servants' subjective well-being would be underestimated if the sample selectivity bias is not removed.

The Mediating Role of Extra-family Social Relationship Between Personality and Depressive Symptoms Among Chinese Adults

Objectives: This study aims to explore the associations of personality traits and extra-family social relationship with depressive symptoms among Chinese adults.

Methods: A nationally representative sample of 29,810 adults aged 16 and above were selected from 2018 CFPS. Personality and depressive symptoms were measured using CBF-PI-15 and the CES-D8 scale. Extra-family social relationship was assessed through the self-rated evaluation. The multiple regression analysis and the PROCESS macro were used for the mediation analysis.

Results: Extraversion (OR = 0.807, 95% CI = 0.773, 0.842), agreeableness (OR = 0.795, 95% CI = 0.756, 0.835) and extra-family social relationship (OR = 0.927, 95% CI = 0.913, 0.941) had negative associations with depressive symptoms. Extra-family social relationship could mediate between extraversion and depressive symptoms (Indirect effect = −0.049,95% CI = −0.060, −0.039) as well as agreeableness (Indirect effect = −0.056, 95% CI = −0.068, −0.046) and depressive symptoms. Comparing to females, the indirect effect accounts for a higher proportion of total effect in males.

Conclusion: Extra-family social relationship might mediate the association between extraversion and depressive symptoms as well as agreeableness and depressive symptoms.

The Sociodemographic-Professional Profile and Emotional Intelligence in Infant and Primary Education Teachers

Emotional intelligence is the key to students' psychological-social well-being and academic performance, and teachers must provide socioemotional education in the classroom. To achieve this, teachers must display high levels of socioemotional skills that ensure their own personal, social, and career well-being and, as a result, that of their students. This study seeks to gain an insight into the levels of socioemotional skills of emotional perception, emotional understanding, and emotional regulation and how these are linked to the sociodemographic and career profile of teachers in infant and primary education. For this, we surveyed 351 teachers-310 female and 41 male-aged between 20 and 69. We used the Trait Meta-Mood Scale-24 (TMMS-24) together with a questionnaire (ad hoc) to determine the sociodemographic and career profile of participating teachers. Statistical analysis of the data showed that gender impacts on emotional regulation and emotional perception, while age and number of the children were also seen to have significant difference on emotional regulation and emotional perception. In contrast, professional qualifications were only seen to affect emotional perception. The variable reflecting the level at which staff teach showed significant difference on emotional perception and emotional understanding, while administrative posts held by teachers also demonstrated significant difference on their emotional understanding. The results confirm that sociodemographic and work-related variables impact the level of socioemotional skills of infant and primary education teachers. These aspects should be taken into account in the structure and planning of training aimed at developing socioemotional skills in order to ensure their success.

Exploring the Effect of Parental Styles on Social Skills: The Mediating Role of Affects

Parental educational styles have a significant effect in personal development. These styles (authoritative, democratic, permissive and neglectful) can be related to affects and social skills at the individual level. The study presented here, which comprised 456 participants (151 men; 33.11%), with an average age of 22.01 years (s.d. = 2.80), aimed to analyse the relationship between parental styles, affects and social skills, as well as the role played by affects in the relationship between parental style and social skills. The results suggest that the constructs under study are closely related. The most common parental style is democratic. By gender, permissive styles were more often applied to women and authoritative styles to men. No significant gender differences were found in the application of democratic and neglectful parental styles. In terms of emotional support, women were found to have higher negative affect scores and men higher emotional support scores. People with parents that use democratic and permissive styles scored higher in all variables related to affects and social skills, which challenges the notion that democratic styles are the best parental styles in terms of socialisation of children. The results of the affect and social skills scales were analysed in relation to parenting styles, indicating that children educated under a democratic parental regime tend to yield higher scores in terms of social skills than children educated under any other form of parental regime and medium scores in terms of affects. Finally, it was found that parenting styles have a direct influence on social skills, which tend to improve when affects play a mediating role between these two constructs. These results suggest that parenting styles are closely related to affects and social skills. In addition, they also suggest that affects play a mediating role in the relationship between parenting styles and social skills. Finally, owing to the impact that parenting styles have on affects and social skills, more research is needed to address this issue.