Psychosocial Skills: Essential Components of Development and Achievement in K-12

Abstract

This chapter discusses psychosocial skills as an essential component of development and achievement in K-12. The Big Five factors of personality are (1) extraversion (tendency to be outgoing, assertive, and energetic), (2) agreeableness, (3) conscientiousness, (4) emotional stability, and (5) openness to experience. Each of the psychosocial skills we discuss in this chapter can be roughly categorized into one of these five traits. We acknowledge that several skills are likely blends of several traits and we attempt to identify these blends where possible. We place each skill under the trait to which we perceive it to be most highly related. We further divide the Big Five into the three categories of skills we feel are important for students in K-12: performance skills, interpersonal skills, and self-management skills. Once again, we acknowledge that the distinctions between these classifications are not always clear-cut. Our intent is to make these distinctions for comprehensiveness and organizational clarity. We conclude with a brief discussion of cross-cultural competence and the malleability of psychosocial skills. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)