Social Thinking

Social Thinking

The term Social Thinking® was coined by Michelle Garcia Winner in the late 1990s while working with higher-functioning students, who were expected to blend in with their peer group by producing more nuanced social responses. This theory views social skills as dynamic and situational, not as something that can be taught and then replicated across the school campus. Instead, social skills appear to evolve from one’s thinking about how one wants to be perceived. So, the decision to use discrete social skills (e.g. smiling versus “looking cool”, standing casually versus formally, swearing/speaking informally versus speaking politely) are not based on memorizing specific social rules (as often taught in our social skills groups), but instead are based on a social decision-making tree of thought that involves dynamic and synergistic processing. Winner, (2000 & 2007) has suggested we could better understand multidimensional social learning needs by exploring the many different aspects of social information and related responses that are expected from any one of us to utilize well, in order for us to be considered as having “good social skills”.