DISCRIMINATIVE FACILITY IN SOCIAL COMPETENCE - CONDITIONAL VERSUS DISPOSITIONAL ENCODING AND MONITORING-BLUNTING OF INFORMATION

Discriminative facility is conceptualized as an aspect of social intel ligence and information processing that refers to sensitivity to subtl e cues about the psychological meaning of the situation (e.g., about t he expectations and motivations of the people in it and the scripts re quired). Two studies explored the relationship between discriminative facility and social competence, measured by the quality of social inte raction. Study 1 assessed individual differences in discriminative fac ility in the encoding of social information, and Study 2 investigated the individual's discriminative use of a monitoring versus blunting co ping strategy in dealing with different types of threatening situation s that varied in the utility (instrumental value) of monitoring for th reatening information. Discriminativeness both in encoding and in the use of monitoring-blunting strategies significantly predicted the qual ity of the individual's social interactions. The results supported the theoretical and heuristic utility of the construct of discriminative facility as an aspect of social competence and social intelligence.