What are the most important social skills that can be improved by education, training and practice?

John Gottman (the researcher who writes those pop relationship books) has an old monograph out there called "How Children Become Friends." It's kids, not adults, but it at least rigorously describes what actually happens when becoming friends goes right. (As opposed to anecdotal retrospectives.) Gottman's The Science of Trust is also very interesting, and it attempts to be actionable in places, but I was not actually inspired to systematically apply it. I don't know how adults become friends, colleagues, or lovers. But the two best intimate relationship books I've found are "After the Honeymoon" and "After the Fight" by Dan Wile, a marriage therapist. If you squint, there's a blurb on the cover of the former, by John Gottman, that says, "Filled with the uncannily perceptive advice of a brilliant couples' therapist. His insights are simply amazing. I never stop learning from him." In the Science of Trust, Gottman refers to Dan Wile's work multiple times, either as an expository tool or to praise his work. For example, "Once again, Wile has arrived at the same conclusion through practice-based evidence that has taken us a decade to discover through evidence-based research." Some of Wile's basic goals/messages seem to be: "[how to make] talking less dangerous;" relationship problems are a "failure to have needed conversations;" and the "shape and form of ideal conversations may enable us to make approximations of them in our own relationships." There's got to be some skill transfer between intimate relationships and friendly/collegial relationships. Other (non-research-based, as far as I'm aware) books that have been mildly helpful to me, in no particular order, are: "Radical Honesty, Nonviolent Communication, Difficult Conversations, Feeling Good Together, more of Gottman's stuff, Everyday Mindreading, and Effectuation. Actually, "Everyday Mindreading" by William Ickes is 100% research based, but it's not a skills-training book. It's about empathic accuracy and also contains chapters on "motivated misunderstanding." ==== Learning in Relationship by Ronald Short is not research-based. But the guy has a PhD and has been doing this stuff, in-the-trenches, for decades. It's fluffy, but there's smart stuff in it, in my opinion. Conscious Business by Fred Kofman, is not research-based, but, once again, this guy has been in the trenches. See chapters 4-7: ontological humility, authentic communication, constructive negotiation, and impeccable coordination. ==== An adjacent theme to look into would be that of "emotion regulation." The technique of Alba Emoting (which is emotional regulation for actors) is based on a series of peer reviewed articles. I've found playing with this technique has made me much, much more aware of autonomic and visceral changes that precede consciously experienced emotion, and it's also made me much more aware of what I'm "actually feeling." Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy have both been empirically validated, at least as a complete package, and have techniques or philosophies for effectively managing strong emotion. Another theme would be that of "explication" or the ability to put your internal state into words. "Emotion-Focused Therapy: Coaching Clients to Work Through Their Feelings" by Leslie S. Greenberg is thick with peer-reviewed references, for whatever that's worth. Additionally, see "Focusing" by Eugene Gendlin. This book teaches a skill that probably predicts therapeutic outcome: http://www.focusing.org/research_basis.html ==== Venkat Rao has a pithy, wonderful little post on bargaining that "just feels true": http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2008/03/16/bargaining-with-your-right-brain/ ==== For whatever it's worth, I think Dale Carnegie's stuff turns people into creepy, superficial, ineffectual robots that waste resources, commit emotional violence, and thoroughly demotivate people. But I don't really have too much of an experiential basis for that belief, and my self-evaluated social skills are very domain-constrained. YMMV.

I am not answering your questions directly, I guess, but I can make some recommendations regarding an evidence base. Mayer and Salovey are early prominent researchers in the area of emotional intelligence. (I understand Daniel Goleman's work to be a journalistic derivative of their work - in other words, go back to the source.) When combined, the total number of citations for their two papers below is over 8,000.  Mayer, J.D., & Salovey, P. (1995). Emotional intelligence and the construction and regulation of feelings. Applied and preventive psychology, 4(3), 197-208. doi: 10.1016/S0962-1849(05)80058-7 Salovey, P., & Mayer, J.D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, cognition and personality, 9(3), 185-211. doi: 10.2190/DUGG-P24E-52WK-6CDG I also wanted to improve my social skills and found Goffman's work to be very helpful. He was a sociologist and I think he is still well regarded in the field. Goffman wrote about the notion of "face" and the fact that we are all managing two types of face. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)  The first type of face suggests all of us are like actors on a stage playing a character. Others "play along" with the character we present (or not). This gives some credence to the idea that if you act confident then others around you will believe you are confident. So it is important to both create the face you want and to respect the face others are creating (so they don't "lose face"). The second type of face regards imposition. We have all had the person follow us around at a party that just will not leave us alone or the person that will not go away when we are signalling that the conversation is over. This is a violation of the second type of face. Goffman, Erving. (2002). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. 1959. Garden City, NY These two lines of work might be good evidence to start from.

Manners Active listening

They need to build confidence. They need to encourage and feed their curiosity. They need to build up their willpower. They will learn continuously thanks to their curiosity and therefore always get better. Confidence combined with their ever increasing skills will allow them to pursue always bigger dreams they would have otherwise discarded as unachievable. And finally the willpower will help them go through challenges or get back up an keep going when things don't turn out as they expected. There was a psychology program here in an Australian university where they took executives and coached them to make them great. They get public speaking training and other things i don't remember but they are also asked to monitor their mood. I am guessing self awareness might play a role.