The Relationship of Practice Area Specialization and Interpersonal Effectiveness to Emotional Sensitivity

Abstract

The question of generic skills versus specialist skills is an important one for social work theory building. Sensitivity to emotions, seen as one specific skill, was studied by relating it to intended practice specialty and general levels of interpersonal effectiveness. The findings indicate that general levels of emotional sensitivity are a function of interpersonal effectiveness, and not self-selected practice specialty. The type of emotional sensitivity, however, is related to practice aspirations but not to effectiveness. Different styles of processing emotional information are discussed.