The Relationship between Personalities and the Social Skills of Dental Students

Adaptive abilities to maintain smooth relationships with others are called "social skills" . To evaluate social skills is important in attitude education to develop ways to promote better dentist-patient relationships, but social skills of dental students are little studied. The purpose of this study is to make clear the relationship between the personalities and the social skills of dental students. 205 dental students were recruited to fill out two questionnaires, the Yatabe-Guilford personality inventory and the Affective Communication Test (ACT). The students were divided into five groups using the Yatabe-Guilford personality inventory. ACT scores for each group were compared using multiple comparison (Bonferroni). The results obtained were as follows: 1.The personality classification results for dental students were:Type D, 38.5%;Type C, 20.0%;Type A, 16.1%;Type B, 14.1%;and Type E, 11.2%. 2.The ACT average scores for males and females were 58.7 and 62.9, respectively. 3.In the ACT scores for each group, Type D results were significantly higher than those for Types A, C and E, and Type B results were significantly higher than those for Type C and E. Type C results were significantly lower than those for Types A, B and D, and Type E results were significantly lower than those for Types B and D. 4.There were many students with higher ACT scores in Types B and D, and there were many students with lower ACT scores in Types C and E. These results suggested a mutual relationship between the personalities and the social skills, and the possibility of evaluating the effects of attitude education using the Yatabe-Guilford personality inventory and ACT.