Why Social Development Is Important: What the Research Says

Social development is frequently treated
as secondary to academic development —
a nice addition to schooling and parenting
but not as important as literacy,
numeracy, and academic achievement.
Research on social development and
outcomes tells a very different story —
finding that social development is
not only as important as academic
development but is one of the strongest
predictors of academic success, mental
health, and long-term life outcomes.
Understanding why social development
matters — and what it predicts —
is practically important for every
parent and educator who wants to
give children the best possible foundation.

This article covers what the research
shows about why social development
is important — the specific outcomes
it predicts, the specific mechanisms
through which it operates, and what
parents can specifically do.

Social Development Predicts
Academic Success

Research on social development and
academic outcomes finds one of the
most counterintuitive and most practically
important findings in developmental
psychology — that social competence
is one of the strongest predictors
of academic success.

Research findings:

Research by Megan Jones and
colleagues at Penn State —
published in the American Journal
of Public Health — finds that
social competence in kindergarten
significantly predicts educational
attainment twenty years later.
Children rated by teachers as
more socially competent in
kindergarten were significantly
more likely to have completed
college by age twenty-five.

Research finds that children
with stronger social skills
in early childhood show significantly
better academic outcomes throughout
schooling — including higher
grades, better test scores,
and higher rates of school completion.

Research on classroom learning
finds that social competence —
the ability to cooperate, communicate,
manage conflict, and regulate
emotions — is essential for
the collaborative learning that
modern classrooms require.

Why social development predicts
academic success:

Self-regulation — a core component
of social development — is
essential for sustained attention,
task persistence, and impulse
control that academic learning requires.

Cooperation and communication —
core social skills — are essential
for collaborative learning,
group work, and classroom participation.

Positive peer relationships
support school engagement —
children who feel socially
connected at school are significantly
more likely to attend, participate,
and invest in learning.

Teacher-child relationships —
which require social competence —
significantly predict academic
outcomes.

Social Development Predicts Mental Health

Research on social development
and mental health finds a powerful
bidirectional relationship — social
competence supports mental health,
and mental health supports social competence.

Research findings:

Research consistently finds
that children with stronger
social development show significantly
lower rates of anxiety, depression,
and behavioral difficulties
throughout childhood and adolescence.

Research finds that social
connection — genuine relationships
with peers and family — is
one of the most important protective
factors against depression and
anxiety — across all ages.

Research on loneliness and
mental health finds that chronic
loneliness — the persistent
absence of genuine social connection —
is as damaging to health as
smoking fifteen cigarettes per day.

Research finds that children
with poor social development —
particularly those who are
rejected by peers — are at
significantly elevated risk
of anxiety, depression, and
poor mental health throughout life.

Social Development Predicts
Long-Term Life Success

Research on social development
and long-term outcomes finds that
social competence in childhood significantly
predicts life outcomes decades later.

Research findings:

The Penn State research by
Jones and colleagues finds
that social competence in kindergarten
predicts not only educational
attainment but employment,
criminal justice involvement,
substance use, and mental health
outcomes twenty years later.

Research on emotional intelligence —
a core component of social
development — finds that emotional
intelligence predicts career
success, relationship quality,
and life satisfaction more
strongly than IQ in many contexts.

Research on leadership and
professional success finds that
social competence — communication,
cooperation, conflict resolution,
empathy — is among the most
important predictors of career success.

Research on relationship quality
in adulthood finds that the
social development capacities
built in childhood — attachment,
empathy, communication, conflict
resolution — form the foundation
of adult relationship quality.

Social Development Predicts
Physical Health

Research on social development
and physical health finds a surprising
and practically important connection:

Research on social connection
and health finds that genuine
social connection — the product
of healthy social development —
is one of the most powerful
predictors of physical health
and longevity. Research by
Julianne Holt-Lunstad at Brigham
Young University finds that
social isolation is as damaging
to physical health as smoking
fifteen cigarettes per day —
and more damaging than obesity.

Research finds that children
with stronger social development
show better immune function —
likely through the stress-reducing
effects of genuine social connection.

Research finds that loneliness —
the subjective experience of
insufficient social connection —
significantly increases the
risk of cardiovascular disease,
dementia, and early mortality.

Social Development Is the
Foundation of All Relationships

Research on social development
and relationship quality finds that
the social capacities developed in
childhood form the foundation of
all subsequent relationships:

Attachment — developed in
the first year of life — shapes
the internal working models
of relationships that influence
all subsequent close relationships.

Empathy — developed through
emotion coaching and peer social
experience — is the foundation
of all genuine close relationships.

Communication skills — developed
through serve-and-return interaction,
peer play, and family conversation —
are essential for all adult relationships.

Conflict resolution — practiced
in peer play and family life —
is essential for maintaining
all close relationships over time.

Why Social Development Is
Often Undervalued

Research on educational and parenting
priorities identifies several reasons
why social development is frequently undervalued:

Academic pressure crowds out
social development. Research
finds that the increasing academic
pressure in modern education —
earlier formal schooling, more
testing, less recess — crowds
out the peer social experience
that social development requires.

Social development is less
visible than academic development.
Research finds that parents
and educators can easily track
academic progress — through
grades and test scores — but
social development is less
easily measured and less easily monitored.

Social skills are assumed to
develop naturally. Research
finds that many parents and
educators assume social skills
develop naturally — without
deliberate support — and do
not recognize that social development
requires specific conditions
and specific support.

The long-term returns are not immediately visible.
Research finds that the long-term
returns of social development
investment — academic success,
mental health, career outcomes —
are not immediately visible —
making them easier to deprioritize
in favor of immediately measurable academic outcomes.

What Parents Can Do

Research on social development
and parenting identifies several
specific actions that most effectively support social development:

Prioritize genuine peer social
experience — particularly unstructured play.
Research consistently finds
that genuine peer social experience —
particularly unstructured —
is the primary context for
social skill development. Protecting
time for genuine peer interaction —
before screens and structured
activities — is the most important
single investment.

Practice emotion coaching.
Research by Gottman finds that
emotion coaching — acknowledging
and validating children’s emotions —
is the most effective parenting
approach for building the emotional
intelligence that social competence requires.

Build secure attachment. Research
finds that secure attachment —
built through consistent warm
responsive caregiving — is
the most important foundation
for all subsequent social development.

Support genuine friendship.
Research finds that having
at least one genuine reciprocal
friendship is critically important —
making active friendship support
one of the most important parenting investments.

Model prosocial behavior.
Research finds that children
learn social behavior significantly
more from observing their parents’
actual social behavior than
from direct instruction.

Maintain warm open communication
about social experiences. Research
finds that parents who stay
genuinely connected to their
child’s social world — asking
genuine curious questions and
listening genuinely — are significantly
better positioned to support
healthy social development.

Try This This Week

Practice 1 — The Social Priority Reframe
What it is: A deliberate reframing
of social development as a genuine
developmental priority — equal
to or greater than academic development.

How to do it: This week deliberately prioritize:

Unstructured peer play —
before screens and structured activities.
A genuine friendship facilitation —
before academic enrichment.
Emotion coaching — before academic tutoring.

Ask yourself: am I investing
as much in my child’s social
development as in their academic development?

Why it works: Research on
social development and outcomes
consistently finds that social
competence predicts academic
success, mental health, and
life outcomes as strongly as —
or more strongly than — academic
skills alone. Treating social
development as a genuine priority
produces significantly better
long-term outcomes.

Practice 2 — The Long-Term Outcome Connection
What it is: A deliberate connection
of today’s social development
investments to their long-term outcomes —
building the motivation to prioritize social development consistently.

How to do it: This week when
making social development investments —
connect them explicitly to
their long-term significance:

“This playdate is building
the social skills that will
help my child throughout life.”
“This emotion coaching conversation
is building the emotional intelligence
that predicts career success.”
“This friendship support is
building the relationship foundation
that will shape all adult relationships.”

Why it works: Research on
motivation and parenting consistently
finds that connecting daily
parenting investments to their
long-term significance — making
the invisible returns visible —
significantly increases the
consistency and quality of those investments.

Practice 3 — The Social Development Investment
What it is: A deliberate weekly
investment in one of the most
important social development supports —
chosen based on your specific child’s current needs.

How to do it: This week identify
your child’s most important
current social development need:

Does my child need more genuine
peer social experience?
Does my child need more emotion coaching?
Does my child need more friendship support?
Does my child need more open
communication about social experiences?

Choose the most important —
and make one specific investment this week.

Why it works: Research on
social development and targeted
intervention consistently finds
that identifying and addressing
the specific social development
need most relevant to the individual
child — rather than applying
generic support — produces
significantly better social development outcomes.

The Bottom Line

Social development is not a
secondary concern — it is one
of the most important investments
parents and educators can make.
Research is clear: social competence
predicts academic success, mental
health, long-term life outcomes,
physical health, and the quality
of all adult relationships.
The child who is socially competent —
who can cooperate, communicate,
empathize, resolve conflict,
and form genuine relationships —
is significantly better prepared
for every domain of adult life
than one whose development is
primarily academic.

Sources

Jones, D. E., Greenberg, M.,
& Crowley, M. (2015).
Early social-emotional functioning
and public health.
American Journal of Public Health,
105(11), 2283–2290.

Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B.,
& Layton, J. B. (2010).
Social relationships and mortality risk.
PLOS Medicine, 7(7), e1000316.

Gottman, J. M., & DeClaire, J.
(1997). Raising an Emotionally
Intelligent Child. Simon & Schuster.

Hartup, W. W. (1996).
The company they keep.
Child Development, 67(1), 1–13.