Resumen: Over the past decades several researches have addressed the social competence from the university setting by its importance for education and society (Hidalgo and Abarca, 1990; Johnson et al., 1991; Oberst et al., 2009). Social factors play an outstanding role in the learning process of higher education students as they are being professionally prepared to actively participate and contribute in a changing society (Del Prette et al., 1999; Marín and León, 2001). According to Schoon (2009), an increasing globalization and use of technologies have led to a series of socio-historical changes were social competence have been affected by the emergence of new values and lifestyles. Therefore, the development of social competence has become one of the main objectives of contemporary education systems and institutions (Gedviliene, 2012). Universities are providing indicators for generic competences to evidence their effectiveness in terms of students’ learning outcomes (Xie et al., 2014). In fact, the European Commission (2005) considers social competence an essential and one of the most important precursors of prosperity and social well-being in its Member States. Idioma: Inglés DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01484 Año: 2016 Publicado en: FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY 7 (2016), 1484 [6 pp] ISSN: 1664-1078 Factor impacto JCR: 2.323 (2016) Categ. JCR: PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY rank: 33 / 128 = 0.258 (2016) - Q2 - T1 Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 1.314 - Psychology (miscellaneous) (Q1)