Does story-writing and p&p RPGs help socialization?

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Honestly, that's exactly what it's like. Put your head in the imagined characters head, and react to the situations presented by the GM, and other fellow players. You contribute your character's dialogue and actions, to which the others react to. You only control your character. (unless you're the game master)

My notion was that even if you don't necessarily learn anything new, perhaps it can serve to help internalize the cause/effect relationships between words and actions and other individuals, since you're actively thinking about it (...potentially). The more internalized a process is, the more automatic it becomes, and the less thought it takes. This presumably could allow one to focus on the next rung higher than the one they stand on.

Interesting idea, Sound!

Not sure if D&D has helped me...Writing definitely has, though. If I'm in the right trance-like state when I write, I found out things about psychology that I knew in some unconscious way all along, but didn't know I knew, and couldn't use. It's less like deliberating until I get it right and more like dredging things up that I perceived but never reached conscious awareness.

But in a PnP game, you're still in meatspace to an extent - it's just that there are actual written rules to govern social interactions, rather than merely the unwritten sort. You still have to interact with your fellow players, to work toward a goal - because if you're not working together, you'll become separate snacky-treats for the Big Bad of the game, who should be much more powerful than any individual player character.

And the reason I prefer GURPS is because there's an actual mechanism to enforce roleplaying, even among munchkins. In D&D, if you're in a good group, you can indeed roleplay fully - I've been lucky enough to be in such groups - but unless the DM house-rules something, there's nothing in the game mechanics that even encourages roleplaying, much less enforces it, so some people are just going to be in it for the monster-slaying and treasure-gathering. Its origins were, after all, in minatures wargaming; it wasn't until Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson began wondering about the individuals making up their fantasy armies that formalized RPGs were born.

I try and wrte stories, but they can be a bit limited, I can write about behaviour I have observed Ok, and I can construct all sorts of characters.

But if the characters arent like me, I have difficulty getting into depth with them as I would not be sure of their motivations. Knowing people's motivations is my big stumblng block.

Especially a very nt/social success character, I find it hard with them as i dont know what is inside their head. The characters I invent are often simple and straightforward.

I found it odd how much rules and systems seem to be coming into this. A game's rules don't have bearing on real-life interactions. The useful part is the understanding of the character, without regard to the system rules.

... To my impression, anyways. I've never made a realistic character with D&D. For me it's not chachter- or story-oriented enough, D&D's purpose is better served with hack & slash meta-game action. White-Wolf games, on the other hand, tend to be far more social-, story- or drama-oriented, IMO.
(...which is not to say I like their cockamamie system....)

No, real-life interactions aren't governed by clearly-defined rules. However, the rules in most RPGs are an attempt to simulate real-world-style interactions in-game; the fact that they have to follow the rules in the book means that we have something we can use to model real-life interactions with real people. For instance, reaction modifiers are changed by physical appearance, that much is obvious. However, they can also be changed by something hard to define, that thing called "charisma" - which is less obvious in the real world, because nobody wants to admit they were swayed by more than pure reason (or, if our hypothetical "someone" is crass enough, physical attraction).

Further, you can improve reactions by something as seemingly silly as your exact choice of words. NTs seem to set great stock by this, to the point that they think they can tell what someone is "really thinking" by what they did or didn't say in a completely trivial exchange. After playing RPGs enough years, you begin to understand some of the rules governing what should and should not be said, which helps rather a lot out in the cold, hard world without dice.

I wouldn't try to use any of the White Wolf games for this, though, unless you habitually hang out with power-hungry narcissistic paranoids...

I loved to play PNP RPG's , and still like them. I can't wait to play with my kids. Right now I already sort of free-form play by describing scenes and letting them make choices. I think its good for imagination. Plus we can work out what is appropriate and not appropriate for interactions.

Actually there is a recent article about kids / role playing here: http://www.imaginaryplay.net/DungeonsDragonsChildren