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• Human Behavior and Social Environment


  One of the Knowledge Foundations of Social Work
• This area focuses on the knowledge of the person and the environment-the person as a biopsychosocial (some would even include spiritual) being and the interaction between him/her and the social, cultural, political and economic environment which influences his/her behavior
• Social functioning is fulfilling one's roles in society in general to those in the immediate environment and to oneself. These functions include meeting one's own basic needs and those of one's dependents and making positive contributions to society
• Human needs


  • Physical aspect (food, safety, shelter, health care and protection)
  • Personal fulfillment (education, recreation, values, esthetics, religion and accomplishment)
  • Emotional needs (a sense of belonging, mutual caring and companionship)
  • Adequate self-concept (self-concept, self-confidence and identity)
• Social workers consider one of their major roles to be that of helping individuals, groups or communities enhance or restore their capacity for social functioning
• Person in the Environment Configuration


  • Satisfaction of roles in life
  • Positive relationships with others
  • Feelings of self-worth
• Personality


  • Totality of the individual psychic qualities which includes temperament, traits, one's mode of reaction and character
  • A stable and enduring organization of a person's character, temperament, intellect, physique which determine his/her unique adjustment to his/her environment
  • Individual's unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits
• Rational


  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Rational agents


  • Consumers
  • Producers
  • Workers
  • Governments
• Consumers act rationally by


  Maximising their utility
• Producers act rationally by


  Selling goods/services in a way that maximises their profits
• Workers act rationally by


  Balancing welfare at work with consideration of both pay and benefits
• Governments act rationally by


  Placing the interests of the people they serve first in order to maximise their welfare
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Id


  The origin of personality, the most basic of the three systems. It ruthlessly and relentlessly drives the organism toward pleasure. It is entirely unconscious and includes of the instinctive and primitive behaviors
• Ego


  The part of the personality that must deal with reality if the id's desires are to be met. It functions according to a reality principle, weighing the costs and benefits of an action before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses
• Superego


  The aspect of personality that holds all of our internalized moral standards and ideals that we acquire from both parents and society--our sense of right and wrong. It operates according to a morality principle
• Subsystem of Superego


  • Conscience
  • Ego-ideal
• Defense Mechanisms


  • Denial
  • Repression
  • Displacement
  • Sublimation
  • Projection
  • Intellectualization
  • Rationalization
  • Regression
  • Reaction Formation
• According to Sigmund Freud, personality is mostly established by the age of five and early experiences play a large role in personality development and continue to influence behavior later in life
• Freud's Stages of Psychosexual Development


  • Oral Stage (0-2 years old)
  • Anal Stage (2-4 years old)
  • Phallic Stage (4-6 years old)
  • Latency Stage (6-12 years old)
  • Genital Stage (12 years and up)
• Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development


  • Trust vs. Mistrust (1st year)
  • Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt (2nd year)
  • Initiative vs. Guilt (3-6 years)
  • Industry vs. Inferiority (6-12 years)
  • Identity vs. Role Confusion (12-18 years)
  • Intimacy vs. Isolation (18-35 years)
  • Generativity vs. Stagnation (35-65 years)
  • Integrity vs. Despair (65+ years)
• Children


  Active, adaptive explorers
• Rational


  (in classical economic theory) Human beings are basically rational creatures whose thoughts, feelings and actions are largely controlled by the ego
• Epigenetic Principle


  Development proceeds by stages. Age stage is not passed through and then left behind
• Ego functions


  • Reality testing
  • Judgment
  • Sense of reality of the world and self
  • Regulation and control of desires, affects and impulses
  • Object relations
  • Thought processes
  • Adaptive regression in the service of the ego
  • Defensive functioning
  • Stimulus barrier
  • Motor functioning
  • Mastery-competence
  • Synthetic integrative function
• Psychosocial stages


  • Trust vs. Mistrust
  • Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt
  • Initiative vs. Guilt
  • Industry vs. Inferiority
  • Identity vs. Role Confusion
  • Intimacy vs. Isolation
  • Generativity vs. Stagnation/self-absorption
  • Integrity vs. Despair
• Erikson's theory


  • Emphasis on the rational, adaptive nature of human beings
  • Emphasis on many of the social conflicts and personal dilemmas that people may remember, are currently experiencing, can easily anticipate or can see affecting people they know
  • Described many of the central issues in life in his eight psychosocial stages
• Erikson's theory is vague about the causes of psychosocial development
• Erikson's theory uses unstandardized interviews and observations
• Erikson's theory is basically descriptive but not adequately explain how or why this development takes place
• Operant behavior


  An organism has to do something in order to get a reward, it must operate on its environment
• Operant conditioning


  Any organism (including man) tends to repeat what is was doing at the time its behavior was reinforced and that the task is a matter of baiting each step of the way, thus gradually leading the subject to the required performance
• Reinforcement


  Any behavioral consequence that strengthens behavior. Any event that increases the probability that a particular response will increase in frequency
• Types of reinforcement


  • Positive reinforcement
  • Negative reinforcement
  • Punishment
• Types of reinforcers


  • Primary reinforcers
  • Secondary reinforcers or conditioned reinforcers
• Extinction


  A process related to operant conditioning where a learned behavior occurs as a result of its repetition while receiving no further reinforcement
• Shaping behavior


  The acquisition of complex behaviors through a series of contingencies in a program. Each stage of the program evokes a response and also serves to prepare the organism to respond at some later point
• Social learning theory


  Emphasizes the importance of observing and modeling the behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions of others
• Self-regulation


  Controlling our own behavior. Those who are confident and have high level of self-efficacy has the ability to regulate own behavior