SW 103

• Growth


  Physical change and increase in size
• Growth


  • Can be measured quantitatively (Indicators include height, weight, bone size and dentition)
  • Rates vary during different stages of growth and development
  • Rapid during the prenatal, neonatal, infancy, and adolescent stages and slows down during childhood
• Development


  • Increase in the complexity of function and skill progression
  • The capacity and skills of the person to adapt to the environment
  • The behavioral aspect of growth
• Systems that compose a human being

  • Subordinate System (cell, organs, and organ system)
  • Superdiate System (family, community and society)
• Humans


  • Bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species – Homo sapiens
  • Have a highly developed brain capable of abstract reasoning, language, and introspection
• Aspects of a human's psychological being

  • Cognitive - perceptual or intellectual
  • Emotional - feelings
  • Conative - striving, the tendency to do actively or purposely
• Humans as a social being


  • We need society in order to live life comfortably and safely
  • Our natural tendency towards social life is evident in our capacity for speech
  • We become fully human in our relationship with others
  • Isolation from society is regarded as a punishment
• Determinants of human growth and development

  • Societal
  • Institutional
  • Status
  • Normative
  • Interactive
• Other determinants of human growth and development


  • Culture
  • Physical Environment
• Humans as bio-physiological beings

  • Inheriting strengths and weaknesses can be part of our genetic makeup
  • Physical health and mental health are inseparable
  • Each body system contributes to the homeostasis of other systems and of the entire organism
  • Child development is a foundation for community development and economic development
• Brain development


  1. Brains are built overtime

  2. The interactive influences of genes and experience literally shape the architecture of developing brain

  3. Both brain architecture and developing abilities are built "from the bottom up" with simple circuits and skills providing the scaffolding for more advanced circuits and skills over time

  4. Toxic stress in early childhood is associated with persistent effects on the nervous system and stress hormone systems that can damage developing brain architecture and lead to lifelong problems
• Views about humans essential to social work

  • Naturalistic view: humans are part of nature that can be studied and understood scientifically
  • Transcendental view: science can never fully explain humans, they have the potential to transcend the natural order of things
• Views about humans' social nature

  • Social
  • Asocial
  • Anti-social
• People are part of a wide array of cultures that exhibit a richness and complexity of human aspiration and experience – cultural diversity
• Knowledge is useful and leads to insight about self and others that may help people to live happier, more fulfilled lives
• Natural and Transcendental View

  • In a naturalistic view, a human is a part of a nature that can be studied and understood scientifically as we do the rest of nature. They are seen as highly complex, requiring understanding of multiple and complex social, organic, psychological and cultural variables.
  • Transcendental holds that science can never fully explain humans, partly due to our ignorance, and partly because human has a potential to transcend the natural order of things, to choose, to create, and to be rational.
• Views about humans that are essential to social work

  • Natural and Transcendental View
  • Social, Asocial or Anti-social
  • Democratic View
• Social


  Man aspire to live on good terms with others, to be part of and contribute to good life, making personal goals subservient to group goals
• Asocial


  We are discreet individuals who come together to form groups for their mutual protection and safety
• Anti-social

  Men are viewed as inherently self-seeking, egotistical, out to extend personal gains at the expense of others
• Democratic View


  Capable of reason, of rational analysis and choice. It believes that social, biological, cultural, and psychological influence are powerful in determining behavior, but that man can overcome these influences and exercise choice
• Humans are imbued with inherent worth and dignity and endowed with the capacity to reason and the freedom to exercise will (choice)
• Humanism implies that by the mere fact of his existence has dignity, that this dignity begins at birth, that the possession of this dignity, even if dimly realized by the possessor, is or, ought to be, the continuum of his life, and that to strip him of this dignity, is to degrade him in so outrageous way that we call the degradation inhumane
• Basic Belief of Social Work Practitioners

  • Humans must be accorded due respect because of their inherent worth and dignity
  • Every human being is a unique creature depending on others for the fulfillment of their uniqueness
  • Capable of reason, rational analysis, and choice
  • Man has the capacity for change, growth, and development
• Social workers also believe in the value of human community and the importance of this life and its continuity with the next
• Major concepts embodied in the preceding value statements

  • Human potentials and capacities
  • Social responsibility
  • Equal opportunities
  • Social provisions
• Specifically


  • Each person has the right to self-fulfillment, deriving his inherent capacity and thrust toward that goal
  • Each person has the obligation, as a member of society, to seek ways of self-fulfillment that contribute to the common good
  • Society has the obligation to facilitate the self-fulfillment of the individual and the right to enrichment through the contribution of its individual members
  • Each person requires for the harmonious development of his powers socially provided and socially safeguarded opportunities for satisfying his basic needs in the physical, psychological, economic, cultural, aesthetic, and spiritual realms
  • As society becomes more complex and interdependent, increasingly specialized social organization is required to facilitate the individual's effort to self-realization
  • To permit both self-realization and contribution to society by the individual, social organization must make available socially-provided devices for needs-satisfaction as wide in range, variety, and quality as the general welfare allows
• Social Functioning


  Refers to the interaction between the individual and his/her situation or environment. Social work believes that man is never separate from his/her environment. Things that happen in the environment affects human and vice versa (Person-in-situation, Person-in-environment perspective)
• Factors that Can Block an Individual's Self-Fulfillment

  • Physical/biological
  • Psychological
  • Economic
  • Social
  • Cultural factors
• Causes and Responses to Social Functioning Problems

  • Factors in the person (physical condition, attitudes, values, perceptions of reality, etc.)
  • Factors in the situation/environment (lack of resources or opportunities, expectations) that are beyond the individual's coping capacities
  • Factors in both the person and the situation or environment
• Social worker's effort


  1. Changing strategies directed towards the individual if personal inadequacies or sometimes pathologies are making it difficult for him/her to cope with the demands of the environment

  2. Changing strategies toward the environment if it is beset with inadequacies or if the situation is beyond the coping capacities of the individual

  3. Changing strategies directed toward both the interaction of individual and environment
• The worker's job assignment involves, mediating (Schwartz), or matching (Gordon), or striking a balance between people's coping ability and situation/environment demands (Bartlett)
• Trait Theory


  • Personality is made up of stable characteristics (traits) that remain the same regardless of situation
  • Individuals have several traits that combine to form their personality
• Gordon Allport's definition of personality

  A dynamic organization within an individual psychophysical system that determines their characteristics, behaviors, and thoughts
• Allport's key variables of personality

  • Dynamic organization - personality is constantly evolving/changing
  • Psychophysical - personality involves both body and mind
  • Determine - personality lies behind specific acts, not just passive reaction to environment
  • Characteristic behaviors & thoughts - personality covers all thoughts and behaviors
• Allport's three classes of traits

  • Cardinal traits
  • Central traits
  • Secondary traits
• Raymond Cattell's view on personality assessment

  Self-report is an unreliable method as it can be subjected to personal bias
• Cattell's 16 major source traits


  • Surface traits
  • Source traits
• Five origins of consistent behavior patterns

  • Genetic
  • Sociocultural
  • Learning
  • Existential Humanistic Consideration
  • Unconscious Mechanisms or "Depth theory"
• Erroneous methods of assessing personality