Mr. Denief S.

Vergara
Introduction
(Basic Concept)
 Human behavior is the study of human conduct;
 The study the way a person behaves or acts;
includes the study of human activities in an attempt
to discover recurrent patterns and to formulate rules
about man’s social behavior.
 Modern criminologist regard crime as a social
phenomenon: meaning-an individual’s criminal
behavior could be attributed directly or indirectly with
his experiences and interactions to his social
environment. Thus, one’s knowlegde of human
behaviors will give him better understanding as to
the causes of normal and abnormal behaviors which
eventually lead to criminal behaviors.
Definition of terms
 Behavior
 Any acts of person which is observable
 Any observable responses of a person to his environment
 Manner of ones conduct
 Attitudes
 Position of the body, as suggesting some thought, feeling, action, state of mind,
behavior, or conduct regarding some matter, as indicating opinion or purpose;
internal processes.
 Human Behavior
 The acts, attitudes and performance of flesh and blood individuals according to
their environment
 Properly the subject matter of psychology.
 Psychology
 The science that studies behavior and mental processes
 Personality
 That which distinguishing and characterizes a person.
 Character
 The combination of qualities distinguishing any person or class of persons;
 Any distinctive trait or marks or traits collectively belonging to a person, class or
race.
Psychology and Criminal Behavior
 Psychology
 It is the science dealing with the mind of
human being, including human behavior.
 Individual Differences:
 No two people are alike
 Men differ from women
○ Qualitative differences
○ Physical differences
 People differ from day-to-day activities.
Nature of Differences
 Physical
 Ability/Skill
 Personality
 Intelligence
Application of psychology in law
enforcement
 Psychology in public relation
 Psychology in investigation
 Psychology and group control
 Psychology and alcoholics
 Psychology and the courts
 Psychology and the crime
Psychology and common
sense
 Psychology is worthy of particular
attention. Moreover, a deeper
understanding of the psychological
principles and their application to the
field of the law enforcement would
indeed be of assistance to police
officers. Most successful police
investigators attribute their
achievements on their practical
knowledge of psychology.
Psychology
 Is the science pertaining to the mind, the
sum of all human actions, attitude,
thoughts, and mental states, it covers
common sense and the development of
the ordinary good sense. It examines
existing facts of a problem before a
conclusion is drawn, it uses scientific
method and therefore judgement is
suspended until all facts had been
analyzed.
Common sense
 Is the commonly health notion where
truth is not dependent on judgement
which is based purely on observations,
thus it lacks the organization of thoughts
and jumps to conclusion immediately.
 Synonymous to good judgement.
 Or sound practical judgement derived
from experience rather than study.
 This is to show that what often passes for a
commonsense conclusion concerning
behavior is not always true, and that the
science of behavior has as one of its goals,
the elimination of widespread
misconceptions and wrong judgement.
Thus, it is our responsibility to further
advance our knowledge so that we can
replace myths with facts and learn to
recognize errors.
 Both are of course useful in understanding
criminal behavior because they provide the
opportunity to reflect on how it affects the
person’s present view of life.
Evolution of the study of human
behavior
 Homer-the author of Iliad and Odyssey
who described Human Behavior as the
modern sense of breath or sign of life.
 Socrates and Plato- described Human
Behavior as having two parts:
 The rational part- capable of unravelling the
meaning of life and understand ideal form;
○ To make clear the meaning of life and/ or draw
conclusions.
 The irrational part
○ Participate in imperfect form; the inability and/ or
lack of reasoning, sometimes termed as
unreasonable; mostly deals with the emotion.
 Aristotle
 Described Human Behavior as the principle
of life; quality or essence of that
distinguishing the living from no-living.
Attributes or Characteristics of
behavior
 Overt
 Behavior that are observable
 Covert
 Those that hidden from the view of the observer
 Simple
 Less number of neurons are consumed in the of behaving
 Complex
 Combination of simple behavior
 Rational
 Acting sanity or with reason
 Irrational
 Acting without reason / unaware
 Voluntary
 Done with full volition of will
 Involuntary
 Bodily processes that goes on even when we are awake or asleep
Aspect of Behaviors
 Intellectual aspect
 Way of thinking, reasoning, solving problem processing
information and coping with the environment.
 Emotional aspect
 Feelings, moods, temper, strong motivational force with in
the person.
 Social aspect
 People interaction or relationship with other people.
 Moral aspect
 Conscience, concept on what is good or bad.
 Psychosexual aspect
 Being a man or a woman and the expression of love.
 Political aspect
 Ideology towards society or government
 Value/attitude aspect
 Interest towards something, likes and dislikes.
Distinction of Molecular Behavior
from Molar Behavior.
 Molecular behavior
 Refers to such things as isolated muscular
movement or glandular secretion or
movements of the nerve cells or muscles.
 Molar behavior
 On the other hand, refers to the behavior
organized into meaningful sequences or
patterns into activities that satisfy the
organism’s needs, bring it closer to its goals
or help to avoid danger.
Three levels of Behavior
 The Vegetative
 Responsible for nurturing and reproduction,
mostly found in plants; in human beings, for
food and reproduction.
 The Animal
 Movement and sensation, mostly the use of
the senses and sex drives.
 The Rational/ Psyche/ Human
 Values and morals, reasons and the will.
Five elements of Human
Behavior
 Vegetative power
 survival
 Sensitive power
 Perception and bodily movement
 Estimate power
 Memory and imaginative power
 Common sense
 Qualities and/or sound practical judgement
 Will and interest
 In charged of making decision or choice
Three Faculties of man
 Will
 The power of conscious deliberate actions;
 The faculty by which the rational mind makes
choice of its ends of action, and directs energies in
carrying out its determinations.
 Intellect
 The faculty of power of perception or through; or
power of understanding
 Soul
 The rational, emotional, and volitional faculties in
man, conceived of as forming an entity distinct
from, often existing independently of his body; the
emotional faculty of man distinguished from
intellect.
Goals and objectives of studying
Human Bahavior
 To describe behavior whether normal and
acceptable norms or its abnormal and a deviant
behavior.
 To identify factors that can predict behavior,
 Depressed, unrealistic and unreasonable.
 To understand and explain by identifying causes
that bring about certain effects, assemble them
which are common facts or gather facts and
define principles.
 To control and change behavior as a result of
the prediction.
Application: solution to existing
problems in the society
 Reduce crime rates
 Improve educational techniques
 Treat persons with mental disorders and
emotional imbalance or with emotional
problems.
Approaches in the study of
human behavior
 Neurological
 Emphasizes human actions in relation to events taking place
inside the body, especially the brain and the nervous system.
 Behavioral
 Focuses on those external activities of the organism that can
be observed and measured.
 Cognitive
 Concerned with the way the brain processes and transforms
information in various ways.
 Psychoanalytical
 Emphasizes unconscious motives stemming from repressed
sexual and aggressive impulses in childhood.
 Humanistic
 Focuses on the subject’s experience, freedom of choice and
motivation toward self-actualizatiion.
Assessing Human Behavior
(Measures)
 Descriptive Method ( describing the behavior)
 Naturalistic observation – observes the behavior in
the natural setting of person’s background.
○ Home, school, church
 Systematic observation – making use of the
adjective lists,
○ Skills rating ( inventories and questionnaires) test given
by the guidance counsel.
 Clinical Method
 Diagnose and treatment of serious emotional or
mental disorder or disturbances.
 Experimental Method
 Relationship between variables by
experimental way ( laboratory)
 Specimens are required for comparison and
for contrast.
 Statistical Method
 Making use of researches that were
conducted; measures of central tendencies,
mean, median, mode tests;
○ The use of UCR
Determinants of behavior
 Heredity
 Genetic inheritance
 Environment
 Socio-cultural inheritance
 Self
 Fundamental functioning of the self structure
that we make about ourselves and our
world.
These assumptions are based on
learning and of three kinds:
 Reality assumption
 Assumptions about how things really are
and what kind of person we are.
 Possibility assumption
 Assumptions about how things could be,
about possibilities for change, opportunities
and social progress.
 Value assumption
 Assumptions about the way thing ought to
be, about right and wrong.
The Two Basic Factors Affecting
Behavior
 The questions on why do people become
heterosexual and others homosexuals,
some are alcoholics, some are law abiding
and others are criminals, some are well
adjusted and others mentally ill? What will
enable us to understand these extremes of
behavior?
 The answer to these questions requires the
study and understanding of the influences
of HEREDITY and ENVIRONMENT.
Heredity/Biological Factors
(nature)
 are those that explained by heredity, the
characteristics of a person acquired from
birth transferred from one generation to
another. It explains that certain emotional
aggression, our intelligence, ability and
potentials and our physical appearance are
inherited.
 Or the pre-arranged patterns as a result of a
process of transmission of genetic
characteristics from parents to the offspring,
includes the influences present in the
reproductive cells prior to the time of
conception.
 It influences all aspects of behavior, including
intellectual capabilities, reactions, tendencies and
stress tolerance. This will also explain the conditions
that genes, diseases, malnutrition, injuries and other
conditions that interfere with normal development
are potential causes of abnormal/criminal behavior.
 It is the primary basis of the idea concerning
criminal behavior, the concept that “criminals are
born” - Theory of Atavism - born criminal.
 It also considers the influences of genetic
defects and faulty genes, diseases, endocrine
imbalances, malnutrition and other physical
deprivations that can be carried out form one
generation to another.
Environmental Factors (nurture)
 refers to anything around the person that
influences his actions.
Some environmental factors are:
The family background
 is a basic consideration because it is in
the family whereby an individual first
experiences how to relate and interact
with another. The family is said to be the
cradle of personality development as a
result of either a close or harmonious
relationship or a pathogenic family
structure: the disturbed family, broken
family, separated or maladjusted
relations.
The influences of childhood
trauma
 which affect the feeling of security of a
child undergoing development,
processes. The development processes
are being blocked sometimes by
parental deprivation as a consequence
of parents or luck of adequate maturing
at home because of parental rejection,
overprotection, restrictiveness, over
permissiveness, and faulty discipline.
Pathogenic family structure
those families associated with high frequency of problems such as:

 The inadequate family

 characterized by the inability to cope with the ordinary problems of
family living. It lacks the resources, physical or psychological, for
meeting the demands of family satisfaction.
 The anti-social family
 those that espouses unacceptable values as a result of the
influence of parents to their children.
 The discordant/disturbed family
 characterized by unsatisfaction of one or both parent from the
relationship that may express feeling of frustration. This is usually
due to value differences as common sources of conflict and
dissatisfaction.
 The disrupted family
 characterized by incompleteness whether as a result of death,
divorce, separation or some other circumstances.
Institutional influences
 Example;
 peer groups
 mass media
 Church
 School
 government institutions
 NGO’s
 etc.
Socio-cultural factors
 such as
 war and violence
 group prejudice
 Discrimination
 economic and employment problems and
 other social changes.
Nutrition or the quality of food
 that a person intake is also a factor that
influence man to commit crime because
poverty is one of the many reasons to
criminal behavior.
Further, environment
as factor affecting behavior pertains to all conditions inside and
outside of an organism that is in any way influence behavior, growth,
development of life process.
 Physical environment (external forces) - all things
in this world that affect man directly and stimulates
the sense organs; social environment are physical
influences steaming from outside contact with other
people.
 Primary Social Group
 Home
 neighborhood, etc.
 Broader Social Group
 School
 Church
 CJS
Internal Environment
 the immediate environment within which
the genes exist and function.
 biological condition of the body
 exist in the intercellular and extracellular
 Note: Heredity and environment
become so inextricably joined in
producing growth and development, it
becomes impossible to segregate the
influence of these two factors.
 WILLIAM JONES (Psychologist) stated that
minds inhabit environment which act on them
and which they react.
 NOTE: Personality is a social phenomenon
which is unique in every person. Personality is
influenced more by reactions of other people to
us, and by our reactions to other people than
by any factor ...... the face, voice, hands, feet,
etc., in which we employ these various
characteristics in relation to other people will
determine what others think of us. And their
reactions to us, insofar as we are sensitive to
them, will influence the opinions we hold
concerning our own personality.
Factors influencing evaluations of
Behavior
Social Values
 may influence concepts of mental health
and mental illness like a person’s
vocational achievement may be valued
highly but he may be inadequate when
judged in relation to his family
relationships and outside interests.
Different standards set by
individual social groups
 for judging whether behavior is healthy
or unhealthy, varies with time, place,
culture, and expectations of the social
groups.
Incomparable frames of
reference used by individuals
 as by members of one’s primary group to
evaluate behavior. The individual may
compare his feelings and behavior with how
he thinks others feel and behave, or with how
he felt and behaved in the past. Psychiatrists
tend to evaluate behavior according to the
particular school of thought which each one
follows. The focus of evaluation may influence
either a diagnosis of mental illness, reaction to
a crisis situation, or a specific defect in
personality functioning. Treatment
approaches revolve around the diagnosis
based on behavior evaluation.
Mental Health and Mental Illness
 It is difficult top define mental health and
mental illness because these concepts are
for the most part culturally-determined and
are defined differently in different parts of
the world. Behavior that might be
considered as abnormal or mentally-sick in
one culture may be accepted and
encouraged in another culture. Generally,
however, when a person’s behavior is
adaptive to his environment, we say that he
is healthy, and when his behavior is
maladaptive, we say he is ill.
Evaluation to one’s individual
mental status
Attitude toward the individual self
 This involves aspects related to a
person’s self-awareness, acceptance,
confidence, level of self-esteem, sense
of personal identification in relation to
role, groups, other people, sex,
vocation, strengths and weakness, etc.
Growth, Development, Self-
actualization
 What a person does with her abilities
and potentialities are considered
important. Her involvement in outside
interests and relationships, concerns
with an occupation or ideas, and her
goals in life are considered.
Integrative Capacity
 Psychoanalyst view this concept as
meaning a balance of psychic forces -
the ID, EGO, SUPEREGO. The core of
this concept is the utilization of all
processes and attributes in a person for
the unification of personal functioning
and also the ability to tolerate anxiety
and frustration in stressful situation.
Autonomous Behavior
 The individual’s ability to make his own
decisions and react according to his own
convictions regardless of outside
environmental pressures, and
acceptance of responsibility for his own
actions.
Perception of Reality
Mastery of One’s Environment
 The ability to adapt, adjust, and behave
appropriately in situations and in
accordance with culturally approved
standards so that satisfactions are
achieved in love, work, play and
interpersonal relations is involved here.
PERSONALITY
 Totality of a person.
 Sigmund Freud (Father of Psychoanalysis)
 revolutionized the thinking of the profession
on mental illness, personality development
or personality disorders with his
psychoanalytic theories.
 He postulated that the mind consists roughly
of three overlapping divisions.
 The conscious is that part of the mind which
is immediately focused in awareness.
 The pre-conscious is that part of the mind
which can be recalled and brought to
awareness at will.
 The unconscious is the reservoir of
memories, experience and emotions that can
be recalled. They are out of the individual’s
awareness
Three Components of Personality
 ID - the unconscious part of the
personality which serves as the
reservoir of the primitive and biological
drives and urges. It is that part of the
personality with which we are born. ID
is the animalistic self.
 Libido - pleasure principle; instinctual
craving especially sexually.
 THE ID
 It is the unconscious seat of irrational, antisocial, and
instinctual impulses, which must be controlled and
shaped for social adaptation to life in society.
 It is the original system of personality present at birth.
 It consists of blind unreasoning, instinctual desires and
motives.
 It represents all of a person’s basic biological and
psychological drives including LIBIDO.
 It was fueled by the pleasure principle: I WANT WHAT
I WANT WHEN I WANT IT!
 It is also anti-social and knows no rules, any
boundaries or limitations and if left unchecked, it may
destroy the person.
 It is the unconscious portion of the personality, the
innate part of the personality dominated by the drive
(cravings) for pleasure and by inborn sexual and
aggressive impulses
Ego
 the mediator between the ID and the
superego.
 It refers to the developing awareness of
self or the “I”. It is also known as the
integrator of the personality; the part that
interacts with the outside world, partly
conscious and partly unconscious. As the
ego develops the reality principle
supersedes or operates in concert with the
pleasure principle in guiding the behavior.
The adaptive functions of the ego are the
defenses against anxiety.
 It is the conscious and rational part of
the mind, and it usually grows from
the ID.
 It is part of the personality that must
deal with conflicting demands of the
ID and SUPEREGO.
 It also represents problem-solving
dimensions of the personality.
 It deals with reality because it can
differentiate reality from fantasy.
Superego
 It is the conscience and moralizing part
of the mind.
 It grows out from ego, and represents
the moral code and the norms and
values the individual has acquired and
the superego is also responsible for
feelings of guilt and shame.
Superego
 the socialized component of the personality. It is the
authoritative or parental direction which becomes
incorporated into the personality as the censoring
force or “conscience”. It begins primarily by
accepting early in life of the standards of the persons
who are most important to the child, and it is first
evident when the child feels within himself that his
behavior is right or wrong. If the ego contemplates
violation of the superego’s code, anxiety results; if the
person acts on the contemplated violation despite the
anxiety, guilt feelings result. a very strict superego
usually leads to the development of a rigid,
compulsive, unhappy person. A weak defective
superego permits a person to express hostile and
anti-social striving without anxiety or guilt.
OEDIPUS COMPLEX
 Stage when young boys experience
rivalry with their father for their mother’s
attention and affection. The father is
viewed as a sex rival. This conflict is
resolved by the boy’s repression of his
feelings for his mother.
Stages of Human Development
 There are four primary theories of child
development: psychoanalytic, learning,
cognitive, and sociocultural. Each offers
insights into the forces guiding childhood
growth. Each also has limitations, which
is why many developmental scientists
use more than one theory to guide their
thinking about the growth of children.
Psychoanalytic Theory
 At the end of the 19th century, Austrian
physician Sigmund Freud developed the theory
and techniques of psychoanalysis; it formed the
basis for several later psychoanalytic theories
of human development. Psychoanalytic
theories share an emphasis on personality
development and early childhood experiences.
In the psychoanalytic view, early experiences
shape one’s personality for an entire lifetime,
and psychological problems in adulthood may
have their origins in difficult or traumatic
childhood experiences.
 In addition, psychoanalytic theories
emphasize the role of unconscious,
instinctual drives in personality
development. Some of these drives are
sexual or aggressive in quality, and their
unacceptability to the conscious mind
causes them to be repressed in the
unconscious mind. Here, they continue
to exert a powerful influence on an
individual’s behavior, often without his or
her awareness
 Most psychoanalytic theories portray
development as a series of stages
through which all children proceed.
 According to Freud, child
development consists of five
psychosexual stages in which a
particular body region is the focus of
sensual satisfactions;
 the focus of pleasure shifts as children
progress through the stages.
Oral stage
 from birth to age 1, the mouth, tongue,
and gums are the focus of sensual
pleasure, and the baby develops an
emotional attachment to the person
providing these satisfactions (primarily
through feeding).
Anal stage
 from ages 1 to 3, children focus on
pleasures associated with control and
self-control, primarily with respect to
defecation and toilet training.
Phallic stage
 from ages 3 to 6, children derive
pleasure from genital stimulation.
 They are also interested in the physical
differences between the sexes and
identify with their same-sex parent.
The latency phase
 from ages 7 to 11, is when sensual
motives subside and psychological
energy is channeled into conventional
activities, such as schoolwork.
Genital stage
 Finally, during the genital stage, from
adolescence through adulthood,
individuals develop mature sexual
interests.
Erik Erikson
 An American psychoanalyst, Erik Erikson,
proposed a related series of psychosocial
stages of personality growth that more
strongly emphasize social influences
within the family.
 Erikson’s eight stages span the entire life
course, and, contrary to Freud’s stages,
each involves a conflict in the social world
with two possible outcomes.
for example
 In infancy, the conflict is “trust vs. mistrust”
based on whether the baby is confident that
others will provide nurturance and care.
 In adolescence, “identity vs. role confusion”
defines the teenager’s search for self-
understanding.
 Erikson’s theory thus emphasizes the
interaction of internal psychological growth
and the support of the social world.
 Psychoanalytic theories offer a rich
portrayal of personality growth that
emphasizes the complex emotional
and sometimes irrational forces
within each person.
 These theories are hard to prove or
disprove, however, because they are
based on unconscious processes
inaccessible to scientific
experimentation.
Classical Conditioning
 Classical conditioning is a type of learning in
which an animal’s natural response to one
object or sensory stimulus transfers to another
stimulus. This illustration shows how a dog
can learn to salivate to the sound of a tuning
fork, an experiment first carried out in the early
1900s by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov.
For conditioning to occur, the pairing of the
food with the tuning fork (step 3 in the
illustration) must be repeated many times, so
that the dog eventually learns to associate the
two items..
 Learning theorists emphasize the role of
environmental influences in shaping the way a
person develops. In their view, child
development is guided by both deliberate and
unintended learning experiences in the home,
peer group, school, and community.
 Therefore, childhood growth is significantly
shaped by the efforts of parents, teachers, and
others to socialize children in desirable ways.
 According to learning theories, the same
principles that explain how people can use a
bicycle or computer also explain how children
acquire social skills, emotional self-control,
reasoning strategies, and the physical skills of
walking and running.
 One kind of learning occurs when a child’s actions
are followed by a reward or punishment. A reward,
also called a reinforcer, increases the probability
that behavior will be repeated.
 For example, a young child may regularly draw
pictures because she receives praise from her
parents after completing each one.
 A punishment decreases the probability that
behavior will be repeated.
 For example, a child who touches a hot stove and
burns his fingertips is not likely to touch the stove
again.
 American psychologist B. F. Skinner devoted his
career to explaining how human behavior is
affected by its consequences.
 a process he called operant conditioning–and to describing the positive
and constructive ways that reinforcement and punishment can be used
to guide children’s behavior.
Learning by Observation
 People learn much of what they know
simply by observing others. Here a child
learns to use a lawnmower by observing
his father’s behavior and imitating it with
a toy lawnmower.
classical conditioning
 Another kind of learning, classical conditioning,
occurs when a person makes a mental association
between two events or stimuli. When conditioning
has occurred, merely encountering the first
stimulus produces a response once associated
only with the second stimulus.
 For example, babies begin sucking when they are
put in a familiar nursing posture, children fear dogs
whose barking has startled them in the past, and
students cringe at the sound of school bells that
signal that they are tardy.
 Classical conditioning was first studied by Russian
physiologist Ivan Pavlov in the early 1900s and
later by American psychologist John B. Watson.
 A third kind of learning consists of imitating the
behavior of others.
 A boy may acquire his father’s style of talking,
his mother’s tendency to roll her eyes, and his
favorite basketball player’s moves on the court.
 In doing so, he also acquires expectations
about the consequences of these behaviors.
This type of learning has been studied
extensively by American psychologist Albert
Bandura.
 His social learning theory emphasizes how
learning through observation and imitation
affects behavior and thought.
 Learning theories provide extremely useful
ways of understanding how developmental
changes in behavior and thinking occur and,
for some children, why behavior problems
arise.
 These theories can be studied scientifically
and practically applied. Critics point out,
however, that because of their emphasis on
the guidance of the social environment,
learning theorists sometimes neglect
children’s active role in their own
understanding and development.
Cognitive Theories
 Understanding how children think is crucial to
understanding their development because
children’s perceptions of life events often
determine how these events affect them.
 For example, a five-year-old who believes
that her parents’ marital problems are her
fault is affected much differently than an
adolescent who has a better understanding of
marriage and relationships.
 Cognitive theorists focus on the development
of thinking and reasoning as the key to
understanding childhood growth.
 The best-known theory of cognitive
development was developed by Swiss
psychologist Jean Piaget, who became
interested in how children think and
construct their own knowledge.
 Based on his studies and observations,
Piaget theorized that children proceed
through four distinct stages of cognitive
development:
 the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational
stage, the concrete-operational stage, and
the formal-operational stage.
sensorimotor stage
 During the sensorimotor stage, which
lasts from birth to about age 2,
understanding is based on immediate
sensory experience and actions.
Thought is very practical but lacking in
mental concepts or ideas.
preoperational stage
 In the preoperational stage, which spans
the preschool years (about ages 2 to 6),
children’s understanding becomes more
conceptual. Thinking involves mental
concepts that are independent of
immediate experience, and language
enables children to think about unseen
events, such as thoughts and feelings.
The young child’s reasoning is intuitive
and subjective.
concrete-operational stage
 During the concrete-operational stage,
from about 7 to 11 years of age, children
engage in objective, logical mental
processes that make them more careful,
systematic thinkers.
formal-operational stage
 Around age 12 children attain the
formal-operational stage, when they can
think about abstract ideas, such as
ethics and justice. They can also reason
about hypothetical possibilities and
deduce new concepts.
 According to Piaget, children progress
through these four stages by applying their
current thinking processes to new
experiences; gradually, they modify these
processes to better accommodate reality.
This occurs not through direct instruction,
but rather through the child’s own mental
activity and internal motivation to
understand.
 Information-processing theories are based on
similarities between the human mind and a
computer, both of which are high-speed
information-processing devices.
 These theories describe cognitive growth as
the gradual acquisition of more sophisticated
strategies for organizing information, solving
problems, storing and retrieving knowledge,
and evaluating solutions.
 Like Piaget, information-processing theorists
believe that children acquire these skills
through their everyday efforts to understand
and master intellectual challenges.
 Cognitive theories provide insights into how
a child’s mental processes underlie many
aspects of his or her development.
However, critics argue that Piaget
underestimated the sophistication of the
cognitive abilities of young children.
Information-processing theorists have also
been faulted for portraying children as little
computers rather than as inventive, creative
thinkers.
Sociocultural Theory
 Many developmental scientists believe that
children do not proceed through universal
stages or processes of development. To
sociocultural theorists, children’s growth is
deeply guided by the values, goals, and
expectations of their culture. In this perspective,
children acquire skills valued by their culture—
such as reading, managing crops, or using an
abacus—through the guidance and support of
older people. Thus, developmental abilities may
differ for children in different societies, and
development cannot be separated from its
cultural context.
 One of the pioneers of sociocultural theory was
Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, whose
writings in the 1920s and 1930s emphasized how
children’s interaction with adults contributes to the
development of skills.
 According to Vygotsky, sensitive adults are aware
of a child’s readiness for new challenges, and they
structure appropriate activities to help the child
develop new skills. Adults act as mentors and
teachers, leading the child into the zone of
proximal development—Vygotsky’s term for the
range of skills that the child cannot perform
unaided but can master with adult assistance.
 A parent may encourage simple number
concepts, for example, by counting beads
with the child or measuring cooking
ingredients together, filling in the numbers
that the child cannot remember. As
children participate in such experiences
daily with parents, teachers, and others,
they gradually learn the culture’s
practices, skills, and values.
 Sociocultural theory highlights how children
incorporate culture into their reasoning,
social interaction, and self-understanding.
It also explains why children growing up in
different societies are likely to have
significantly different skills.
 Theorists like Vygotsky are sometimes
criticized, however, for neglecting the
influence of biological maturation, which
guides childhood growth independently of
culture.
ELECTRA COMPLEX
 The stage when a girl sees her mother
as a rival for her father’s attention but for
fear for her mother is less.
 Note: Both attachment to the mother
and father, the Electra complex is
gradually replaced by a strengthened
identification with the mother.
GILLILAND (Psychologist)
 He proposed the following five
determinant of one’s personality:
 intelligence
 aggressive or forceful
 sociability
 personal appearance
 morality
KRESTSCHEMER (German
Psychiatrist)
 identified two individual personality
types:
 the Pyknic and Asthenic.
Pyknic
 they have broad head, long trunk, short
legs, narrow shoulders, broad hips and
much flesh; with violent emotions ....
when carried to extreme manifest
depressive psychosis.
MANIC DEPRESSIVE REACTION
 This disorder, also called an affective
reaction, is characterized by two phases:
mania and depression.
 The manic phase may be mild and bring
elation and a general stepping up of all
kinds of activity. The patient tends to talk
endlessly and in an associative rather than
logical way. If the disorder is more severe,
he may act bizarrely; he may be a
whirlwind of activity and become so excited
and agitated that he foregoes food and
sleep and ends in a state of total collapse.
Stupor
 the condition of the body in which the
senses and faculties are suspended or
greatly dulled, as by drugs or
intoxicants.
Asthenic
 they have long head, short trunk, long
legs, narrow hips and shoulders and
very little fat; they have the tendency to
develop seclusive personality patterns
that may result to dementia praecox or
schizophrenia.
Alfred Adler (Founder of
individual psychology)
 He coined the term “inferiority complex”
to describe the conflict, partly conscious
and partly unconscious, which the
individual make attempts to overcome the
distress accompanying inferiority complex
of feelings. Thus the person who has
strong feelings of inferiority may behave in
a superior way or develop some special
skill to compensate for the supposed
inadequacy.
Carl Jung (identified four
functions of personality)
 Sensation - represent concern with the here
and now.
 Intuition - represent concern with that things
have been or will be.
 Feeling - being concerned with a sense of
values.
 Thinking - concerned with things in the
abstract.
 Note: All functions must be in balance for
healthy life.
Jung, a Swiss psychologist identified
the Theory of Personality types
 Extrovert - persons who are friendly,
flexible and adaptable, happy working
with others, free from worries, and
outgoing.
 Introvert - inclined to worry, reserved,
lacking in flexibility, self-centered or self-
interested person.
 Ambivert - in between extrovert and
introvert.
Karen Horney
 He developed a school of thought that
utilizes the process of adaptation of life
situations as an explanation for
personality development. She believed
that the prime motivating factor is the
need for security, which is not
universal factor but one that operates
when security is threatened.
Harry Stack Sullivan
 He introduced that individual’s self-image, self-
concept or “self-dynamism” organizes behavior.
The self-concept is built into the individual as a
result of his experience with significant other
persons in his environment and as a result of
their reflected appraisals.
 His theory emphasizes social factors as
extremely significant for personality
development, especially interpersonal
relationships and the self-concept in relation to
them. He coined the term “acculturation”.
Erick Fromm
 He believed that the major need of man
is to find meaning of life through the use
of his own powers. The basic human
conflict lies between the security given
by the rigid social mores and the use of
reasoned solutions to the problems of
existence.
Adolf Meyer
 Founder of Psychobiology ( a study not
only the person as a whole, or as a unit
but also as a whole man) and greatly
influenced American psychiatry. He
emphasized the importance of
considering the total individual from all
points of view biologically,
psychologically and socially. This
approach is sometimes called holism or
the holistic approach.
Sheldon
 identified the somatotypes in relation to
personality:
 Ectomorph - identified as fragile and
thin.
 Endomorph - identified as soft-rounded
and fat.
 Mesomorph - identified as medium-
built.
PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN
ADJUSTMENT
 Most of man’s behavior can be traced to
his attempts to satisfy his needs. All of
us have certain fundamental needs that
we seek to satisfy.
 These needs create tensions in the
human body. When we are able to
satisfy these needs, the tensions
disappear. Adjustment has been made
Adjustment
 the satisfaction of a need.
Three Elements in the
Adjustment Process
 A need which arouses.
 Purposive behavior, leading toward.
 A goal which satisfies the needs.
NEEDS, DRIVES AND
MOTIVATIONS
 Drives are aroused state that results from some
biological needs. The aroused condition motivates
the person to remedy the need.
 Needs are the triggering factor that drives or moves
a person to act. It is a psychological state of tissue
deprivation.
 Motivation on the other hand refers to the causes
and “why’s” of behavior as required by a need.
 Drive and motivation covers all of psychology, they
energizes behavior and give its direction to man’s
action. For example, a motivated individual is
engaged in a more active, more vigorous, and more
effective that unmotivated one, thus a hungry
person directs him to look for food.
Types of Human Needs
Human needs arise out of a person’s biological or psychological
make up. They can be biological (biogenic) needs which are
the needs of the body which exist for the maintenance of health
and protection of the body against physical injuries. These
include the need for:
 food – hunger: the body needs adequate supply of nutrients to
function efficiently. “An empty stomach sometimes drives a
person to steal.”
 air – need of oxygen
 water - thirst
 rest – weary bodies needs this.
 sex – a powerful motivator but unlike food and water, sex is not
vital for survival but essential to the survival of the species.
 avoidance of pain – the need to avoid tissue damage is
essential to the survival of the organism. Pain will activate
behavior to reduce discomfort.
 stimulus seeking curiosity – most people and animal is
motivated to explore the environment even when the activity
satisfies no bodily needs.
 They can also be psychological
(psychogenic or sociogenic) needs.
These are influenced primarily by the kind of
society in which the individual is raised.
Psychological motives are those related to
the individual happiness and well being, but
not for the survival, unlike the biological
motives that focuses on basic needs – the
primary motives.
 Examples of these are:
 love and affection
 for security
 for growth and development and
 recognition from other human beings.
A.H. Maslow
Some of the reasons why some people fail
to reach their goal are:
 Unrealistic goals - when the person’s level
of aspiration is much higher than his level
of achievement, he is bound to fail.
 Harmful or Anti-social goal.
 Conflicting goals.
 Environmental difficulties, including force
majeure
FRUSTRATION, CONFLICT and
ANXIETY
 Frustration refers to the unpleasant feelings that
results from the blocking of motive satisfaction. It is a
form of stress, which results in tension. It is the
feeling that is experienced when something
interferes with our hopes, wishes, plans and
expectations.
 Frustration occurs when a person is blocked in
the satisfaction of his needs. A person faced
with frustration becomes anxious and restless,
and he tries to seek means of relieving these
anxieties. He tries to engage in various forms of
activities that are intended to satisfy his needs
and reduce his tensions.
The common sources of
frustration are:
 Physical Obstacles – are physical barriers or
circumstances that prevent a person from doing
his plan or fulfilling his wishes.
 Social Circumstances – are restrictions or
circumstances imposed by other people and the
customs and laws of social living.
 Personal shortcoming – such as being
handicapped by diseases, deafness, paralysis,
etc. which serves as a barrier to the things one
ought to do.
 Conflicts between motives
 Reactions to Frustrations - People differ in
the way the react to frustrations. An
individual’s way of reacting to frustrations is
sometimes known as his coping mechanism.
Generally, people faced with frustration react it
in one of two ways:
 by fighting the problem in a constructive and
direct way by breaking the obstacles barring
him from his goal, or by getting angry and
become aggressive; and/or
 by running away (flight) from the problem, by
sulking, retreating, becoming indifferent, and
by giving up without a fight.
Frustration-tolerance
 Individuals also differ in their capacity to
tolerate unadjusted states, or frustration
tolerance. Some people are able to
withstand prolonged periods of tension
without showing signs of abnormality.
Others become neurotic or psychotic, or
convert their frustrations into physical
illness, while some act out their frustrations
by committing anti-social acts or becoming
alcoholics or drug addicts.
Defense Mechanism
 Defense mechanisms are the unconscious
techniques used to prevent a person’s self
image from being damage. When stress
becomes quite strong, an individual strives
to protect his self-esteem, avoiding defeat.
We all use ego defense mechanism to
protect us from anxiety and maintain our
feeling of personal worth. We consider
them normal adjustive reactions when they
are use to excess and threaten self-
integrity.
 Denial of reality – protection of one self from unpleasant
reality by refusal to perceive or face it. Simply by avoiding
something that is unpleasant. Or in denial, the ego shuts
itself off from certain realities.
 Fantasy – the gratification of frustration desires in
imaginary achievement. Paying attention not to what is
going on around him but rather to what is taking place on
his thoughts.
 Projection – placing blame for difficulties upon others or
attributing one’s own unethical desires to others in an effort
to prevent ourselves being blamed. A mother may deny her
hatred for the child is through projection. That is the
mother’s ego may pretend that the child actually hates her.
The mother thus projects her unacceptable emotions onto
the child.
 Rationalization – the use of excuses an individual to him
and to others. Attempting to prove that one’s behavior is
justifiable and thus worthy of self and social approval. It is
also an elaborate justification for what were obviously
illogical or immature actions.
 Reaction Formation – it occurs when someone tries to prevent
his submission to unacceptable impulses by vigorously taking an
opposite stand. Preventing dangerous desires from being
expressed by exaggerating opposed attitudes and types of
behavior and using them as barriers. A step beyond denial is
reaction formation, in which the ego changes unacceptable love
into acceptable hate (or vice versa). If a mother hates her child -
a feeling she must deny conscious awareness of - the mother
may
 Displacement – discharging pent-up emotion on objects less
dangerous than those that initially aroused the emotion.
 Emotional Insulation - withdrawal into passivity to protect self
from hurt.
 Isolation/Intellectualization – serves to cut off the emotions
from a situation which is normally is full of feeling.
 Regression – revert from a past behavior or retreating to earlier
developmental level involving less mature responses and
usually a lower level of aspiration. Example is falling back to
childish behavior patterns; some respond to stress by overeating
or by drinking too much.
 Sublimation – a process by which instinctual drives,
consciously unacceptable, are diverted into personally and
socially accepted channels. Example is gratification of
frustrated sexual desires in substitutive men sexual activities.
 Identification – increasing feeling of worth by identifying self
with person or institution. The person can associate himself
with something or someone to elevate position. Or it is a
process whereby an individual without conscious awareness,
satisfied frustrated desires by psychologically assuming the
role or some of the traits of another person.
 Introjection – incorporating external values and standards into
ego structures so individual is not at their mercy as external
threats. The acceptance of others’ values even they are
contrary to one’s own assumption.
 Undoing – Apologizing for wrongs, repentance, doing penance
and undergoing punishment to negate a disapproved act.
 Sympathism – striving to gain sympathy from others. The
person seeks to be praised by relating faults or problem.
 Acting-out – reduction of the anxiety
aroused by forbidden desires by permitting
their expression. The individual deals with
all his impulses by expressing them.
 Substitution (displacement) - a process by
which an unattainable or unacceptable
goal, emotion or object is replaced by one
that is more attainable or acceptable.
 Repression - the ego blocks off
threatening thoughts or desires and thus
keeps them from sweeping into the
spotlight of consciousness.
 Conflict refers to the simultaneous arousal
of two or more incompatible motives
resulting to unpleasant emotions. It is a
source of frustration because it is a threat
to normal behavior.
Types of Conflicts
 Double Approach Conflict – a person is motivated to engage in
two desirable activities that can not be pursued simultaneously.
 Double Avoidance Conflict - a person faces two undesirable
situations in which the avoidance of one is the exposure to the
other resulting to an intense emotion.
 Approach-Avoidance Conflict – a person faces a situation
having both a desirable and undesirable feature. It is sometimes
called “dilemma”, because some negative and some positive
features must be accepted regardless of which course of action
is chosen.
 Multiple Approach- Avoidance Conflict – a situation in which a
choice must be made between two or more alternatives each of
which has both positive and negative features. It is the most
difficult to resolve because the features of each portion are often
difficult to compare.
Anxiety
 is an intangible feeling that seems to evade
any effort to resolve it. It is also called
neurotic fear. It could be intense; it could
be low and can be a motivating force.
HUMAN VALUES
 Human values are relevant in
understanding human behavior. It is the
standard which people uses to cognize,
express, and evaluates behavior as right or
wrong, just or unjust, appropriate or
inappropriate. Values are also guides
which people use to evaluate their behavior
thus it gives direction to their life. They are
the enduring preferences for mode of
conduct or state of existence.
How are values acquired?
 They are acquired through the influenced
by the rewards and punishments meted out
by our parents, teachers and peers. For
instance, at home – there is the teaching of
control, cleanliness and good manners, in
school – there is competition and learning
in conformity with a bigger group, morality
and the teachings of the church, the
exposure to mass media and the
government influences. The accumulations
of these values continue to change as we
continue to face different experiences.