LESSON 2- HUMAN BEHAVIOR

FOUR PILLARS OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

1. Equity - It is the idea that every person has the right to an education and health care, that
there must be fairness for all.
2. Sustainability - It encompasses the view that every person has the right to earn a living
that can sustain him or her, while everyone also has the right to access to goods more
evenly distributed among populations.
3. Production - It is the idea that people need more efficient social programs to be
introduced by their governments.
4. Empowerment - It is the view that people who are powerless, such as women, need to
be given power.

THEORIES OF CHILD (HUMAN) DEVELOPMENT

A. Personality Theory

I. Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud)

The Structure of Personality (Tripartite Personality)

The structure of personality, according to Sigmund Freud, is made up of three major systems: the
id, the ego and the superego. Behavior is always the product of an interaction among these three
systems; rarely does one system operate to the exclusion of the other two.

1. Id - Id allows us to get our basic needs met. Freud believed that the id is based on the
pleasure principle i.e. it wants immediate satisfaction, with no consideration for the
reality of the situation. Id refers to the selfish, primitive, childish, pleasure-oriented part
of the personality with no ability to delay gratification. Freud called the id the "true
psychic reality" because it represents the inner world of subjective experience and has no
knowledge of objective reality.
2. Ego - As the child interacts more with the world, the ego begins to develop. The ego's job
is to meet the needs of the id, whilst taking into account the constraints of reality. The
ego acknowledges that being impulsive or selfish can sometimes hurt us, so the id must
be constrained (reality principle). Ego is the moderator between the id and superego
which seeks compromises to pacify both. It can be viewed as our "sense of time and
place".
3. Superego (Conscience of Man) - The superego develops during the phallic stage as a
result of the moral constraints placed on us by our parents. It is generally believed that a
strong superego serves to inhibit the biological instincts of the id (resulting in a high level
of guilt), whereas a weak superego allows the id more expression-resulting in a low level
of guilt. Superego internalizes society and parental standards of "good" and "bad", "right"
and "wrong" behavior.
CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR (AGAS & GUEVARA, 2008).

1. Habitual. Refers to demeanors which are resorted to in a regular basis it may be further
characterized as emotional and language. E.g. Child brushes his teeth every morning

2. Instinctive. The conduct which is unlearned and inherent, said to be present at birth of a
person, and significantly influenced by heredity. E.g. Drinking when one Is thirsty; crying
if one is hurt.

3. Symbolic. The conduct in response to stimuli undertaken by means of substitution. E.g.

The conduct of keeping portrait and photographs to commit to memory an pleasant
experience or an important person; Diplomas and Awards in graduation to signify one's
academic achievements.
4. Complex. Refers to two or more habitual behavior which occurs in one situation.
E.g. Watching TV while eating; texting while driving.

CAUSATION OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR:

1. Duration. Refers to the aspect of human behavior I terms of function of time, how long
or brief the interval nay be.

2. Extensity. Traits of human behavior which focuses in terms of magnitude, mild, strong.

3. Quantity. Refers to the aspect of human dealing with the normal and abnormal traits.

FACTORS AND DETERMINANTS OF BEHAVIOR

There are two factors that determine or influence growth and development. These are heredity
and environment. These two factors contribute to what we are and to what we will be.

A. Heredity - it is the process by which various characteristics or traits physical, mental,

emotional, social and moral, are transmitted to the offspring though the genes of parents or
ancestors at the time of fertilization (Conception). Fertilization is the process by which the
father's sperm cells (spermatozoon) unite with the mother's ovum (egg). Both father and
mother's reproductive cells and germ cells (sperm and ovum) consist of chromosomes and genes.
When the two germ cells unite, fertilization takes place and fertilized egg is zygote.

PRINCIPLES OF HEREDITY
The five principles that govern the process of heredity are the following:

1. Principle of Reproduction - individuals of the same family has similar genes and traits.
Each parent contributes half of his or her genes to the child, and the child in tum
 contributes half of his or her gene to his or her children. Simply put, like produces like. An
Aeta child resembles his Aeta parents.

2. Principle of Variation - also known as the principle of individual differences. No two

individuals of the same kind are very exactly alike. Even if a child inherits the traits from
his parents, the child may still differ to a certain degree to his parents, so too of the
brothers and sister. Even though identical twins have identical hereditary traits, yet they
differ to some extent-in physical, mental, emotional, social, moral-spiritual aspects. Traits
such as intelligence, height, complexion and emotionality, show continuous variation. The
differences are caused by environment, training, willpower and other factors that
interfere in the children's development. Continued development of individuality is
essential to healthy personality and progress.

3. Principle of Chance - by chance and there is no way of controlling the assortment, each
child will be different from everyone else. The sex of the child is determined by chance.
The father, for instance, cannot command the Y chromosome to unite with the X
chromosome of the moter, nor the Y chromosome to meet with the X chromosome of the
mother. A number of congenital disorders such as albinism, cretinism and deaf mutes are
due to chance encounter of two recessive genes. Recessive genes have the ability to linger
on from generation to generation and may only be revealed on later through chance
encounter.

4. Principles of Dominance and Recessiveness - some genes are dominant, other are
recessive. If both members of a gene pair are dominant, the child will manifest the trait
determined by the dominant gene. If one gene is dominant and the other gene is
recessive, the child will manifest the trait determined by the dominant gene, but will also
carry the recessive gene which may be expressed later on in the offspring. A recessive
trait can only appear when both genes of the parents are recessive. Blue eyes are
recessive, for a child to be blue eyed, both parents must be blue-eyed, that is parents can
produce a blue-eyed child only if both of them carry a gene for blue eyes.

5. Principle of Sex-linked Traits - Pair 23 (Sex Chromosomes) determines the sex of the
individual and carries gene for certain traits that are called sex linked. Color blindness,
hemophilia (Failure of the blood to clot) and baldness are examples of sex-linked traits
which are evident mostly in men. These traits are carried by the same gene by women,
for example, a woman could become color-blind only when she receives two color
blindness genes, one in each chromosome.

B. Environment. Heredity does not operate in a vacuum but that it is constantly limited and
modified by environment. It includes all the conditions inside (internal environment) and outside
(external environment) an organism that influence its behavior. There are two sources of
environmental influences which act upon an organism: internal and external environment.
1. Internal environment - is the immediate environment which includes the intracellular
environment consisting of all the genetic materials held by the cell membrane and the
extracellular environment consisting of the blood, hormones and lymph fluids in the body.

2. External environment - includes the prenatal environment and postnatal environment.

In the prenatal environment, the organism is influenced by conditions before birth. These
conditions or forces include the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus, nutrition and
excretion of waste products, infections, chemical changes resulting to maternal stress,
exposure to radiation, smoking, drugs and alcohol. Abnormalities may result if the
prenatal environment is defective. In the postnatal environment, the life of the child after
birth continues to come under the influence of varied environment forces, such as
physical and social influences. The physical environment includes all the things in the
world that directly affects us, such as food, water, sunlight, medicines, air, etc. and those
things that stimulate the sense organs such as sights, sound, touch, smell and taste. The
social environment includes all human beings which influence us by direct contact such
as our friends, families, peers, classmates, officemates, group mates, or through print
media (newspapers, books, magazine, journal) and non-print media (TV programs, radio
programs, video programs, computer programs, etc.)