HUMAN BEHAVIOR

Theories Enable Us to Understand and Respond to Human Behaviour



Theories Enable Us to Understand and Respond to Human Behaviour

Introduction

Human beings exhibit a large amount of behavioural diversity both between and within populations. Between populations, some behavioural characteristics are observed in some populations and not others; such traits might include driving cars or graduating from college. Other traits, such as eating and speaking, are found in all populations, but exhibit variation in their expression, for example, in the food eaten and the language spoken. In other cases, behaviour varies within populations, with individuals of different ages, sexes, vocation and social status being involved in different activities and having different roles, rights and responsibilities (Billings 2006: 248-249). Behaviour also varies within individuals over the course of their lifetimes, and stable individual differences extend beyond that which can be attributed to differences between populations or subgroups. In this paper, we would be discussing human behaviour. The human behaviour will be discussed in relation to work with service users or colleagues in an identified setting.

 Discussion

The purpose of the social work profession is to promote human and community well-being. Guided by a person and environment construct, a global perspective, respect for human diversity, and knowing based on scientific inquiry, social work's purpose is actualized through its quest for social and economic justice, the prevention of conditions that limit human rights, the elimination of poverty, and the enhancement of quality of life for all persons.

Human behaviour can be viewed as changing relationships among inseparable aspects - a dynamic interaction of person, environment, and time. This approach to understanding human behaviour is multidimensional, or having several identifiable dimensions. A dimension refers to “a feature that can be focused on separately but that cannot be understood without also considering other features (Farley et al. 2006: 56-71).” Thus, person and environment depend on each other for definition: the same person in a different environment, or the same environment with a different person, will most likely yield different behaviours. Both person and environment are also influenced by the dimension of time (Humphreys et al. 2007: 78-90), as depicted in the figure below:

Figure 1: Person, Environment, and Time Dimensions

Social group work - this area of ??practice, the functions of which are distributed to different areas of human activity - from the welfare and education to adapt and recover. Clients of social group work are individuals who have a different origin issues. According to the approach G. Konopka, social group work is a practical method of social work, which helps the individual to expand their social functioning through purposeful and experience of dealing more effectively with their individual, group. The term "social group work" was proposed by G. Konopka and other researchers in order to emphasize its specific and distinct from group psychotherapy. If a social group work focuses on issues related to social functioning, in group therapy focuses on emotional and psychological processes with sick people (Billings & Kowalski, 2006, 248-249). Today there is a tendency to apply the ...