Human Behavior and the Social Environment

Human Behavior and the Social Environment Integrating Social Systems

Culture and Society • Culture: • Those qualities and attributes that seem to be characteristic of all humankind • Viewed as a macro system • A group phenomenon • Evolves from the interaction of person with others, and a person’s belief or behavior becomes part of the culture, when it is externalized and objectified.

Culture and Society • Society: • A group of people who have learned to live and work together. • It is a social organization that becomes more complex because of an increased volume of relationships among the various elements of the culture • Role is the total of the cultural expectations associated with a particular status, including the attitudes, values, and behavior. • It incorporates tools, language, child rearing, humans urge to explain the world and social relationships.

Communities • Held together by feeling and sentiment. • Is at the interface between society and microsystems. • Community is a population whose members: • Consciously identify with each other • May occupy common territory • Engage in common activities • Have some form of organization.

Communities • Communities are subordinate to larger, regional networks. • Consists of social networks. • Behavioral aspects include social control, socialization and communication. • There are place and non-place communities.

Organizations • They are social units. • Characterized by: • Divisions of labor • Presence of one or more power centers • Substitution of personnel. • Persons are to perform according to their assigned roles. • Purpose is the achievement of specific, explicit goals.

Organizations • Members confine themselves to a relatively narrow range of behaviors. • Power over each other is in the form of authority and hierarchal control. • Assures compliance with the system’s goals and adherence to the member’s prescribed roles.

Groups • An arena of social interaction. • Has potential to provide for: • A need to belong and to be accepted by others • A need to be validated by others • A need to share common experiences • Opportunities to work with others on common tasks.

Groups • It has a unique wholeness of its own • Comprises those associations and activity in which the person engage most of their “selves” from day to day. • Characterized by energy/information exchange to promote synergy. • Stages: • Forming, norming, and storming.

Families • Centrally important in defining social expectations and in providing resources for growth, in every phase of the person’s life. • The only system that is interwoven with all other systems. • Assumes or is delegated, primary responsibility for socialization into the culture and major responsibility to ensure the survival of society and of humanity.

Families • A system of roles that are the cultural expectations for behavior and where these roles are learned and carried out. • Two views of family roles: • The family is responsive to the demands and dictates of larger social systems. • The family initiates change, and society accommodates. The family determines society.

The Person • Without the individual, there would be no society and without society there would be no individual. • The human life cycle is viewed from a psychosocial approach. • The interaction of the individual person with the social environment. • It is both cause and effect of social systems.

The Person • A person’s growth and development is in a pattern of expansion, a movement outward. • As the cycle of life unfolds, persons expand their interaction into systems of ever-larger magnitude. • Strong emphasis is placed on the life cycle theory of Erik Erikson.

Interaction of Systems • Humanity • Society • Community • Organizations • Groups • Family • Person

Human Behavior and the Social Environment