FILIPINO PERSONALITY AND

SOCIAL WORK
•Theories Used in Social Work Practice & Practice Models
•Social work theories are general explanations that are
supported by evidence obtained through the scientific method.
•A theory may explain human behavior, for example, by
describing how humans interact or how humans react to certain
stimuli.
•Social work practice models describe how social
workers can implement theories.
• Practice models provide social workers with a blueprint of
how to help others based on the underlying social work theory.
While a theory explains why something happens, a practice
model shows how to use a theory to create change.
•Social Work Theories
Major theories accepted in the field of social work:
1.Systems theory describes human behavior in
terms of complex systems. It is premised on the
idea that an effective system is based on individual
needs, rewards, expectations, and attributes of
the people living in the system. According to this
theory, families, couples, and organization
members are directly involved in resolving a
problem even if it is an individual issue.
2.Social learning theory is based on Albert Bandura’s idea
that learning occurs through observation and imitation. New
behavior will continue if it is reinforced. According to this theory,
rather than simply hearing a new concept and applying it, the
learning process is made more efficient if the new behavior is
modeled as well.
3.Psychosocial development theory is an eight-stage
theory of identity and psychosocial development articulated by
Erik Erikson. Erikson believed everyone must pass through
eight stages of development over the life cycle: hope, will,
purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care, and wisdom.
Each stage is divided into age ranges from infancy to older
adults.
4.Psychodynamic theory was developed by Freud, and it
explains personality in terms of conscious and unconscious forces.
This social work theory describes the personality as consisting of
the id (responsible for following basic instincts), the superego
(attempts to follow rules and behave morally), and the ego
(mediates between the id and the ego).
5.Transpersonal theory proposes additional stages beyond
the adult ego. In healthy individuals, these stages
contribute to creativity, wisdom, and altruism. In people
lacking healthy ego development, experiences can lead to
psychosis.
6.Rational choice theory based on the idea that all action is
fundamentally rational in character, and people calculate the risks
and benefits of any action making decisions.
•Social Work Practice Models
There are many different practice models that
influence the way social workers choose to help
people meet their goals. Here are some of the major
social work practice models used in various roles,
such as case managers and therapists:
1.Problem solving models assists people with the
problem solving process. Rather than tell clients what
to do, social workers teach clients how to apply a
problem solving method so they can develop their
own solutions.
2.Task-centered practice models a short-term
treatment where clients establish specific, measurable goals.
Social workers and clients collaborate together and create
specific strategies and steps to begin reaching those goals.
3.Narrative therapy models externalizes a person’s
problem by examining the story of the person’s life. In
the story, the client is not defined by the problem, and
the problem exists as a separate entity. Instead of
focusing on a client’s depression, in this social work
practice model, a client would be encouraged to fight
against the depression by looking at the skills and
abilities that may have previously been taken for
granted.
4.Cognitive behavioral therapy models focuses
on the relationship between thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors. Social workers assist clients in identifying
patterns of irrational and self-destructive
thoughts and behaviors that influence emotions.
5.Crisis intervention models used when someone
is dealing with an acute crisis. The model includes seven
stages: assess safety and lethality, rapport building,
problem identification, address feelings, generate
alternatives, develop an action plan, and follow up.
This social work practice model is commonly used with
clients who are expressing suicidal ideation.
•THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
 Personality: derived from the Latin word “persona” (theatrical
mask worn by Roman
actors in Greek drama); pattern of relatively permanent traits & unique
characteristics that
give both consistency & individuality to a person’s behavior
 Traits: contribute to individual differences in behavior, consistency of
behavior over
time, & stability of behavior across situations
 Characteristics: unique qualities of an individual that
include such attributes as
temperament, physique, & intelligence
Behavior: any action/response to internal &
external stimuli
Theory: a set of related assumptions that
allows scientists to use logical deductive
reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses
 Philosophy Theory is related to, & is a
narrower concept than, philosophy
•TRAITS– a relatively permanent disposition of an
individual, which is inferred from behaviorMaybe unique,
common to some group or shared by entire specie, but their
pattern is different from each individual
•CHARACTER– relatively permanent acquired qualities through
which people relate themselves to others and to the world, Unique
qualitied of an individual that include attributes such as
temperament, physique and intelligence
•Assumption- component of a theory that are not proven facts
in the sense that their validity has been absolutely established
•Social Justice Social workers have a responsibility to
promote social justice, in relation to society generally, and
in relation to the people with whom they work. This means:
Challenging negative discrimination* - Social workers have
a responsibility to challenge negative discrimination on the
basis of characteristics such as ability, age, culture,
gender or sex, marital status, socio-economic status,
political opinions, skin color, racial or other physical
characteristics, sexual orientation, or spiritual beliefs.
• ‘Cultural relativism’ is where from often
white, middle-class practitioners who
have little and/or prejudiced knowledge
of a particular culture attribute potentially
abusive behaviors to aspects of culture,
which they believe they have no right to
‘criticize’
• Construction of childhood Across Europe, and
to an even greater extent other countries around
the world, there are great differences in how
childhood is constructed. Children and young
people who offend are dealt with very differently,
with different ages of criminal responsibility and
how the official agencies and local communities
may deal with such issues. In the child protection
field, there are major differences in the
construction of childhood and ideas
concerning abuse around the world
•Refugees and asylum seekers, including the
possibility that they may have been child soldiers. They may well have
experienced trauma as part of genocide or violent oppression of their
families
• Children who have been exploited, including child
trafficking, commercially sexually exploited children and child labor
including adoption
• The family experiences of children,
and other substitute families;
•Cultural Identity O’Hagan (1999: 273)
argues that cultural identity is a sense of
sameness and belonging and is the product
of ‘values, ideas, perceptions and meaning,
which have evolved over time’. Culture for
many migrant families is a way of keeping
connected to their past.
•Defining Otherness
• The idea of ‘otherness’ is central to sociological
analyses of how majority and minority identities
are constructed. This is because the
representation of different groups within any given
society is controlled by groups that have greater
political power. In order to understand the notion
of The Other, sociologists first seek to put a
critical spotlight on the ways in which social
identities are constructed.
• The concept of The Other highlights how many
societies create a sense of belonging, identity and
social status by constructing social categories as
binary opposites. This is clear in the social
construction of gender in Western societies, or how
socialization shapes our ideas about what it means
to be a “man” or a “woman.” There is an
inherently unequal relationship between these two
categories. Note that these two identities are set up
as opposites, without acknowledging
alternative gender expressions.
• Dichotomies of otherness are set up as
being natural and so often times in everyday
life they are taken for granted and presumed
to be natural. But social identities
are not natural – they represent an established
social order – a hierarchy where certain
groups are established as being superior to
other groups. Individuals have the choice (or
agency) to create their identities according to
their own beliefs about the world.
•Remarriage and Child Outcomes
• Remarriage does not generally improve outcomes for
children, despite the potential gains from both improved
economic circumstances and the presence of an
additional adult to help with parenting tasks. Indeed,
some studies have shown children to be worse off after
a parent’s remarriage. having a stepfather1 had a
deleterious effect on children’s behavior scores.
children who had experienced a parental separation,
those whose parents reconciled or whose mother
remarried exhibited more behavioural difficulties than
children who remained in a single-parent family.
•Multiple Family Transitions
•Several studies have found that multiple family transitions are
especially damaging for children.The number of transitions
impacted both on children’s adjustment problems and on levels
of prosocial behavior. The effects of the number of parenting
transitions were significant, these accounted for a relatively
small percentage of the variation of adjustment, ranging
between 5% and 8% across three separate samples.
•The experience of multiple transitions and multiple family
types, among a sample of children not born into an intact
biological family, was associated with lower educational
attainment and greatly increased the likelihood that children
would try to establish an independent household and enter
the labor force at an early age.
•Short-Term and Long-Term Impacts
•Many of the reported effects of parental separation on child wellbeing
are based on observations that are taken in the short term. However,
other studies have examined effects over longer-term durations, some
into adulthood. While there is evidence that many of the difficulties that
children encounter as a result of parental separation decline as time
passes, there is also evidence that some effects are persistent and
enduring.
•during the first two years after a divorce both children and adults
experienced pragmatic, physical and emotional problems as well as
declines in family functioning. By two years after the divorce the
majority of families had made significant adjustments, although among
children there were variations by age and gender. While girls seemed to
recover fully during the primary school years, boys in mother-custody
homes exhibited behavior problems for as long as six years.
•Mechanisms That Link Parental
Separation to Child Outcomes
•Five mechanisms will be considered in the following
discussion:
1. income changes consequent on parental separation
2. paternal absence
3. poor maternal mental health following a separation
4. interparental conflict
5. compromised parenting practices and child-parent
relations.
1. Income Changes Consequent to Parental Separation
•The economic circumstances of families decline after divorce, especially among
mother-headed families. range of ways in which the economic position of a family
might exert effects on child wellbeing:
Financial hardship may negatively affect children’s nutrition and health; it reduces
parental investment in books, educational toys, computers, private lessons; it
constrains choice of residential location, which means that the family may have to live
in a neighbor hood where school programmes are poorly financed, services are
inadequate and crime rates are high; children are more likely in such neighbor hoods
to associate with delinquent peers.
2. Paternal Absence
•Following a parental separation, most children live in the primary custody of one
parent, although joint custody arrangements have become increasingly common over
recent years. In most cases, the custodial parent is the mother, which means that a
significant aspect of the experience of post-separation family life, for most children, is
the absence of their father. Although other custody arrangements are increasingly
common, the research in this area has still tended to focus on “father absence”.
3. Interparental Conflict
•The connection between marital separation
and marital conflict is complex. Clearly the two
factors are interrelated, in that at the time of a
marital dissolution the separating partners are
likely to be at odds and many are involved in
serious conflict. Hanson (1999) reported that
about half of all couples who divorced exhibited
high levels of conflict beforehand, compared
with about one-quarter of families who
4. Maternal Mental Health
•Maternal mental health is another mechanism
through which parental separation exerts effects
on children’s wellbeing. The pathways that
connect separation, maternal mental health and
child wellbeing are somewhat complex and are
likely to operate via the route of impairments to
parenting. The process of separation can take a
toll on the mental health of separating parents,
which can in turn impair the quality of parenting.
•Parenting and Parent–Child Relationships
• Various studies have shown that separation
and divorce lead to disruptions in parenting
practices. Simons et al. the mother’s parenting
mediated much of the association between
divorce and child adjustment.. This reduced
involvement in parenting was associated with
an increased probability that a boy would
display conduct problems.
•Children of Divorce and Remarriage
• Divorce and remarriage can been stressful
on partners and children alike. Divorce is
often justified by the notion that children are
better off in a divorced family than in a family
with parents who do not get along.
•Violence and Abuse
•Violence and abuse are among the most
disconcerting of the challenges that today’s
families face. Abuse can occur between spouses,
between parent and child, as well as between
other family members. The frequency of violence
among families is a difficult to determine because
many cases of spousal abuse and child abuse go
unreported. In any case, studies have shown that
abuse (reported or not) has a major impact on
families and society as a whole.
•Domestic Violence
• Domestic violence is a significant social problem in the
United States. It is often characterized as violence
between household or family members, specifically
spouses. To include unmarried, cohabitating, and same-
sex couples, family sociologists have created the
term intimate partner violence (IPV). Women are the
primary victims of intimate partner violence. IPV may
include physical violence, such as punching, kicking, or
other methods of inflicting physical pain; sexual
violence, such as rape or other forced sexual acts;
threats and intimidation that imply either physical or
sexual abuse; and emotional abuse,
•Child Abuse
•Children are among the most helpless victims of abuse
Three-fifths of child abuse reports are made by
professionals, including teachers, law enforcement personal,
and social services staff. The rest are made by anonymous
sources, other relatives, parents, friends, and neighbors.
•Child abuse may come in several forms, the most common
being neglect (78.3 percent), followed by physical abuse
(10.8 percent), sexual abuse (7.6 percent), psychological
maltreatment (7.6 percent), and medical neglect (2.4
percent) Some children suffer from a combination of these
forms of abuse. The majority (81.2 percent) of perpetrators
are parents; 6.2 percent are other relatives.
•Methods for Researching Human Development
•Developmental psychology uses scientific research methods to study
the changes that occur in human beings over the course of their lives.
•Research Methods
•Developmental psychology employs many of the
research methods used in other areas of psychology;
however, infants and children cannot be tested in the
same ways as adults. To study changes in individuals
over time, developmental psychologists use systematic
observation, including naturalistic or structured
observation; self-reports, which could be clinical
interviews or structured observation; clinical or case study
methods; and ethnography or participant observation.
•Three research methods ,the experimental,
correlational, and case study approach.
•Experimental Research
involves actual manipulation of treatments, circumstances, or events to
which the participant or subject is exposed. This design points to cause-
and-effect relationships and thus allows for strong inferences to be made
about causal relationships between the manipulation of one or more
independent variables and subsequent subject behavior.
•Correlational Research

explores the relationship between two or more events by

gathering information about these variables without researcher
intervention. The advantage of using a correlational design is
that it estimates the strength of a relationship among variables
in the natural environment.
•Case Study
• In a case study, developmental
psychologists collect a great deal of
information from one individual in order to
better understand physical and psychological
changes over his or her lifespan. Data can
be collected through the use of interviews,
structured questionnaires, observation,
and test scores.
•Research Designs
•These include longitudinal, cross-sectional,
sequential, and microgenetic designs.
1. Longitudinal Design
In a longitudinal study, a researcher observes
many individuals born at or around the same
time (a cohort ) and carries out new observations
as members of the cohort age. This method can
be used to draw conclusions about which types of
development are universal (or normative ) and
occur in most members of a cohort.
2. Longitudinal Designs: Children experience rapid
physical changes through infancy and early childhood. In a
longitudinal study, a researcher observes many individuals born
at or around the same time and observes them as they age
3. Cross-Sectional Design
In a cross-sectional study, a researcher observes
differences between individuals of different ages at
the same time. This generally requires fewer
resources than the longitudinal method, and
because the individuals come from different
cohorts, shared historical events are not as unique.
4. Cross-Sequential Design
•Cross-sequential designs combine both longitudinal and
cross-sectional design methodologies. A researcher
observes members of different birth cohorts at the same
time, and then tracks all participants over time, charting
changes in the groups.
5. Microgenetic Design
•Microgenetic design studies the same cohort over a
short period of time. In contrast to longitudinal and cross-
sectional designs, which provide broad outlines of the
process of change, microgenetic designs provide an in-
depth analysis of children’s behavior while it is changing.
•INFLUENCE OF CULTURE IN SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
•Standards
Standard 1. Ethics and Values Social workers
shall function in accordance with the values, ethics, Cultural competence requires self-awareness,
cultural humility, and the commitment to understanding and embracing culture as central to effective
practice.

Standard 2. Self-Awareness
Social workers shall demonstrate an appreciation of their own cultural identities and
those of others.
Standard 3. Cross-Cultural Knowledge
•Social workers shall possess and continue to develop specialized knowledge and
understanding that is inclusive of, but not limited to, the history, traditions, values, family
systems, and artistic expressions such as race and ethnicity; immigration and refugee status;
tribal groups; religion and spirituality; sexual orientation; gender identity or expression; social
class; and mental or physical abilities of various cultural groups.
•Standard 4. Cross-Cultural Skills
Social workers will use a broad range of skills (micro, mezzo,
and macro) and techniques that demonstrate an understanding
of and respect for the importance of culture in practice, policy,
and research.
•Standard 5. Service Delivery
Social workers shall be knowledgeable about and skillful
in the use of services, resources, and institutions and be
available to serve multicultural communities.
• Standard 6. Empowerment and Advocacy
•Social workers should also participate in the development and
implementation of policies and practices that empower and
advocate for marginalized and oppressed populations.
• Standard 7. Diverse Workforce
•Social workers shall support and advocate for recruitment,
admissions and hiring, and retention efforts in social work
programs and organizations to ensure diversity within the
profession.
•Standard 8. Professional Education
• Social workers shall advocate for, develop, and participate in professional
education and training programs that advance cultural competence within the
profession.
• Standard 9. Language and Communication
•Social workers shall provide and advocate for effective communication with clients
of all cultural groups, including people of limited English proficiency or low literacy
skills, people who are blind or have low vision, people who are deaf or hard of
hearing, and people with disabilities
•Standard 10. Leadership to Advance Cultural Competence
• Social workers shall be change agents who demonstrate the leadership skills to
work effectively with multicultural groups in agencies, organizational settings, and
communities.
• Cultural Competence
 cultural competence refers to the ability to
practice social work “in a manner that
recognizes, affirms, and values the worth of
individuals, families, communities, and protects
and preserves the dignity. The term competence
suggests that social workers should possess a
certain set of knowledge, skills, and values.
•Cultural Sensitivity
• Cultural sensitivity is similar to cultural
awareness in that both terms require
consciousness of cultural issues affecting
practice. The term sensitivity is used in
Standard 1.05(b), quoted earlier. Some might
argue that cultural sensitivity goes beyond
awareness, requiring a deeper understanding
and ability to apply this understanding to one’s
practice.
•Cultural Humility
• Cultural humility suggests that social workers
should not view themselves as experts in other
people’s cultures but as learners. By
acknowledging that I do not know everything
about another person’s culture, I am showing
respect and I am opening my heart and mind to
learning. When I am working with Blind clients,
for instance, I treat these clients as experts in
their own lives, including their experiences in and
perspectives about Blind culture.
•Barriers to Cultural Competence
•Barriers to cultural competence in social work
include an unwillingness or disinterest among
some practitioners to learn about different
cultures or ethnic groups. Some social workers
may lack experience and knowledge with
certain groups and fail to uphold their ethical
responsibility to learn about their clients.
•A lack of cultural humility is another barrier to cultural competence.
According to the NASW, cultural humility involves having a non-
paternalistic attitude towards clients from different socioeconomic
groups, and towards marginalized and oppressed groups. Cultural
humility requires clinicians to learn from culturally diverse clients and to
empower clients and let them be the experts on their own culture. It
involves careful listening and reflection. A lack of cultural humility and a
lack of interest and knowledge in different cultures are both
unacceptable and social workers with such attitudes should think about
finding a new career.

• There are additional barriers to cultural competence including a lack

of training, a lack of guidance given by employers or agencies,
prejudice on the part of employers who might block social workers
from gaining more knowledge and practice experience with diverse
clients.
•Defining Culture
• culture is the learned behavior of a group of
people that generally reflects the tradition of
that people and is socially transmitted from
generation to generation through social
learning; it is also shaped to fit
circumstances and goals.
 •Culture is reflected in the behavior and beliefs of
a single individual, but it is also fundamentally
social. Culture is a product of the way individuals
learn.
• to coordinate desirable and useful activities with
others, and it is expressed in many ways, including
through the actions, expectations, and beliefs of
individual persons; physical elements such as
artifacts, tools, and the design of physical
spaces; norms for interacting with others, both
verbally and nonverbally; and beliefs and ways of
looking at the world that are shared with others.