Human Behavior and Victimology

Lesson No. 3 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
1. A need which arouses.
2. Purposive behavior, leading toward.
3. 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.
Motivations – 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.
TYPES OF HUMAN NEEDS
Human needs arise out of a person’s biological or psychological makeup. They
can be biological needs which are the needs of the body which exist for the
maintenance of health and protection of the body against physical injuries.
1. Food – the body needs adequate supply of nutrients to function efficiently.
2. Air – need of oxygen.
3. Water – thirst
4. Rest – weary bodies needs this.
5. Sex – a powerful motivator but unlike food and water, sex is not vital.
6. Avoidance of pain – the need to avoid tissue damage is essential to the survival
of organism. Pain will activate behavior to reduce discomfort.
7. 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.
 1. Love and Affection
2. For security
3. For growth and development; and
4. Recognition from other human beings.
ABRAHAM H MASLOW – there is hierarchy of needs ascending from the basic
biological needs present at birth to the more complex psychological needs that become
important only after the more basic needs have been satisfied.

Self-fulfillment of potential; doing things purely

for the challenge of accomplishment; intellectual
curiosity/ fulfillment; creativity/aesthetic
appreciation; acceptance of reality.

Self-actualization needs (achievement)

Recognition/prestige; confidence and

leadership; achievement and ability;
competence and success; strength and
intelligence.

Self-esteem needs (recognition)

Acceptance; feeling of belongingness;

membership in group; love and affection;
group participation.

Social needs (affiliation)

Security/safety; protection; comfort and

peace; no threats to danger; orderly/neat
surroundings

Safety needs (security)

 Food and thirst; sleep; health; baby needs;
exercise and rest; sex

Physical needs (basic biological)

Human needs however, cannot always be satisfied. Obstacles and difficulties
sometimes stand in the way between the individual and his goal. These obstacles may
lie in the individual’s environment or they may be in the individual himself.
Some of the reason why some people fail to reach their goal
1. Unrealistic goals – when the person’s level of aspiration is much higher than his
level of achievement, he is bound to fail.
2. Harmful or anti-social goal
3. Conflicting goals
4. Environmental difficulties, including force majeure.
FRUSTRATION, CONFLICT AND ANXIETY
A. Frustration - refers to the unpleasant feeling that results from the blocking of
motive satisfaction. It is a form of stress, which results in tension.
The common sources of frustration are:
1. Physical Obstacles – are physical barriers or circumstances that prevent a
person from doing is plan or fulfilling his wishes.
2. Social Circumstances - are restrictions or circumstances imposed by other
people and the customs and laws of social living.
3. Personal shortcoming - such as being handicapped by diseases, deafness,
paralysis, etc. which serves as a barrier to the things one ought to do.
4. Conflicts between motives – a clash between two or more motives, competing
with each other for satisfaction at the same time.
Reactions to Frustrations – an individual’s way of reacting to frustrations is sometimes
known as his coping mechanism. Generally, people faced with frustration react
through one to two ways;

1. By fighting – the problem in a constructive and direct way breaking the

obstacles barring him from his goal, or by getting angry and become aggressive
2. By running away (flight) – from a problem, by sulking, retreating, becoming
indifferent, and by giving up without 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. Other become neurotic or psychotic, or convert their
frustrations into physical illness, while some act out their frustrations by committing anti-
social behaviors.
Most normal persons react to frustration in the following ways:
1. Direct approach
2. Detour
3. Substitution
4. Withdrawal
5. Developing feelings of inferiority
6. Aggression
7. Use of defense mechanism
Defense Mechanism (EGO)
Defense mechanism 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.
Further, defense mechanism are unconscious psychological processes that act
as safety valves to provide relief from emotional conflict and anxiety. They are forms of
self-deception, which the person may not be aware of, and are resorted to whenever
psychological equilibrium is threatened by severe emotional injury arising from
frustration. The common defense mechanism.
1. Denial of reality – protection of oneself from unpleasant reality by refusal to
perceived or faces it.
2. Fantasy – paying attention not to what is going on around him but rather to what
is taking place on his thoughts.
3. Projection – placing blame for difficulties upon others or attributing one’s own
unethical desires to others in an effort to prevent ourselves being blamed.
4. Rationalization – the use of excuses an individual to hi and to others.
Attempting to prove that one’s behavior is justifiable and thus worthy of self and
social approval.
5. Reaction Formation – it occurs when someone tries to prevent his submission
to unacceptable impulses by vigorously taking an opposite stand.
6. Displacement – discharging pent-up emotion on objects less dangerous than
those that initially aroused the emotion.
7. Emotional insultation – withdrawal into passivity to protect self from hurt.
 8. Isolation/intellectualization – serves to cut off the emotions from a situation
which is abnormally is full feeling.
9. Regression – revert from a past behavior or retreating to earlier development
level involving less mature responses and usually a lower level of aspiration.
10. Sublimation – a process by which instinctual drives, consciously unacceptable,
are diverted into personally and socially accepted channels.
11. Identification – increasing feeling of worth by identifying self with person or
institution. The person can associate himself with something or someone to
elevate positions.
12. Introjection – incorporating external values and standards into ego structures so
individual is not at their mercy as external threats.
13. Undoing – apologizing for wrongs, repentance, doing penance and undergoing
punishment to negate a disapproved problem.
14. Symphatism – striving to gain sympathy from others. The person seeks to be
praised by relating faults or problems.
15. Acting-out – reduction of the anxiety aroused by forbidden desires by permitting
their expressions. The individual deals with all his impulses by expressing them.
16. Substitution (displacement) – a process by which an unattainable or
unacceptable goal, emotion or object is replaced by one that is more attainable
or acceptable.
17. Repression – the ego blocks off threatening thoughts or desires and thus keeps
them from sweeping into the spotlight of consciousness.

B. 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
1. Psychological Conflict (internal Conflict) – this type of conflict could be going
on inside the person and no one would know (instinct be at odds with values).

2. Social Conflict – in which the parties are an aggregate of individuals, such as

groups, organizations, communities, and crowds, rather than single individuals,
as in role. There are four types of social conflicts.
a. Interpersonal conflict – two individuals me against you;
b. Inter-group struggles – us against them;
c. Individual opposing a group – me against them, them against me;
d. Intra-group conflict – members of group all against each other on a task.

3. Approach-Avoidance – conflict can be described as having features of

approach and avoidance;
a. Double Approach Conflict – a person in motivated to engage in two
desirable activities that cannot be pursued simultaneously.
 b. 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.
c. 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.
d. 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.

C. ANXIETY – it is 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.