 Welcome, learners. Today, we are going to talk about the first paper of Bachelor of Social Work, that is Human Growth and Development. I am Dr. Midushmita Dwarah, Assistant Professor of Social Work from KK Handic State Open University. Today, we are going to talk about this paper, Human Growth and Development, which mainly focuses on the discipline of psychology and will try to show you the relationship of psychology with social work, how psychology plays an important role in the discipline of social work. So, this is the mainly core structure of Bachelor of Social Work. The first semester, it consists of general English paper, which is of four credit. Second paper is Alternative English or MIL. In MIL, you can choose from SMEs or Hindi, Bengali or Boro. General English and Alternative English or MIL is mainly four credit papers, and then Human Growth and Development. And another core social work paper, which is historical and philosophical foundations of social work. There are also two components of field work here in Bachelor of Social Work, since it is a professional course. And field work forms an important component of the profession of social work. There is a paper on field work, which will mainly consist of few visiting certain organizations or the community and also organizations that work in the social welfare development sector. There is a paper on orientation visit, which mainly focuses on visiting organizations which work for the development of the community. The components of field work and orientation visit will be discussed elaborately in a separate class. Today, let me focus on the paper of Human Growth and Development. The Human Growth and Development course is an introductory course, or you can say it is a foundation course to understanding the importance of discipline of psychology and how it lays its emphasis or importance to the discipline of social work. It is one of the core papers of social work, which not only deals with the concepts of psychology, it also showcases the development stages of human growth and development, how the mind develops and how the psychology changes at each stages of our development. This course is designed to introduce you to a range of important perspectives of psychology, human behavior and the stages of human growth and development. So, here when we talk about growth and development, it not only focuses on the physical changes, it also focuses on the psychological development that we go through from a neonatal stage, prenatal stage, which will be discussed later and how it goes on influencing our psychology and changing our mental setup and in the due course of time, how our behavior changes. So, this course will basically help you in understanding the psychological factors affecting behavior, emotions, needs and the transformation in each of human development. The main objective of this course is to understand the factors contributing to the development of personality. So, the concepts that will be beneficial to social workers in understanding human behavior better are discussed in this course. Here the course also objectifies to understand the physical and psychological changes along with the social changes of various development phases. The main content of the units that is the first unit, the first unit is named as introduction to psychology. The first unit deals with the introduction to psychology and its related concepts. Here we will also try to understand how psychology has a significant role to play in the profession of social work. Social psychology and developmental psychology, which are again branches of psychology will be discussed here because social psychology and developmental psychology are closely related to the profession of social work. The second unit of this course discusses the concepts of need, drive, incentive, motivation and personality. The third unit discusses the concept of human behavior and the factors that affect human behavior. The fourth unit deals with the concept of socialization and the theories of development and behavior. The fifth unit explains human growth and development and introduction to the principles of human growth and development and moving on to the sixth unit it focuses on the stages of human development. When we talk about stages of development as I told you earlier it starts from the prenatal stage and then goes on to the old age at the last stage. In the seventh unit there is a detailed discussion on childhood and adolescence those are stages of human growth and then the eighth unit talks about adulthood and late adulthood stages that also includes old age of human development is discussed along with the challenges of these stages. Now going on to the first unit of human growth and development course which is termed as introduction to psychology. The main learning objectives of this unit is to give a basic understanding of psychology to understand its relationship with social work that is the relationship between psychology and social work and thirdly to understand the application of psychology in social systems and its relation to health and pro-social behavior. Now when I talk about social systems it includes the societal systems of marriage, kinship, education, religion and all those social institutions which are part of us or which we are part of and how this play an important role in the psychological development of human beings and again here pro-social behavior implies those behavior which are socially accepted or desired by the society. Then the last objective of this unit is to explain the stages of human growth and development. Human growth and development includes various stages as I told you about from starting from pre-natal to post-natal childhood then babyhood, adolescence, adulthood and then old age so here all the stages will be discussed in the last unit of the course. Now coming to introduction of psychology as we all must have heard about the term psychology or the discipline of psychology it is mainly a social science which deals with the human mind and human behavior. Why is it called a social science? It is so because it is a scientific way of trying to understand the individual's mind and what affects a person's behavior. Therefore the term psychology is mainly adopted from two greek words. The first word is psyche which means the soul or logos which means a discourse or a study so basically it means the study of the mind. Therefore the word psychology means scientific study of mental processes, behavior and the mind. Psychology implies understanding the biological and social basis of human behavior and development. The biological and social basis biology here implies the biological setup with which our body and mind is made up. Social basis include the process of socialization and the ways how we are governed by the different social laws which are sometimes abstract to us which we cannot see but which always influence our behavior. For social work professionals psychology will help in understanding self that is understanding one self and also another self and in assessing or understanding the behavior of others. It uses methods of biological and social sciences to obtain data systematically. Therefore psychology is said to be a science because it has a scientific approach. It is not subjective in nature but it is objective in nature meaning that all the biases should be kept aside and we have to focus on the fact or the reality. That is why psychology is said to be a social science. Psychology analyzes and presents data in a way that can be organized as knowledge. Therefore what we see or what we collect as data through observation through experiments the data that we get from there can be scientifically organized. Now coming to understanding the relationship between psychology and social work. Social work is a profession that requires a variety of emotional and psychological skills to also the additional backup is an academic training. So social work profession why is it called a profession it is because it is also an academic training. Social workers need to know some basic psychological principles to understand and analyze human behavior. It is needed in order to bring a desire change in human behavior. So therefore psychological principles which are already established in the discipline of psychology needs to be utilized by social workers to understand the behavior of their clients. This is necessary in case of solving human problems until the social worker is aware of the causes that affects a human behavior. The social worker may not be able to help the person as required in the social environment. So therefore as we see here that people with adjustment and environmental disorders find it very difficult to cope with the socialization process. Psychology also helps in motivating people in group for better performance and in overall community development. In social work understanding of human psychology human developmental stages a developed sense of empathy ability to facilitate cooperation both among individuals and groups active listening skills critical thinking skills are extremely important for an efficient social worker. So apart from understanding human psychology and the development phases which will be discussed here also a sense of empathy. Now what is empathy? Empathy is the ability to understand another's feeling as the person is in that particular situation. So in a layman's language we can say that the ability to understand another's feeling is standing in his shoe. So from the perspective of the client we have to understand the problem that he or she is going through without being subjective to the person. So we have to be able to understand how that person is feeling and why that person is in that situation that is known as empathy. Active listening. Active listening is the ability or the skill to be able to listen or understand what the person is trying to say. Critical thinking skill is the ability to think critically without taking everything on face value that is trying to analyze facts that is known as critical thinking skills. These are extremely efficient important for an efficient social worker. So psychology helps in bringing this base to the profession of social worker. Now coming to the concept of social psychology. Social psychology is a branch of psychology that deals with how people behave when they influence others or are being influenced by others. Social psychology it is a two word term. So here the word social means of the society or the social factors that affect us and psychology as we have just discussed it is a discipline it is a social science. So social psychology mainly focuses on the factors the social factors that affect an individual. Social psychology explores how people are affected by their social environment how people think about the influence and how they influence others. Social psychology which is another profession closely related to psychologists and social workers. Social psychologists assess or evaluate the attitude, conformity, interpersonal interaction, behavior, prejudice, aggression, motivation of the people or of an individual. So social psychology is extremely important for social workers to evaluate the behavior of others of people individually as well as in groups. So when we talk about social psychology a social worker has to have keen observation skills, active listening skills and critical thinking skills so that the social worker can assess or understand why and how a person is behaving. In dealing with clients the social worker needs to be aware of the psychological processes especially for conducting counseling, case work and group work. So in this presentation we are talking about terms like attitudes like what kind of attitude a person has interpersonal interaction. The interpersonal interaction term has two words interpersonal that means how a person one individual interacts with another individual. So that is known as interpersonal interaction prejudice. What is prejudice? Prejudice is the way how a person perceives another person without knowing much about the person. For example we might have certain prejudices about a person belonging to a particular caste or a person belonging to a particular race. So these are known as prejudice where we have generalized knowledge which may not be true about another person without knowing the person properly. Aggression showing aggression or anger on another person and motivation how we are motivated or demotivated in the social processes. So these are concepts which are closely related to the concept of social psychology. So as we see here social psychology is an important component for social workers to evaluate the behavior of the clients. In the last point I have talked about the concept of conducting counseling then case work and group work. Counseling is a technique of social work which is very important and it deals in helping individuals problems. Sometimes the group counseling is also done and it helps in dealing with various kinds of problems. After counseling we have talked about case work. What is case work? Now case work is a method of social work. It is the first and the primary method of social work. It deals with an individual's problems therefore it is termed as case. The word case itself means we are focusing on the individual and the problems surrounding him or her. So here we are dealing with the client as a particular case. It is termed as case work and then we have talked about the concept of group work. Group work means dealing with individuals or groups problems and how assessing how the person behaves in a particular group. Sometimes individuals with similar problems are brought together in a group and then their problems are dealt with along with the guidance of the group worker in group processes and that entire technique or the method is known as group work. So now moving on to the next concept which is psychology and health. Here we will try to focus on how psychology as the science of behavior has so much to contribute to enhance the promotion of health and prevention of diseases. It addresses the health disparities. When we talk about health it not only focuses on physical health but it also focuses on the health of the mind or a healthy mind. Therefore psychology plays an important role in bringing about or assessing the absence of any mental illness or any physical diseases of the person. Psychological well-being is basically about a person's life going well. It is a combination of feeling good and functioning effectively. So therefore when we talk about health as a concept it has both the physical as well as the mental well-being involved together. Therefore psychological well-being is about an individual's perception of happiness and well supported and satisfied life. Psychology and pre-social behavior. When we talk about pro-social behavior it is a social responsibility which is an implicit duty of an individual to act or behave towards others for the benefit of the society at large. So pro-social behavior is mainly talking about the behavior which is socially accepted or desired by the society. Here therefore the term like social responsibility as an individual you as a member of the society have certain social responsibility or to give back to the society what we get from it. So the analysis of human orientation towards others is also analyzed in the discipline of psychology. Pro-social behavior describes a person's helping behavior towards others without any obligations or self-interest that is the nature of giving, giving back to the society and the individuals of the society. So therefore it it denotes pre-social behavior. Empathy which we have already discussed empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others is highly linked with pro-social behavior. Therefore pro-social behavior empathy is an important component. Pro-social behavior as we discussed it is the behavior which is desirable by the society and empathy helps in promoting pro-social behavior. How? Because only if we have empathy we will be able to understand the pain of another person or how a person is feeling and why a person is feeling the way he is doing it. The degree of pro-social behavior varies from person to person. Therefore some may be more pro-social behavior while others may be more or less pro-social behavior. Now coming to the concepts of social influence and social cognition. Social influence occurs when one's emotions, opinions or behaviors are affected by others. It takes many forms and can be seen in the form of conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership and persuasion. So therefore social influence here the role of self-understanding or critical thinking is a bit less. Social influence a person can be socially influenced when one does not apply one's own critical thinking. And it is a well-known fact that more people in a group will have more power to influence an individual's behavior. Therefore in a group we see that a peer pressure or a person is more prone to be influenced by the behavior of others in the group. Again contradictory to the concept of social influence is the concept of social cognition. According to the cognitive theory an individual's behavior is not directly influenced by any external stimuli but by applying his or her own understanding. The capacity of information processing in mind is also a factor in critical understanding or in social cognition. This develops gradually from childhood to adolescence. So therefore when we talk about social cognition we'll see that during our childhood we are easily influenced by why what our peers are doing or without questioning them we get into certain activities or certain behaviors. Suppose an elder is suggesting you to behave in a particular way then without much questioning we are prone to behave in a particular way but as we grow old and when we reach the stage of adolescence and further adulthood social cognition comes into play. Cognition here means applied understanding of the mind to be able to think critically. For example during childhood you may be afraid of one particular insect but as we grow older it is more of a chance that we have less fear towards that particular insect. So social influence will get over or will have a low preference to compare to social cognition. Cognition here therefore plays an important role in molding our behavior and finally how we change our perception from childhood to adulthood. So here closely connected to the concepts of psychology is developmental psychology. Now coming to the concept of developmental psychology it is another discipline of psychology which deals with the changes that human beings go through. So human beings undergo changes pertaining to physical, mental, social, emotional and spiritual changes through their cycle of life. Human developmental psychology deals with the study of gradual changes in behavior and abilities in every change or every stage of human life. It studies the physical, social and psychological changes that occur at different ages and over the lifespan of a human being from conception to old age. So as we had talked about the stages of prenatal, postnatal, childhood, babyhood, adolescence, adulthood and then last stage old age. So here developmental psychology talks about the different changes in the mind and the mental setup that we go through along with these various stages of development. So here coming to the elaborate discussion on the stages of developmental psychology or the stages of development that we see in the human lifespan. The first stage is prenatal period. It is the period when the major body parts are formed inside the mother's womb. So prenatal means before birth, here after the baby is conceived in the mother's womb the mind, the body parts start forming and then comes the stage of neonatal period. It mainly consists of three to four weeks after birth when the baby struggles to make adjustments with the outside world. Again there are various changes that unconsciously take place in the mind of the baby which the baby itself is not aware of but it's a natural process that in three to four weeks of birth of the baby it tries to make various adjustmental issues with the outside world. Infancy, the period when the baby actively tries to interact with the outside world with the help of certain bodily and verbal cues. Then comes the stage of childhood and in this phase the child develops skills, abilities and a personal identity where the child is seen as a growing entity which has its own identity and its own likings and dislikings. It has its own ways of behaving, adolescence. In this period a system of values and interests develop in an individual which prepare the ground for taking responsibilities of adult life. It is also said to be a very confused stage where a person in the adolescent stage is confused whether he or she belongs to the childhood stage or the adulthood stage because it is a period of transition. In adulthood an individual enters into the adult society, acquires occupation and has to establish his own family. Along with adulthood comes in various forms of responsibilities which is again after the immediate stage of transformation that is the adolescence and adulthood also has its various crises and adjustmental problems and that we can see in the examples of various people who struggle with finding a new occupation with starting a family then growing a family so these are various important phases that takes place within the stage of adulthood. Then comes the old age or the senescence stage when an individual crosses which is like before 70 years and after 70 years the stage of senescence which is an individual process 70 years of age the cells stop growing and there is deterioration in the bodily functions of a human being. Therefore these are the various stages of human development and developmental psychology analyzes the changes in the mind and the behavior of the individual along these different stages of development. So therefore in conclusion of this unit we can say that we have discussed about the role of psychology and how it is closely related to the profession of social work. We have discussed on social psychology that analyzes the behavior of socially acceptable or pro-social behavior and how our mind is and the behavior is influenced by the behavior of others and the socialization process. Then coming to the concept of social influence which is like less critical thinking is here and while social cognition is the full applicability of critical thinking which analyzes the facts and we accept the behavior which we think is right that is known as social cognition or cognition means applying reason to our actions and the behavior. Developmental psychology talks about the developmental stages of human life and how the mind goes through various changes and how behavior changes starting from pre-natal, post-natal, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and then old age. So therefore we have discussed these important concepts in this unit. Thank you.