 Today, we would continue with another interesting dimension of the human adjustment process, where we would be talking about the general nature of the adjusted behavior. These things are too common sensically you all know it, but we are trying to know put everything in place, so that we understand the whole dynamics of the human adjustment. All human reactions are supposed to be holistic in nature, so you do not give fragmented responses when you encounter a situation rather it has to be a complete a wholesome response. Second important characteristics is that all the reactions are supposed to be economical you try your best to save as much as you can in terms of giving your behavior. Some of the reactions could be automatic some of the responses could be well planned. Then the reactions also have certain emotional components for example, if you are frustrated it is bound to elicit anger. If you have a perception of danger then it might trigger fear, if you have a perception of threat it might elicit anxiety. Little later when we come to aggressive behavior we will discuss it at length there we would once again look at this frustration aggression hypothesis, where basically it is told that anger is always triggered by certain sense of frustration. The moment you realize that you are helpless things are going beyond your control this is the last option of having control over the situation. And then reactions may either be task oriented or it might be defense oriented, so task oriented reaction would mean you remember when we were talking about that example where we took the whole range of reactions possible in one given situation. So task oriented reactions would be that you have the task at hand you break it into multiple components as many parts as you can and then for each of the constituent element of the problem you identify your solution a way of handling it you execute it. That could be one way if the task you know is too simple and there is no need to split it into multiple components then in the wholesome fashion you just know face it head on and then you try to resolve it. The other set of reaction would be defense oriented reaction where the idea is not to confront the situation and resolve it but the idea is to safeguard one's own ego. Task oriented reaction patterns and defense oriented reaction patterns little later in the same sequence of slides will come to them at length. Another important characteristics of healthy development are that one should have an adequate frame of reference. What actually frame of reference means is that with it would be you know take an example of say a photo frame. So you have a picture and accordingly you try to know have a frame of a proportionate size wherein that picture can be fitted in. The choice is yours what type of frame you choose but then the size of the frame you do not choose size of the frame is defined by the photograph. So similarly in our life when you encounter several type of situations gradually what happens that you start defining life and the way things are in this world in certain order and that starts now making a boundary within which you try to explain worldly occurrences. So this becomes a frame of reference now. So actually your accurate reality possibility and value assumptions these three things will come little later once again concerning yourself or the world they actually know get fitted into this frame of reference. Now frame of reference has a very interesting thing to do we will take a example of example say somebody who has overall by and large not so restricted life experience. Means you are the only child in the family you belong to an affluent background you ask your parents for certain things you get them very easily you go to a school where you are taken care of school tries to provide you the best facilities it can you can demand certain things from your school and the school will try to give you those things. You have found friends who by and large will surrender their own choices to yours and therefore by and large you have experience life as if I can get what I want my feelings my desires my way of thinking should supersede the others. If this is how you have been grown up gradually what happens you start looking world this way. So later on if you experience a situation where your choices are not being accepted your demands are not being fulfilled it becomes extremely difficult for you to adjust. And one of the primary responsibility lies with the fact that you have your own way of looking at things because you have never seen the life from the perspective of others. Let us take some real life examples I would not name but when the government of India suggested once that most of their ministers they should you know try to cut on their expenses and therefore they should fly economy class one of the minister even tweeted stating that economy class he compared it to cattle class this was the word that he had used. We do not take names here now so but you know who the person was we are not interested in who the person was or whether he was x or y in his capacity in his official capacity. But this shows the frame of reference you know because you have been born and brought up in a different situation for 30 years you have been at a very different place where you have not experienced life this way. Imagine economy class of air carrier in India to a general compartment of a train then it is equivalent to hell then if this is cattle class then what is the general compartment of a local train there are many many remote localities in our country where you know you have one or two buses connecting them from the cities and that too in a very bad shape it is all full of passengers. If you just go to the archives of some of these print media when two three years back when there was this flood in Koshy river in Bihar and you see the images and very interestingly you would realize that people are struggling for their own life but at the same time they are not ditching their kettles the goats, buffaloes, cows they would carry all of them goats and goats know many a times you would realize that on the shoulder you have a human maybe and you have a goat and then the person is swimming completely submerged in the water is trying to get out of that flooded area. Compare that type of cultural background somebody who has experienced life like that and you say that this is a cattle class there is a complete disharmony between the perception of the two individual. Somebody who thinks that saving life of my son is as important as saving life of the goat which I have with me. Somebody who says oh fine three passengers are made to sit very close to each other and there is a very narrow leg space and therefore it is equivalent to cattle class that reflects the frame of mind. Frame of mind what happens gradually is that with little experience you are still trying to draw the lines. Once you realize that you have experienced life sufficient and therefore you have drawn this line then you start evaluating all worldly affairs with respect to your frame of reference. So it is like the earlier example that we took that you take a photograph and then try to put it in a frame. You select a frame which will suit this size of the photograph but in life with reference to frame of reference that does not happen. You develop your frame of reference first based on certain life experiences and then all life experiences you try to fit into that frame. What is little demanding and also it makes excessive demand from an adjustment view point is that the moment you realize that your x life experience that you are trying to fit into your frame of reference does not fit you consider that there is something improper with the situation. You do not consider that my frame of reference needs to be revised. Say for example if I ask you that visualize when you hear certain words just visualize that word and tell me what type of image do you have. I will do that exercise here. Instructor of a course here in IIT visualize the moment you hear no instructor of a course what type of image comes to your mind. Now I will ask some of you tell me what type of image came to your mind. Person with respect. So a person with no aspects and the glass should be little thicker. So that is the image that comes to his mind you tell me what is the image that came to your mind. Someone who is very interactive. Someone who is very interactive. Yes you tell me what was the image that came to your mind. My image we had seen each other earlier but still that image came to your mind. Oh great it is not to please me sure. Yes somebody from the second you tell me what image came to your mind. Forty fifty year old person. Forty fifty year old person with specs. Color of the specs also came. Thickness of the glass usually it happens. This is how we visualize. Anybody else who had some peculiarity in the visualization compared to what you are. So by and large you had similar type of thing. Usually you think of gray hairs. So the more gray you are in terms of your hair the more knowledgeable you are. If you are bald very good. Spec should be little thicker. Shouldn't be stylish. Should be you know brownish or black completely black. If you have little more wrinkles it suits profession. So something like this. Now when I ask you to visualize and you visualize things this way this means that say there is your visualization is driven by a frame of reference. Instructor should be like this. I am excluding his example. Now look at your earlier experiences right in the beginning of the semester. When you saw couple of instructors entering the room for certain set of courses that you have credited. And you realize oh I thought something else and the instructor is now grossly different from what I had visualized. This type of mismatch is many a time occurs in our life. The world doesn't behave the way we want the world to behave. Now there is a strong requirement now that either you accept me that even though I am a mismatch but you are accepted. But this acceptance will come with due difficulties. It is not easy to accept it my frame of reference as an error. All instructors should be below this size no without specs completely black hairs or mixed hairs. Can have a specs but rarely uses it stuffs like this. Now if you extend it to certain things like say religious tolerance for example. Here you don't have a choice whether you like me or not. We have to face each other for the entire semester. But say for example when you have the choice of practicing one set of belief and rejecting the other practice it is much more simpler. You accept one way of life and you condemn all other ways which doesn't fit into your frame of reference. So in many situations you have to adjust in certain situations you can take the liberty of rejecting things to the maximum possible extent. Frame of reference gradually starts accepting your belief system what to believe and what not to believe. It starts coloring your entire perception. So all types of value oriented judgments start getting defined by the frame of reference. It gets colored because of the frame of reference and when you make certain assumptions your assumptions are also guided by the frame of reference. So by and large your frame of reference plays a very very important role when it comes to adjusting with the new life experiences. I am deviating a bit but if you are interested there are good amount of studies suggesting that achievement in certain domains of knowledge has a correlation with the age of the person. This is with respect to intelligence and creativity. So in with that respect there are based on research findings it has been proposed that in certain areas you excel because you are above a certain age. In certain areas you achieve because you are below certain age. For example major breakthroughs in philosophy has been seen when the person has crossed certain age. So you are above certain age maybe I don't exactly remember but perhaps 60 plus or so. When you can come forward with much refined versions of your thought and compare it with say a path breaking type of an idea in physics for example which will require you to be below if I remember correctly it is 28 or 25. This means that more and more information you receive in life. Your frame of reference starts becoming more and more brittle. So you want things to fit into the earlier frame and therefore you cannot come forward with a path breaking research. Path breaking research would mean that you do not accept any boundary that the earlier theories have proposed. And you can still imagine that although these theories have been proved they have proven this but there could be a possibility of completely negating this and going beyond it. So with more and more rigid frame of reference you start you know complying to the earlier versions and therefore you do not come forward with path breaking findings but that has to do with creativity and intelligence. Then we come to the other characteristics of healthy development that is essential competencies. You feel that there is a need to master certain physical, intellectual, emotional and social skills which are needed you know and that has to do with basically your age and it also has to do with your culture. So there are age specific norms in all the culture with respect to how much you should be capable of performing with respect to your physical abilities with respect to your intellectual capability with respect to your emotional stability with respect to your social competence. So say for example in terms of physical growth up to certain age the baby is you know pampered to crawl to you know suck thumbs to defecate urinate at the any place there is no bar on that. But gradually you realize that you know even in pediatric clinics will find that there are growth charts that by this age your baby should be able to hold objects and stand. And if you say that the baby is under performing means the baby has achieved that age physically but is not able to hold objects and stand firmly then the doctor says that there might be something wrong with the baby your baby requires medical attention. Now these are you know interesting things because there is a scientifically guided socially accepted protocol of physical growth. Now we will again do the same exercise know that you try to you know draw a line and then look at both the ends what would be the possibility. Now imagine a situation that you have come to a age where you are supposed to hold objects and stand firmly and you are not capable of doing that. Parents are worried society feels concerned about your pattern of growth but after a delayed period you are capable of doing that which is fine. Imagine a situation that you are still continuously growing chronologically but you are still not able to do that. Society feel concerned about you the medical practitioners say that you are probably a spastic child you have certain physical anomalies that does not allow you to stand erect. Now even though you are not capable of doing that you have been identified with one or the other physical handicap situation or you are able to come forward with a delayed response to it society accepts. Both the versions of it are completely acceptable only the care giving pattern now changes. Similarly say after certain age people will expect you that fine you should be bellwilled but then everybody is not supposed to be a body builder. Imagine somebody know building muscles and somebody know still remaining slim and sleek not at all getting involved into physical activities which is fine both the versions are acceptable. But then there are certain age appropriate norms which you should certainly be able to achieve. So if you should be able to know put on your clothes if you are able to put off your clothes if you are able to know eat play walk without errors fine you have achieved certain level of competencies. But these competencies does not stop there only know usually the medically prescribed pattern of growth. There are certain social expectations that goes little beyond this where the society will expect that know if you are physically capable in certain types of situation you should also be know willing to or know you should be generous enough to get involved in such type of acts which requires your involvement of your physical capability which usually the medical growth chart will not demand you that. The social situations the social expectation will seek such a certain type of help from you. Intellectual capability once again you know all psychological clinics have this again growth pattern that there are certain age specific requirements know that you should be able to grow intellectually up to this level depending on your chronological growth. Again if you overachieve fine you are bright child there is a word used in psychology called gifted children. Gifted children are those who know usually achieve things before the chronological benchmark that has been otherwise put forth. The other possibility could be that you are still incapable of know handling things and you are you cannot come forward with a desired intellectual outcome. Then you are again designated with some type of a mental anomalies. So, it could be one type of mental handicapped situation it could be learning disability it could be autism spectrum it could be at any type of the problem that does not allow you to perform intellectually the way other children of your age are able to. Then comes emotional competence once again know in child psychology people are you know taught these things we would not go into the details of it, but Jean Piaget was the psychologist who talked about the you know growth pattern of human children and he talked about physical growth he talked about emotional growth also he talked about intellectual growth also. Basically if you developmental theorists and after Jean Piaget also few theories have come and all these you know theorists basically talk about once again know that there are age specific emotional maturity that you should be able to display. So, everything has to do with you know certain pattern of growth and development. So, if you are know if you have difficulty expressing your emotions then also it is a cause of concern. If you have difficulty in terms of containing your feelings and it is also an issue of to be thought about if you have difficulty you know in certain cultures if you have inability in terms of neutralizing your negative feelings that is also cause of concern. Once again what you realize is you have chronological age that you are gradually achieving you are chronologically increasing every second of your life. There are certain say psychological expectations that by this age a human child should certainly achieve this level of emotional maturity. There are culture specific norms which you are supposed to comply to and that helps you know stay in harmony with your environment. Say for example, there is a psychological problem called Alexei Daimia. Alexei Daimia is a situation where you are not able to understand certain types of emotions expressed by others. So, say for example, you have the choice usually in psychology research shows that we have certain basic emotions and then we have a large set of composite emotions say happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, disgust. These are the feelings which are considered to be basic emotions. Now, two emotions can fuse together to give another set of emotion what is called as composite emotions. Now, out of the basic emotions if I have inability understanding or expressing certain types of emotions it is a great cause of concern. Say imagine a situation you are sad and I am not able to perceive that you are in the state of sadness. There will be a gross mismatch between you and me. In Alexei Daimia this is what happens. Think of cultural norms for example, in our culture India the usual social expectation is that the negative emotion has to be masked. Masked means even if you are say you have extreme negative feeling for me you do not express it rather you cover it with another set of emotion. So, say for example, you have been invited to somebody's house for a party and you are given something to eat which is completely distasteful. You take the first bite and the host asks you so how is it and our cultural norms does not allow you to say I am sorry it is extremely bad. You cannot say so and you say it is good and that goodness does not actually represent your inner feeling but it complies to the social norms. You invite me on your birthday party I bring a gift which you already have in your house. I bring a toy I bring a pen set I bring some book which you already have. But then I and then I ask you so how is the gift and you say very good very good I did not have it. This is what the cultural expectation is compare our culture with the Japanese culture where the social protocol demands you to neutralize the feeling. Same situation no you did not like the food but how is the food and you have a very blank face. In our case we will put a smile it is good in their case you neutralize the emotion. Different social norms demand certain things from you that even if you are in this situation adhere to the social norm. I remember an interesting situation German colleague of mine at one point in time he had his birthday most probably and a friend brought a gift for him he just opened it up and said I did not like it so you can take it back. In our culture if you do that it will be a great insult to the person who has brought the gift. He will never ever come to your party and he will say that how displaced you are in terms of your intellectual and emotional capabilities. This is a great disrespect that you showed to a guest and later on I asked him that is it okay or is it something very peculiar that you had and he said it is perfectly okay. We have this liberty if I do not like the gift I can give you back so that you return it to the shop and that is the end of the matter. One place where people do not take it as an offense in one place in our situation it will be the greatest offense that can break the relationship forever. So that type of an emotional competence you are you know with growing age you are supposed to know behave like that and then the social competencies know. There are large set of social norms there are certain set of social skills that you are certainly supposed to display okay. Let me take a very straightforward example and then I will try to complicate it a bit. I am sure all of you are carrying a mobile phone right now true. Now you are told by the academic office there is a mail that comes to all of you that fine you should not be using your mobile phone in the academic area okay or if you are carrying it you should not be putting it on a ring tone mode put it on a silent mode okay. I do not know how many of you have put your phones on silent mode every day we hear one or the other ring tone here. There is certain degree of I remember another example no I went for one of these IIT based examinations to one of the areas nearby and I was sitting in that very place where as institute representative I had to talk to the instructors there and the director there of the examination which was supposed to be conducted the next day. So at the end I did ask the presiding officer who happens to be the head of that institution that what is the arrangement that has been made for those who candidates who would be willing to deposit their mobile phones and would like to collect it back after the examination ends okay and somebody made a comment that this is no one of the bad jobs that we have to perform in terms of collecting mobile phones retaining it for 3 hours and then returning it back and then the principal said a very interesting thing he said that one of his daughter had recently gone to Delhi for education and she was in one of those private hostels and in one hostel they got admitted okay they got the room but then left it within one day and moved to the other hostel because the hostel in charge said that mobile phones are not allowed in this hostel okay whereas the mother of this girl said that every day we will you know at least we will talk once. So you definitely want a place where mobile phone should be round the clock available to your child okay you decide to quit a hostel for which you had paid the money simply because they do not allow your daughter to keep the mobile phone okay now here was presenting officer the principal of the institution who says that very recently I myself have experienced one such situation and I have tried to allow my child carry it and therefore shifted the hostel itself all together I have changed the hostel the other person who is going to know act as an individualator says that it is a great discomfort to us because we have to you know hold it for 3 hours and then match it whose mobile phone is this and then accordingly distributed it is a another headache for which we are not being paid okay now imagine other types of situations will mobile phone and you remain constant the situations will now keep varying come to another situation where you are sitting in the class it has happened several times here okay and suddenly you receive a call the moment you receive a call everybody starts looking at you and because everybody starts looking at you therefore you feel in the state of discomfort the discomfort did not come out of the fact that the phone suddenly you know your phone started ringing but discomfort came because others started looking at you. So you were under scrutiny your social competence is cut it okay you must have seen people know who would know still receive the call and very you know slowly they will whisper yes I mean that means this phone has to be attained a phone call cannot know you cannot disconnect it it has to be attained one situation other situation you just cut it later on you call back and say I was in the class here therefore I could not call you the third situation you cut the phone but immediately type of message in the class will call you later send variable possibilities know all of them reflecting one or the other type of social competence now let us take a weird example this is something that we have been doing in this we will be continuing doing this now in throughout the semester take a weird example a situation where you are told that somebody has died okay and you should go there to pay attribute to the person who has expired you go there okay and while you go before the dead body and you sit quietly you receive a SMS joke situation demands you to be very sad joke demands you to laugh okay it invokes certain degree of laughter in you what do you do okay great degree of social competence is needed so you feel laughing and you say so how did he die your laughter now gets know you deliberately you have a control over your orofacial muscles to contain your laughter and then you ask no as if this was there was an itching here and I didn't say how did he die the other could be no and then you say so how did he die you just close about as if you are in a great pain no and in between you smile okay or you are really very pained and this joke doesn't make you smile at all there could be all types of possibilities now so social competence would basically mean that whatever is the context specific requirement you fulfill it if the situation demands you to laugh okay even though you have not understood the job because everybody else is laughing therefore you also laugh so that you are not made an order man out okay second situation everybody is in under pain everybody is no showing grief you cannot have a smile on your face it reminds me of a very interesting story usually media houses they prepare certain no special segments when they know that somebody is about to die for example say if you have a novel laureate here or if you have a celebrated politician okay somebody who is very popular among the mass and you know that this is is in the hospital is in the critical state will might die in the coming days okay so what happens if he dies and then therefore you start making you make a 10 minute capsule 15 minute program half an hour program that those certain things are done in anticipation so this is a story related to one such situation where one of popular political leader was on the deathbed one had people were expecting that today or tomorrow he might die and therefore the news readers at that time they used to and those were the days when these many channels were not there no so the news reader would bring a white shirt or a Saudi okay so that in case you know the news has to be aired that X has died I can know very quickly put a white shirt or a white Saudi and then sit in front of the camera to give this news now I know the situation that many people used to come with you know the white clothes with them so that it's a in our culture it's considered to be a significant color when you have to mourn now this person who finally got this chance okay before he was on duty and this news had to be aired and he had put the he had changed his cloth had put the white one sat in front of the camera to read the news but they are also expected know that you make a sad face and they say that you know this is to inform you and then you read out the news okay but while he was reading the news it was a like now if 10 of us are the impaneled news readers and all of us are struggling with white cloth each okay that I'll get this chance I'll get this chance finally X gets the chance okay and this whole feeling of winning know that I have won over the remaining nine okay was visible on the face okay so you are supposed to know read a news in the state of grief you have to put sadness on the face okay or you have to modulate your voice accordingly and then read out this news but while you read the news know you have a little twist on the side of your lips suggesting that you were actually happy getting this chance okay now now you see know there is one level of professional expectation from you there is one level of social expectation from you and there is one level of personal feeling that you had experienced all three combines together okay so in terms of know characteristics of healthy development what is expected is that you have an adequate frame of reference you also have essential competencies with you then you should also be somebody who is know self-directed okay so you know who you are so you have an adequate self-identity you have you have no independence from social influence okay which is rare to achieve okay sudden degree of social influence by default will always remain with us but then you should be able to know overcome that influence at most of the time especially when the social influence doesn't allow you the full opportunity of growth and development and you should also be able to manage your stress okay so as to provide a meaningful direction to your own trajectory of life okay now having a complete sense of self-identity who am I would also mean that I also know who I am not what are my strength and I also know what are my weaknesses I know who am I and I also know that I cannot be like x y and z okay that would actually reflect the adequate self-identity by default we are social creatures and that to know people belonging to collectivist culture will have more and more of social influence but then there could be situations where you realize that the social influence needs to be bypassed okay you need to surpass it completely okay simply because it doesn't allow you the opportunity to grow properly and then you also know that life does invite certain stress but then you should be able to manage it properly so that you are finally able to move in a direction which you find meaningful you remember when we were looking at the maintenance need okay the last need was hope okay that you are able and the second last was value and meaning no that you are always able to provide a meaning to the act in the life that you are engaged in okay and then the other characteristics of the development is personal growth and self actualization where okay you tend to finally achieve the capability that you have so you achieve your full potential okay and you have that sense of fulfillment no that I had this I aspired for this I walked hard and finally this is what I achieved by a large in life for majority of the people would be that you achieve little less than what you actually thought of so you start you know trying to achieve say level 10 but finally you achieve only level 8 but then adjustment would mean that you are happy even achieving level 8 okay and although you still have appreciation for all those who attained the 10th level you are happy that fine I could attain level 8 but then you also know that this is not end of achievement this is one phase of achievement the second phase of achievement will continue okay so this whole sense of personal growth and actualization also plays an important role and this is also an important denominator of human adjustment process.