Human Behavior and the Social Environment
Frameworks you must name
HBSE supplies the lenses you use to explain behavior at every level. Systems theory treats a person or family as interacting parts with inputs, throughputs, outputs, feedback loops, and homeostasis; two ideas that recur in items are equifinality (different starting points can reach the same outcome) and multifinality (the same starting point can yield different outcomes). Bronfenbrenner's ecological model nests the person in micro, mezzo, exo, macro, and chronosystems, and is the backbone of social work's person-in-environment stance. Life-span theories - Erikson's psychosocial stages, Piaget's cognitive stages, Kohlberg and Gilligan on moral reasoning, Bowlby and Ainsworth on attachment, and the family life-cycle model - give developmental markers along with their critiques.
Philippine cultural grounding
Filipino behavior is read through kapwa (shared inner self), pakikipagkapwa, utang na loob, hiya, bayanihan/damayan, compadrazgo, extended kinship, and transnational family life shaped by labor migration. These are assessed as strengths, not deficits.
Traps and rule of thumb
Items love to mislabel levels: a counselor working with one learner is micro; a school-wide anti-bullying program is mezzo; a national policy on migrant workers is macro. Stage theories are often offered as universal truths - remember the cultural critique. Do not confuse dependence with interdependence. Rule of thumb: ask, "Who else must change for this to work?" If the answer is a family, group, or institution, you are above the micro level. Worked example: a 16-year-old in conflict with an overseas-worker mother is not simply "oppositional"; a proper assessment maps household structure, caregiver substitution, school, barangay supports, and the migration policy that produced the separation.