Name : Low En Huey

Student ID : 0317889

Group/ Session : Monday 12.00pm – 2.00pm

Subject : Social Psychology

Course : Foundation in Natural and Built Enviroment

Intake : Feb 2014

Semester : 2

Submission Date : 10 November 2014

Journal 1 Entry 1

For the first chapter, one the interesting concepts that caught my eyes was Social

Facilitation. Social facilitation was about how well a human being performs when there is the

presence of others. People can see how the individuals perform as well as how well they

perform.

This concept reminds me of a familiar experience which is when I was working as a part-

timer at an apparel shop. After SPM, I had a few months of break before the commencement

of class. Thus, I decided to work to earn some extra money for future usage. It was my first

time working as a part-timer so I was really nervous and excited at the same time about

working. On the first day of work, I reached the shop early in the morning for briefing on

what I should do. The manager was there to teach me about the shop and what are my duties

and responsibilities. Then, she gave me a task, my very first task which was serving the first

customer. When the customer walked into the shop, I had to first welcome them by saying:

“Welcome to *name of the shop*”. However, due to nervousness, I did not said that and the

manager asked me to do so on the following customers. After getting familiar on what I

should do, I started to perform better and better and was adapted to the job. Every time when

the customers walk into the shop, I would welcome them and I remembered that I did not

miss out not welcoming any of the customers. Thus, the manager was satisfied of my

performance. On the next day, the manager did not come to shop. I was working with one of

my colleagues. Unlike the manager, she was not strict on me and told me to whatever that

was comfortable to me. After saying that, she went into the staff room and asked me to look

after the shop. As there was no one watching me, I started to become lazier and lazier such as

not welcoming the customers or playing phone games when the customers left. My

performance was bad that day as I was lazy. However, on the following days, when there was

the presence of manager, I tend to perform better and better.

Entry 2

Another concept that was interesting to me is Social Loafing. Social loafing is an

individual’s performance actually gets worse in the presence of others. Besides that, the

individual will make less effort in a group that they would if they were planning to achieve

their goal on their own.

I had experienced social loafing when I started this course. Unlike A-levels or SAM, for

our course, students were graded based on their assignments but not based on examinations.

This includes working as a group for an assignment. I remembered that in Semester 1, there

was a group assignment. As the group leader, I delegated the job evenly to the group

members and asked them to prepare and research on the topic that I had given to them so we

could discuss about it during our next meeting. On the day of the meeting, everyone brought

their research except for one of the team member. She said she forgot about it and she started

to research right on the spot. Because of that, our meeting was delayed and the progress of

the meeting was slow as the result of research was not in depth. For the following meetings,

she did not contribute much to the group and did not perform well. The group assignment that

we worked on requires a group submission as well as individual submission. On the day of

group submission, our result was good. Later, we realized that the girl did really well in her

individual submission and got a good result. Everyone worked hard for this group

assignment. The girl did not contribute much but she got to share the group result. Thus,

social loafing occurs. The girl did not has the same goal as the other group members since the

start of the assignment. She only focused on herself and did not perform well as a group.

Journal 2

Entry 1

In journal 2, I have decided to talk about motivation. Motivation is what drives you to

take action. There are two types of motivation: the intrinsic motivation and the extrinsic

motivation. Intrinsic motivation is taking a certain action for the sake of enjoyment whereas

extrinsic motivation is taking a certain action in response to external pressure and obligation.

Besides, I have experienced these two types of motivation before. During my high school,

I was chosen to play netball for our sports houses. On the day of the competition, I enjoyed

playing netball and it was an exciting sports as I love the teamwork that was given from each

teammates. Thus, I joined the netball club and was really committed to the club. Netball was

a new sports in our school. It was an only for girls sports. However, the girls in my high

school were not active so not many people wanted to join the club. There was one occasion

where I have to find a team of 7 to play for the school. I asked my close friends or students

with potential to join the team. Most of them were willingly to join the team was because

they could get a higher grade for their co-curriculum results whereas only a few of us enjoyed

playing netball. From this event, it shows that I joined netball due to intrinsic motivation

because I think netball is fun and energizing. Most of my friends joined because of extrinsic

motivation because they can get something good in return if they join the team.

Entry 2

Self-Serving Biases is an interesting topic. It means taking positive attributions that

allow us to see ourselves in the best possible light which also means that taking credit for

success but don’t take responsibility of failure.

I have met people with self-serving biases in my life. When I was still in my high

school, the netball team that I joined went for an open netball tournament. The tournament

was open to any teams from any age. There was a match where we won the opponent by 9.

Then, one of our teammate, Y made a joke which I think that was rude. She laughed at our

opponent because they did not score even a ball in that match. She thought that she was

skilled and our team won because of her. In fact, we won because of the great teamwork. We

won the following match but unfortunately we lost on the third match. It was quite a tight

match. Our team lost by 2. Everyone was sad and depressed because if we won the math, we

could have enter the semi- finals. I remembered that while walking out from the court, Y

started to blame the opponent was rude and played rough on us. However, it was a clean

match and the opponent shows great sportsmanship. Furthermore, she also blamed a few of

the team mates who made unnecessary mistakes during our match. Instead of reflecting her

mistakes, she blamed the others. Self-serving biases occurs. Y thinks that the success of our

team is because she is skilled but blame the others when the team lost.

Journal 3

Entry 1

Optimistic Bias is believing that bad things happen to other people and that you are

more likely to experience positive events in life. Optimistic bias happened on me before. I

think that it is good but at the same time it might turns out bad.

Taylor’s University offers scholarships to students but students would have to achieve

a certain CGPA in order to get the scholarship. There was a scholarship called continuing

merit scholarship where Taylor’s students get scholarship when they decided to further study

at the university. However the amount of scholarship varies by CGPA. The higher the CGPA

the more money one would get. I was interested in this scholarship and hope that I could get

it so that I can lessen the burden of my parents. In order to get the scholarship, the final result

of my foundation would have to be 3.75 and above. However my Semester 1 results was not

that good. This means that I have to be extra hardworking in my second semester so that my

final result can be about 3.75. I scored quite well in my first few projects which made me

think that I could get the scholarship that I want because I am doing well at my Semester 2. I

have been too optimistic when in reality I did not work that hard to get the scholarship. I am

over optimistic in thinking of getting a scholarship. Besides that, there was a time where I

attended an interview for scholarship. I did not do some research on the scholarship that I was

about to take or ask senior scholars how they got the scholarship. Instead, I waited until the

day of the interview unprepared. This turned out that my performance during the interview

was not that good but I still think that I could get the scholarship. In the end, I still failed to

get the scholarship that I wanted.

Entry 2

I just got my driving license this year’s April and I started driving to university since

May. I would say that I am a safe driver as I do not speed and do not use phones when I am

driving. So far my driving skill was good and acceptable as I did not got into an accident

before. Unfortunately, I got into an accident after half year of driving. The accident was not

that serious. I remembered the sound of the crash and suddenly my mind went blank and I did

not know what to do. The first thing I did was parking the car at the road side and without

thinking who the driver may be, I came out from my car without locking it and my car keys

were inside my car. Front part of my car hits the back of the another car, luckily the car

owner was a nice young Malay lady. We settled the payment in 5 minutes and I drove home

in a shocked mood. When I reached home, I started to recall the accident. What if the driver

is a bad guy and they are planning to steal my car? What if some motorists passed by and just

drive my car away? What if I did not had my seatbelts on? What if I hit the car harder, what

would happened to me? A lot of questions pop out of my mind. I can remember that night I

was afraid and did not know what to do. I should have be more cautious next time. Since that

accident, I had a little bit of phobia while driving, afraid that I would hit another car again.

Based on my experience, I related my situation from what I learnt in Chapter 3 which

is counterfactual thinking. Counterfactual thinking is imagining different outcomes for an

event that has already occurred. I was preoccupied by counterfactual thinking after the car

accident, which is imagining different outcomes for the car accident that has occurred.

Counterfactual thinking happens after we experience something.

Journal 4

Entry 1

I learnt a completely new thing in chapter 4 which is the Halo Effect. The halo effect

is when our first impression of someone is skewed by one positive trait, leading us to make

generalization about them as a whole. It also supports rapid decisions, even biased ones. For

example, when you see a tall, smart looking guy walking across the street, automatically you

would think that the guy is a good and trustworthy without knowing his true personality.

After knowing about the Halo Effect, I started relate to my past experiences. For a

netball player, it is better and more advantageous if we are tall. However, tall does not mean

that they are good. It is just that we perceive tall as good in playing. During a match when

both teams meet together at the court, the halo effect would start to process. When our team

met another team which the players are generally tall and wear expensive sports shoes,

immediately we would assume that this team is strong compared to another team where their

players wear loose jerseys and players are generally short. Thus, our team players started to

be a little bit nervous and scared which affected our mood before the match starts. From this

situation, it shows that the halo effect would affect one’s thinking and mood. However in the

end, our team won and thus the halo effect did not matter anymore. Besides that, I also

observed others while walking. I perceived guys who wear earrings, dyed hair and with body

tattoos are bad and rebellious. I also thought that people who do not smile and quiet are shy

and introvert. By knowing these, I started to use the Halo Effect to make a good first

impression. For example, I would smile when I make eye contact with a stranger, dress nicely

every day to leave a good impression to others or even carrying a book around would let

people think that I am a nerd or a hardworking person.

Entry 2

Confirmation bias is also another new thing that I learnt in chapter 4. It is a cognitive

bias that involves favouring information that confirms our existing beliefs and discount ideas

that does not support our beliefs. For example, when you always buy the same brand of food

from a shop for 10 years and when someone tell you the bad things about the brand,

automatically you would filter out the negative ideas about the brand. Confirmation bias

impacts people on how they gather information and also how people interpret.

For me, I have experienced confirmation bias from my family, which is my sister. My

sister is a crazy Korean K pop fan. Whenever I criticize about k pop, she would be pissed off

and angry. So , when one of her favourite Korean male actor’s scandals went onto the

newspaper, I gave her the newspaper so that she could take a look at the article. After reading

the article, she started to surf the internet to find valid information to support her favourite

idol. She had discounted all the ideas that does not support her idol and only interprets the

information in a way that supports her current view. Confirmation bias also can be applied in

studying, especially when you are planning to write an essay which requires research. For our

first English assignment, each student is required to write a compare and contrast essay based

on movie genre. I chose to write musical film genre and did research on the two movies that I

have chosen. I only research on information that supports my point of view and filter out

information that oppose my ideas.

Journal 5

Entry 1

In chapter 5, I have learnt about the Operant Conditioning. Operant conditioning is

using reinforcement or punishment to strengthen or weaken a particular behaviour. There are

positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment as well as negative

punishments.

This recalls me when I was in my primary school. When I did well in my

examination, my teacher would give me a nice sticker based on my grades. For example, if I

got A- for the exam, I would have 1 star stickers, A for 2 star stickers and A+ for 3 star

stickers. I was always happy when I get stickers from teacher and would collect them in a

sticker album. This motivated me to work harder in my following examinations so I could get

more stickers. Besides giving stickers, my teacher would also award top 3 highest score

students of the class with ice cream. Ice cream was every children’s all-time favourite food.

And I remembered that I got rewarded once! After that, I worked even harder so that I could

get more rewards from teacher. In these situation, it is a positive reinforcement to strengthen

students’ good behaviours of studying hard. Besides that, I have also experienced negative

punishment from my mother. When I was in my high school, texting was a common habit. I

liked to send text messages to my friends to chat with them. However, whenever my phone

bill exceeded RM30, my mother would confiscate my phone for a month. Thus, in order to

prevent my phone from being confiscated by my mom, I rarely send text messages anymore.

In summary, operant conditioning has a lot of impact on people especially children.

Entry 2

My computer broke down when I needed urgently. It was the second time that my

computer’s screen turned into red and blue colours. So I told my mother about my computer

and she decided to buy me a new one. We went to Digital Mall to buy my new laptop. There

were diverse kind of laptops available in that mall. My mother and I were not good in IT

information so we went to ask a salesman who is experience in laptops. The salesman

brought us around to show us different models of laptop. I told him that I wanted a laptop

which best suit my course. After filtering those unsuitable ones, I was stuck between two

models. Both models fulfilled my requirement and the price for both of the laptops are almost

the same. And of course, both laptop models have their advantages and disadvantages. I had a

hard time thinking of which one to choose. After spending about 15 minutes of thinking, I

decided to buy the one of the model. I was happy to get a new laptop. When we reached

home, my mother asked me again whether I regret buying the laptop that I have chosen. I

think that I have more liking to the model that I have chosen compared to the one that I did

not choose.

In this situation, I have experience post decision dissonance as my decision is

irrevocable. Post decision dissonance is when we to reject one appealing choice in favour of

another, we will devalue the option that are not selected. For my case, I change the perception

of mine and make the decision that I made to seem more attractive.