SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL

NAME : CHEW YU JINGID : 0317739SUBJECT : SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYLECTURER : T. SHANKARSESSION : MON 12PMSUBMISSION : 10 NOV 2014

Journal 1 : SOCIAL FACILITATION

Definitions : SOCIAL FACILITATIONAn improvement in performance produced by the mere presence of others.

CO-ACTION EFFECTA phenomenon whereby increased task performance comes about by the mere presence of others doing the same task.

AUDIENCE EFFECTThe impact that a passive audience has on a subject performing a task.

To be fit, I decided to join Muay Thai training in Taylor’s Uni Gym on the first week of July when FNBE started its second semester. During the initial stages, the coach could not teach me much about the basics as he had to prepare the seniors for Merican Fight Night and Dragon Fight Muay Thai Boxing Competitions. He taught me some of the basic punching techniques such as the jab, cross, hook and uppercut. Due to lack of experience and exposure to the sport, I was asked to train individually with the punching bag while no one was there to train with me as I was the only junior at that time. I wasn’t very passionate nor pushing my limits as I was training alone without guidance, encouragement or help by others. My high kicks and low kicks were weak and that continued for a few weeks with very less improvements although I went to training 3 times a week.

After a month, new foundation intake students and degree students joined the club which increased the number of members when I first joined by more than 300%. Initially, there were 10 members training and now there is a steady flow of more than 30 members in every training session. From that week on, I had more members to train together with and my improvements became visible to my coach, peers and myself as well.

The co-action effect kicked in as I was training with the other members side by side. I was able to bare the intensiveness of the training session with a smile on my face thanks to the encouragement and companionship I got from training together as a team with the new members. I felt like I had the energy to punch, kick and defend harder when training in pairs when my partner was trying to master the same techniques as well. My kicks which only landed half of my height on the punching bag some time ago was elevated to a high kick onto the head when training with my partner. My punches were also faster and stronger when in alternating repetition with my partner.

The audience effect also kicked in as I was to train in front of both juniors and seniors. That gave me the motivation to work harder as I felt like I was performing on a stage. I put more effort into every punch and every kick like it was my last. During endurance exercises, I would go all out even though I felt tremendous pain. Being on that platform, I feel obligated to show myself that I would not give up because I know that winners never quit and quitters never win.

Social facilitation had helped me improve in mastering the martial art step by step. The mere presence of others, in this case my Muay Thai family, gave me strength to push on through by being there to train together with me. Although I might not be very close to them in terms of relationship but my Muay Thai family gave me a reason to come to every training and dedicate my blood, sweat and tears to this sport.

Journal 1 : DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Definitions :Sociocultural PerspectiveSocial behavior is not only influenced by the presence of others but also cultural norms will have a significant influence.

Evolutionary PerspectiveNatural selection would indicate that those behaviors that enhanced survival would be passed on to subsequent generations.

Social Cognitive PerspectiveIt assumes that an individual’s cognitive process influences and is influenced by behavioral associations.

Social Learning Perspective Individuals observe modeled behaviors and, in turn behave in a similar manner.

When I was 16 years old, I had 2 Malay friends whom I met in tuition who were quite involved in school yard fights. There was this short story that they had told me and it goes like this. There was a new kid in SMK Alam Megah, but that kid was different. The kid was arrogant and disrespectful provided that the kid threw food towards the teacher who was giving a speech on stage. 2 of my Malay friends were close to the teacher’s son and asked what were they going to do about it. The teacher’s son gave the word, ‘settle’ and 2 of my Malay friends adding one more big sized fellow went to settle the problem. 3 of them beat the kid up badly, but they sent the kid to the clinic. The kid took 7 stitches on the chin but the kid told other people that he trip and fell. After that, the kid was no longer disrespectful towards teachers and his peers and became friends with 2 of my Malay friends who had beaten him up. Immaturity had been the context of this story but lets review this story in different perspectives of psychology.

Sociocultural Perspective :Settling disagreements and arguments by fighting is a norm in SMK Alam Megah.

Evolutionary Perspective :They use brutal force to make the other party recognize and respect them.

Social Cognitive Perspective :Their immaturity led them to think that violence is the solution.

Social Learning Perspective :The school never took disciplinary action towards school yard fights which made them think that fighting to settle personal issues is acceptable.

Journal 2 : INTROSPECTION

Definition : The process of "looking inward" and examining one's self and one's own actions in order to gain insight.

Mid way through semester two, I had doubts about continuing architecture course as I thought it wasn’t something that I was passionate of as I always believed that someone has to pursue their passion to reach for their dreams. Upon introspection, I gain insight that changed my perception completely.

By calming down my mind and being brutally honest with myself, I looked inward to search for answers. I asked myself one simple question. ‘Was architecture too tough for or was I not tough enough?’

The answer was easy, I wasn’t tough enough. I realized that I wasn’t being realistic towards myself as I had high hopes but my willingness to work hard was low. Although peers might say that I’m considerably hardworking but I know that deep inside I could do more. I was not walking the talk and I complained too much. I have to toughen up and my heart, stop procrastinating and be more willing to put in more time and effort when doing assignments and projects.

I have a dream. I have a dream that I would build my own business big enough to create jobs for the good people I grew up with.

I had an old friend that had to work four jobs to support himself through highschool and now he is studying while working part time as his dad had kidney failure and couldn’t work anymore. He had to work hard to earn money to support his elder sister’s college fees, his own college fees and his younger brother’s secondary school fees. Reason being his mother’s wage was only able to cover family expenses.

One day, he came to find me to borrow 500 bucks. He couldn’t control his emotions anymore, so he broke down and cried. He repeatedly thanked me for helping him because without the money, his family couldn’t make it through the month as they didn’t even have enough money for food and electric bills. Apart from that, I had never seen him sad as he was always smiling and laughing while shouldering heavy weights.

I realized that comparing what my friend and I were going through, my problems were not a big deal at all, or in this case it shouldn’t be a problem in the first place. Being honest with myself, to reach this great dream I have to put in great effort and studying architecture is a type of way to gain capital more quickly as I would be working in a professional line. I don’t know what the future holds but I know that who holds my future.

Journal 2 : MOTIVATION

Definitions :MOTIVATIONMotivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors.

INTRINSIC MOTIVATIONIntrinsic motivation is the self-desire to seek out new things and new challenges, to analyze one's capacity, to observe and to gain knowledge.

EXTRINSIC MOTIVATIONExtrinsic motivation refers to the performance of an activity in order to attain a desired outcome and it is the opposite of intrinsic motivation.

In life, we need motivation to support ourselves mentally along the way until we reach our goals. As for me, one of my goals is to become a successful entrepreneur. To achieve this goal, I know two important things that I must acquire, knowledge and determination.

In gaining knowledge, intrinsic motivation is what makes education lifelong. Although life might push you around, life is the best teacher. When I make mistakes, intrinsic motivation creates the desire to learn from that experience and turn it into a lifelong lesson. For example, I used to over analyze a situation where I engaged wrongly, trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve or would’ve happened. And that mistake which I usually made had me frustrating through out the years. Intrinsic motivation that created my desire to learn that I had acquired recently changed my perspective towards past experiences by accepting reality as it is. I turned the mistakes that I have made into an experience which I would view it from different angles to learn.

A simple example, while I was jogging during the short semester break, I accidentally hit a loosely attached side mirror of a lorry with my shoulders and it fell to the ground and broke. I stood there picking up the pieces while waiting to pay the lorry driver a certain amount of loss. Surprisingly, when I was apologizing half way, the driver let me off. If it were me back then, I would’ve thought, ‘only if I ran the other direction when passing that alley’ or ‘I should not go out to jog that day’, and I’ll get frustrated. All the ‘what if’s’ and ‘should have’s’ were not the solutions to the problem. Therefore I have to accept reality and learn from it. Looking at it from a different angle, I have learned that personally, I should be aware of my physical actions as it would affect the people around me even though it might be accidental. Secondly, if I were the owner of a vehicle I would make sure that the mechanic installs my car components correctly. Thirdly, by learning from the lorry driver, I would forgive people for their mistakes as nobody is perfect. Intrinsic motivation which gave me the desire to learn about life taught me three valuable lessons from one silly mistake.

To build determination, extrinsic motivation is what makes the struggle

worthwhile. When I think that I can’t make it, I envision President Obama, diamonds and Ferrari’s. Extrinsic motivation made it possible for me to get through the days when I have to do certain tasks that were not in my strength or interest. When i have to do something that is out of my interest, I realized that complaining would only damage the road of learning. To set aside the boredom and have more enthusiasm in completing tasks, I set my views on a bigger picture. I convince myself that what may feel useless to learn at present might be useful in times of future. And all the hardships that I have gone through are nothing but stages I have to conquer to achieve my life goal.

Another simple example, anything that includes numbers bore me such as mathematics, physics and especially accounting. I have hated accounting since I was in highschool as I wasn’t good at it, I almost failed every test. Until recently, I read a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. As a successful entrepreneur, Robert stressed on the ability to read income statements and bank accounts. I have acknowledged the importance of basic accounting. Now, it’s the time for me to let go of the hatred I had towards the subject and set my eyes on the oasis in midst of the dessert. I know that I might not learn accounting as fast as other people might but I am determined to learn the fundamentals as it would greatly benefit my future. I might be slow, I might be weak, but determination will get me there.

Journal 3 : CONTROLLED AND AUTOMATIC PROCESSING

Definitions :CONTROLLED PROCESSINGControlled process is an intentionally-initiated sequence of cognitive activities.

AUTOMATIC PROCESSINGAn automatic process is unintentional, involuntary, effortless (not consumptive of limited processing capacity), and occurring outside awareness.

At the age of 17, despite all the discouragement of friends to join the Choir Club due 5 years of zero achievements, I decided to give it a shot. In the club, we had choir singers of different vocal range namely bass, tenor, alto and soprano. I was a bass singer, so I had to learn the low tones on the music sheet.

During the first learning stages, I had to pay a lot of attention to the piano instrumental to get the pitch and the notes right. What’s more confusing was different melodies were sung by choir singers of different vocal range at the same time. I spent almost everyday to master all the parts of the three songs we were to perform as I didn’t want to let my Choir family down. It was hard as I only started to learn how to sing that year. It was my new found passion, so I paid close attention to the technicalities of singing, repeating and putting effort in correcting myself whenever I sang a wrong note. I realized that without controlled processing that gave me consciousness of the parts I was singing, I tend to sing out of tune as I was distracted by different melodies of other choir singers.

After many days of controlled processing, I was able to sing my parts fluently as it had already become an automatic process. The repetition what was complicated and technical made it effortless and natural. One week before the competition, I was able to sing my parts easily without being confused by the different melodies sung by others. Controlled processing had transformed into automatic processing after tons of practice.

With a little bit of luck, the we won 3rd place in district level competing against 11 schools. After 5 years of nothing, we finally had something to be proud of.

Journal 3 : MOOD CONGRUENCE EFFECT

Definition :We remember positive details of an event if we were in a good mood.We remember negative details of an event if we were in a bad mood.

Mood congruence effect has its dark side where I remember negative details of what happened to me during my first year of primary school. When I was 7 years of age, there was a boy in school who accused me of beating him up although I didn’t even knew who he was. His parents and relatives came by to school everyday that week to give me warnings to lay a finger on that boy. I explained and explained to those adults over and over saying, ‘How can I beat him up when I didn’t even knew who he was?’ This continued till the point that school teachers and the headmistress put a mark on me and asked me to apologize. I didn’t of course, as I wouldn’t apologize for doing nothing wrong. That was a frustrating moment that I couldn’t shake off. I felt neglected at that time as why would everyone believe him and no one believed me? Those were bad memories stuck in a bad mood.

Nevertheless, mood congruence effect has its bright side.When I was 16, I met an Indonesian Chinese girl on a snorkeling boat trip to Phuket Island in the month of September. She was wearing a light hued dress with floral patterns. She had wavy long hair that was dark brown blowing in the wind when the sun gently touches on her tan skin. She smiled a lot and she looked so lovely her huge eyes would smile. Her height was just right, right where my shoulders were. She was cheerful and curious as she looks happy all the time and her eyes would always wander and catch on to random things like she wanted to know more about it. I can still recall her voice and accent although I haven’t seen her in a long time, her voice was in alto, lower voice for girls, but it was the sweetest sound I have ever heard. I can still remember the way we sat together trying to communicate while giggling as we have little bit of language barrier. Although I didn’t understand everything but I listened to every word while keeping eye contact. For some reason, her presence made me happy and you can call it young love or whichever way you prefer. I only properly talked to her for like 5 minutes that time but that was the longest 5 minutes in my life. Because I was happy with her around, I remember the good memories till now. This proves the mood congruence effect correct. Or how would I have remembered and still feel her in my heart for 3 years when I couldn’t even remember what I had for lunch?

Journal 4 : DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTION & SITUATIONAL ATTRIBUTION

Definitions :DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONThe explanation of individual behavior as a result caused by internal characteristics that reside within the individual.

SITUATIONAL ATTRIBUTIONInfluences that stem from the environment or culture in which that individual is found.

It was a rainy week, not because it was rainy. It was because my teardrops fell like raindrops when I broke up with my second girlfriend. I somehow knew that this would happen all along but I wanted to give it a try. The girl had a reputation of changing men every month after getting what she wanted from them. I thought that she was different by the way she treated me and the way she talked to me. Many friends asked me to stay a way from her in the beginning as they knew such stories about her exist and some they witnessed with their own eyes. We got close, a bit too close in a matter of few days. It all happened so fast and it that relationship was too good to be true. Imagine a girl sharing your bed and staying nights at your one-bedroom apartment after knowing you for only a few days. After a month, the predictions of her by my friends were right. She left me and hooked up with another guy. Turns out that she was already with that other guy during the days she was holding my hand.

I did not regret my choice but I tend to wonder why would she act in that particular way. Some attributions were given towards her scandalous behaviour although it might or might not be true. The dispositional attribution towards her behaviour was due to her cunning nature of playing with men’s emotion to get what she wants. Judging from the past events of ‘monthly man changing’, this behaviour might be imprinted in her DNA. The situational attribution given is, she might be raised in such environment where she had friends that manipulate people of the opposite sex to get what they want. And after leaving her hometown to come to study in Taylor’s Lakeside she needed money to spend on her own luxuries she couldn’t afford. The environment of not having luxuries ‘pushed’ her to behave in that unrighteous way to accumulate funds for her own closet.

Journal 4 : SELF-VERIFICATION THEORY

Definition : A social psychological theory that asserts people want to be known and understood by others according to their firmly held beliefs and feelings about themselves.

I hold on to the principle of honesty and the self-verification theory had me holding onto it since I was a kid. Even though I knew that I would be caned by teachers or my parents, I wouldn’t bluff my way out of that situation where I did wrong. The kid who never lied was being caned a lot. Back in primary school, when the teacher asks ‘Who was talking to their friends when I was out?’ I would hand myself over to be punished. That’s why for those who known me in primary school, they know that I was being punished everyday. My parents defined my honesty as ‘stupidity’.

The honesty that I had towards other people made them believe in me which reassures my principle and verification of self that I am on the right track. When people ask me for my opinions, I speak from the heart, I never said something just to please the ears of others. Seeing my dad rejecting and not practicing bribery also added to my reassurance. For me, things wouldn’t have value if it was being acquired in a dishonest manner. Money has no value for me if I didn’t at least put in effort to earn it. For example, if I see money dropped on the floor, I would pick it up and put it into the nearest charity, donation or tipping box as the money does not belong to me. I was tested around the age of 10 when I found a RM5 note on the floor which meant a lot to a little kid. I could’ve bought candies or ice-cream with it but I donated that RM5 to a Buddhist Association. Again, my younger brother mentioned the word ‘stupidity’.

Although some people might be dishonest towards me, I maintain my integrity by telling the truth. I wouldn’t lie to them but I would evade them as I don’t appreciate liars in my life. I have a childhood friend that have the same belief that I do and we get along very well although we don’t see each other everyday. We would give honest feedbacks about whatever topic we discuss. Honesty creates trust and trust creates loyalty. Loyalty is what I have towards the good people by my side. I always tell them that I might not always be there during the happy times, but I will be there for them when they need help. A recent example, my good friend Gary, called me up one night sounding like a dead man. Although it was 12 midnight I drove all the way from Shah Alam to PJS 7 to bring Gary to Klinik Medivron in USJ Taipan. I asked him not to worry about the bills first as I knew he was low on cash that month. Then I sent him back to PJS 7 before going back home to Shah Alam again.

Self-verification theory proves itself to be correct as I want to be known and understood by others according to my honest belief. I believe that this positive principle would bring change towards deceitfulness in the society. I hope to prove to people that they don’t have to deceive others to get what you want.

Journal 5 : MERE EXPOSURE EFFECT

Definition :The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle.

I never tried singing before and I never thought that it would be my hobby ever since. It ws only until I was 17 years old when I enrolled in the Choir Club. I joined the club because I was cut from the school basketball team due to some personal issues between me and the captain. I have to prove to those who look down on me that wherever I go, I can make a way for myself to win. So I started learning how to sing not because I love it at first but I took it as a chance for ‘revenge’. I had to admit that I felt satisfaction when I heard that the school’s basketball team lost while the Choir team got it’s 3rd place that year.

I never had much interest in music at first but I took singing as a sport. So I practiced and practiced everyday to get myself polished. I went to singing camps, sang with my choir team, sang while practicing guitar, sang when jamming with friends and sang for performances that time. Singing had became a part of my life ever since. The constant exposure to singing developed my interest which was caused by the mere exposure effect.

Journal 5 : MIXED EMOTIONS

Definition :Mixed emotions is the process of experiencing more than one emotion at a time as a result of an event.

From what I read, mixed emotions are felt at times of great prosperity or great hardship. The emotions might be direct opposite of one another but it existed in my heart at the same time when my grandfather passed away.

I had flashbacks about the last time we spoke and it wasn’t the best parting speech as he fell into coma suddenly. I couldn’t run away from the feeling of sadness caused by the loss of someone I loved and someone who had loved me growing up. The village of Bagan Datoh, Perak had lost an honest man who also helped in providing free medication for the people. But at the same time, I was happy for him as he had stopped suffering from coma and living in unconsciousness. Finally, he was relieved from machines that breathed him and injections and high dosage of medication.