SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Name: Michelle Tung Man Kaye

Student ID: 0324175

Group / Session: Monday, 8a.m – 10a.m

Subject and Course: Social Psychology [PSYC0103]

Assignment 1: Individual Journal

Lecturer: MR. T. Shankar

Submission date: 30 November 2015

Entry 1: Social Influence

Social influence is defined as change in an individual’s thoughts, feelings,

attitudes, or behaviors that results from interaction with another individual or a group.

This is an example of my own experience of a

negative influence. I can say that I’m a person

who is addicted to watching TV which I can sit

there on a couch for the whole day just to watch

TV. But, when watching TV the metabolic rate is

much more slower than when simply sitting there

silently, doing nothing. In addiction, watching too

much TV are usually overweight which I often

snack on junk food while watching TV because it

is very relaxing and enjoying! TV has also lots of

unhealthy consumption habits. TV will have some commercials to consume unhealthy

food such as fast foods and high sugar level foods which attract and influenced me to

have these kind of foods and will more likely to be overweight. This is true! When I was

in the age of 10 years old to 16 years old, I’m the kind of people who get influenced

very easily. Furthermore, I spend more time on watching TV than studying and this

affected my result and also my brain development which I tend to work less on my

homework and sometimes I do my homework while watching TV and this will tend to

retain less skill and information. As well as, will lead me less likely to be able to read.

And sometimes, TV is full of programs that show risky behaviors such as violence,

alcohol, drugs use and sex that can affect a children thoughts and children would not

think this is good or bad they will just learn and follow the actions. Therefore, I think that

parents nowadays should be more aware of the hours your kids watch TV, which

children needs to develop more skills like language, creativity and also social skills.

Parents should ask their children to go outside and get more active not just stay at

home watching TV or playing video games, this will give our children a better future and

a healthier lifestyle.

Thus, this is another example of my own experience of a positive influence.

Throughout my life, there have been lots of people that influenced significantly who I am

today. Through love, discipline, encouragement but the person that has influences my

life the most is my father, especially how to take responsibility for my actions and also

do my best to achieve what I wanted for. However, my father is an engineer and he had

his own business since he was 25 years old, he has pretty much worked in his whole

life. My father has to wake up early in the morning to go to work at 6a.m without

complaint. In fact, we have 5 family members which is my father, mother and 2 of my

older brothers including me, therefore my father has to work even more harder to

provide a comfortable environment and also school fees for three of us. He tries his

best to keep our family happy. He works hard to make money for our family. He loves

me a lot and always tries to cheer me up whenever I am in a bad mood. Also, his

success has made me want to do the best in life that I can do. His ability to provide very

well for our family is a huge motivator for me to get through school.

Futhermore, my father also influences the way

I approach life. I have gained a lot not only

knowledge, but have applied his teachings in my life.

Because of the example he has set for me, my father

has provided the path for me which I need to achieve

my goals so that I can lead a happy and successful

life. Today I am 18 years old and at this tender age,

my father has taught me a lot of things that people at this age fails to understand. He

has showed me the way to success. He has showed me the opportunities that exist in

front of me. But at the same time he has also left the decision up to me in terms of

which path to choose. Everything that my father has ever done has been overshadowed

by the thought behind it. When I finished with my school, and have a career of my own, I

hope to be as successful as my father is.

In conclusion, influences can be positive influence and negative influence. As a

result, influences that you choose and pick which one you are going to use in your life,

the one you react to the influence determines what kind of impact you receive from the

influence. As can be seen then, social influences can be summarized as different

circumstances where our opinions and choices are being affected by those around us.

( 814 words )

Entry 2: Social Facilitation & Social Loafing

Social groups are a basic part of human life. With every group we’re in, we see

different effects, advantages, disadvantages and consequences. The effect we’ll

discuss in this lesson are social facilitation and social loafing. This kind of situation

always occurred in our daily life. Working in a group certainly has a number of

advantages and disadvantages. In my personal experience, I met this kind of situation

all the time when we are having a group assignment. When I am still in FNBE

foundation semester one, we have lots of assignment which this is our grades given due

we doesn’t have exam except for English. So, we focused on our projects a lot and

perform well.

In 1898, Norman Triplett noted that competitive cyclists performed better during

races than during solo rides which known as social facilitation. Social facilitation is the

tendency for people to do better on simple tasks when in the presence of other people.

This implies that, whenever people are being watched by other, they will do well on

things that they are already good at doing. People often think that our performance is

determined by either hard work, genetics, or a combination of both, however there are

many more determinants that influence the quality of our performance. One factor on

how we perform is through social facilitation. However, social facilitation helps us to

appreciate that our motivation for doing a task is also influenced by how good we

perceive ourselves to be at the task and whether we are being evaluated by others. In a

group, all the members will put on more efforts to do well on the projects because they

are being observed. This is a fair situation for all the group members.

For example, when I was still in foundation semester one, we have a group

assignment which we have to form 12

people in a group. However, 12 of us will

work together and help each other but still

each of us have our own different task to

search and find for information. There can

be a leader or no leader, it doesn’t matter.

Besides that, all the group members will

get different grades which everyone will find and search for their own information and

present it in front of the lecturer. So that the lecturer will give the grade for each

members in the group with a fair way.

In 1883, Max Ringelmann conducted a study from which he concluded that an

individual’s performance actually gets worse in the presence of others which known as

social loafing. Social loafing is the phenomenon of people exerting less effort to achieve

a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone. This says that when a

group people are working together, the leader will then contribute and tell the group

members what to do, so that it is more efficient and faster. But then individuals tend to

put less effort in group which individuals always feel like their contributions don’t matter,

and therefore, they decrease their effort and contributions. Individuals also think that if

they put more effort than others but they will still get the same marks, so why did they

have to do more than others. This is really unfair for those who put more effort. In other

words, some of the group members would sit back and watch while other members did

the majority of the work. This situation is quite common and can be found in many ways.

We have been a part that demonstrate social loafing.

Remember that when I was still in

foundation semester one, we are having a

group assignment which we have to form a

group of 8 people. Then there was 5 boys

and 3 girls which we did not know each other

very well. My friend Meagan who was a

leader of this group, she ask the whole group

for the first meeting and all the group

members attended. After that, we are going to combine all the information which my

friend has contributed for all of us but then there are some group members did not come

for the second meeting and give a lot of reason to not coming for meeting. Some

members just simply email to my friend for the information but those information is very

little and is a last minute work. However, all the group members do not work together so

that my friend decided not to care about their work and three of us work together to

finished the assignment. Then there goes the presentation day, everyone in this group

appeared and ask the leader of what they going to present afterwards. Lastly, all the

group members still get the same grade which they do not even help to do any of the

work.

( 800 words )

Entry3: Social perspective

Social perspective is the study of how people form impressions of and make

inferences about other people. We learn about how others feel and their emotions by

picking up on information we gather from their physical appearance and verbal

communication and non-verbal communication. The four main perspectives that social

psychologists may take are the sociocultural perspective, the evolutionary perspective,

the social cognition perspective and also social learning perspective.

Besides that, the sociocultural perspective focuses on the relationship between

social behavior and culture. The evolutionary perspective is a perspective that focuses

on the physical and biological predispositions that result in human survival. Next, the

social cognitive perspective builds on behavioral theories and demonstrates how an

individual’s cognitive process influences how is influenced by behavioral associations.

Lastly, social learning perspectives is a perspective that stresses the particular power of

learning through social reinforcements and punishment.

Based on the true story, rape of women

by men has occurred throughout recorded

history and across cultures. I have read about

a news that a 5 year old little girl have been

raped by 2 men in car parks, while the family is

searching around for their child, they found her

being dumped in park near their home which

the child is lying unconscious and bleeding in a

park three hours after she went missing during

a power outage in the area. First, sociocultural

perspective, from this culture tells the two men

that, if they raped that little girl, they will be very proud of themselves because the

culture places a greater emphasis on objects considered valuable than it does people.

Second, from the evolutionary perspective, the 2 men raped the child because of

acquiring certain objects can improve the changes for their survival. They might think

that this is the emphasis is on survival of the gene pool. Next, the two men might not

know that sexual violence against girls and women is wrong, because cognitive

processes have not been established that identify sexual violence as wrong. No

cognitive conditioning has occurred to link that sexual violence with a negative

experience. Last but not least, social learning perspective is which sexual violence has

been established through observation, which they think that it is a common case to rape

a girl or a women. A sexual violence is perceived as an acceptable behavior.

In my personal experience, I remembered there was one day I heard my

neighbor’s dog, jojo was crying very loud. I went out and look for him wondering what

was happening. When I stepped out from my house, I saw my neighbor aunty Joyce

which is the owner of the house was beating jojo. I was very shocked and asked her

what was happening? Then she starred at me and said “Nothing happened just that jojo

is not behaving ”. In addition, there have been lots of different cruelty like animals are

kept in cages stacked on top of each other, gave little food and water. From my

personal opinion, I do not think that if an animal is not behaving, we should use this kind

of punishment. This is a very serious case as known as Animal Cruelty.

First of all, Sociocultural

perspective. From this culture tells us that

beating an animal is a way to teach and

tells them it is wrong because the culture

places a greater emphasis on objects

considered valuable than it does people.

Second, from the evolutionary

perspective shows that aunty Joyce is

beating jojo because of acquiring certain objects that can improve the changes of her

survival. Next, aunty Joyce might think that beating jojo is not wrong because in

cognitive perspective, there have not been established that using beating as a

punishment is not right. Then in social learning perspective, beating as a punishment

has been established through observed which aunty Joyce think that it is the way to

beat jojo just to give jojo a lesson to know that it was wrong and to behave next time.

Beating as a punishment is an acceptable behavior in aunty Joyce thought.

In conclusion, after being shown in the above of the true story and my personal experience of using four different perspective such as sociocultural perspective, evolutionary perspective, the social cognitive perspective and the last one will be the social learning perspective. Each perspective have their own situation and thinking point. I know that, not the way you think is same as what others thought, everyone have their own perspective and spontaneous view. Common sense is our natural understanding of things. We sometimes assume that social psychology is common sense because the subject matter is often personal and familiar. We believe that we are naturally knowledgeable about human behavior, but many of our common beliefs have

been disproved by social psychologists. Social psychologists cannot rely on common sense because they must base their conclusions on evidence that is achieved through careful and deliberate study. So social psychologists form theories that predict behavior before it occurs.

( 829 words )

Entry 4: Discrimination

Discrimination is all about being treated differently to everyone else because of

something about you that someone doesn’t respect. Everyone has the right to be

treated fairly and respectfully, but when you discriminate, you choose to treat someone

differently based on characteristics about them. If someone is treated badly or unfairly

because of their characteristic, it is known as negative discrimination. Common reason

that people are being discriminated are their sex or gender, their race and any kind of

disability. At the same time, discrimination is often linked with bullying and harassment

meaning that when someone behaves in a way that is intended to disturb or upset

another person. It is actually against the law to be discriminated against in a lot of areas

of public life including in the workplace, education and so on.

Besides that, there are many different signs and actions that can indicate

discrimination may be taking place. Such as, someone saying hurtful things, being

made fun of, having made to feel inferior because of someone’s comments, remarks or

actions and more. Basically, if you’re being made to feel uncomfortable, then this

consider as someone could be discriminating against you.

First common type of discrimination is sex and gender. Sex and gender

discrimination is treating individuals differently in their employment just because an

individual is a man or a woman. When I was 15 years

old, I was finding a part time job after I finished my PMR and UEC ( final examination ). I

went to a mall and look around for part time job, searching around…… and finally I saw

there was a restaurant wanting to employ someone which doesn’t need any

qualifications or experiences. Then I went into that restaurant to get interviewed, after

all, time passes, the manager came out and say that : “ He is sorry, they need a male

employee.” At that tender age, I did not ask for reason. I guess they think that I’m just a

young little girl who cannot help that much and give that much effort on work than man

does so they wanted to employ a male employee. I never thought that this is one of the

discrimination.

Second, race discrimination involves treating someone unfriendly because the

person is of a certain race or because of personal characteristics such as skin color

complexion. I still remember that my father brought us out for lunch at a malay

restaurant. When we take out sits at the corner, everyone is starring at us with a pair of

questioning eyes. We ignored them and did not care about how they going to talk about

us and continue to ordered our food, while ordering, there was a waiter treated us with a

very bad attitude and asked us hurried up to make our decision of what we wanted to

order and say that he have a lot of things to do yet not much time to served us. At that

moment, we felt so uncomfortable under this environment. We didn’t take our lunch at

that malay restaurant and left. However, this is also one of the discrimination just by

different race or skin color complexion. It is unlawful to harass a person because of that

persons race or skin color.

Lastly, disability discrimination is that people will think that younger age is always

stronger and more active than older age. Is this true? There was one day, I went to

jungle trekking with my mother which is already the age of 45 years old. Not that old by

the way but still worried about her ability. Before we start our journey, I asked my

mother “Are u okay with it?” then she said “Don’t worry! Not I’m the one who gave up at

the end, its you”. I found this funny just by that I don’t believe that an older age people

can be that strong and active. But I still look after her during the journey. When we

reached until half of the mountain, I felt very tired and exhausted then I take a rest

under a tree while my mother did not rest and pass through me. After that, when we

reached the top of the mountain, I ask my mother how was it? My mother said it was

super fun and satisfied. I asked her “Don’t you feel tired?” she said just a little bit

because when she was young, she use to walk to school back to home and somewhere

else. At her age, they have not enough money to buy a vehicle or even a bicycle. This is

what I have learned that age doesn’t determine your ability. Everyone at their age can

do their best to achieve goals. As can be seen then, it is not about what age you are, it

is about what you’ve been through in your life, age does not determine the ability you

have.

( 818 words )

Entry 5: Self-fulfilling prophecy

A Self-fulfilling prophecy is a positive expectations or negative expectations

about circumferences, events, or people that may affect a person’s behavior toward

them in a manner that he or she creates situations in which those expectations are

fulfilled and also causes a prediction to come true, due to the simple fact that he or she

expects it to come true. It has two types of self-fulfilling prophecies and it is based by

personality and influence of others. These two types of prophecies are self-imposed by

others; self-imposed is someone who expects affect the person’s behavior. While

imposed by other is influence to other people they take their actions has been affect by.

Whether you think you can. Or whether you think you can’t. You’re right!

This an example of someone who expects affect the person’s behavior. When

I’m in high school, students have to make their decision of which club are they going to

join. As I am quite interested in badminton, so I

decided to joined the badminton club. However, our

school principle has invited a professional

badminton coach to teach us which this coach have

won a lot of championship. We are a new batch of

students and also just a beginner who joined this

club to gain more skills. But then this badminton

coach expects freshmen to be less skilled which is

true, so he does not put us in to play very often and

teach us very little. In contrast, the badminton coach

put more concentrations and effort on those seniors

which to improve them just that seniors are going to

have a competition and when the badminton coach

put us in, we do not know how to play and have less skilled which we turned out rusty

and don’t do well, thereby, this is his thought and what fulfilling his expectations.

Expectations others put on us, whether we like it or not, have a huge influence on

our everyday life and who we grow to be as a person. For example, let’s talk about

society expectations. Society has formed this perfect person, with expectations that no

one could ever reach like for girls expectations are high, to be pretty they’ve got to have

long hair, flawless skin, big eyes and a thin but curvy body to wear clothes that expose

themselves. However, for guys expectations have much lower expectations than girls,

clear skin but not necessary, short hair, need to be on a sports team and when it comes

to appearance, nothing much.. just a pair jeans, a T-shirt and that’s it. For instance,

boys are expected to have leadership skills, be critical and logical in their thinking and

excel in technical domains. For girls, on the other hand, are expected to be sensitive,

caring and excel in managing the affairs of the household. It is unfair, which on a daily

basic people are being put down and are losing confidence because of such high

expectations.

You can think that self-fulfilling prophecy as a circular pattern. Our actions toward

others impact their beliefs against us. This pattern can be negative, like my own

personal experiences of being a freshmen badminton player’s example, but it can be

positive if you change your thoughts.

And also in my personal experience, my best friend named Yee Wen, we use to

call her “wen”. She is a type of girl that is very kind, polite and

hardworking. For her appearance she is very pretty and her height

and body size is just nice but she always thought that she look

ugly and fat. She always had a crush on a guy which is our

classmate, Edward. She is very afraid and try to avoid when she

sees him. Edward also one of my friend which we use to hang

around in campus. Then there was one day Edward told me about

that he thinks that my best friend Yee Wen is very pretty and

wanted to ask her out for a date, but every time he wanted to talk

to Wen, she started to walk away and ignored him. Yee Wen

ignored him because of her personal expectations which she

thinks that she doesn’t have the chance to hang out with Edward.

So Wen start to became very depressed and didn’t controlled her diet and also her

appearance. After some time, Wen become very ugly in Edward’s eyes. Though

Edward would not have considered dating Yee Wen anymore. As can be seen then,

Yee Wen reacted to the situation based on her perception, and the original situation

came true in the end. This is what Self-fulfilling prophecy are.

In conclusion, we tend to fulfill ourselves and others thoughts or expectations. In

other words, an expectation about a subject can affect our behavior towards that

subject, which causes the expectation to be realized. Otherwise, change your thoughts

and you change your world, your beliefs are a magnet that create your reality. As

Norman Vincent Peale said “ no matter how dark things seem to be or actually are,

raise your sight and see possibilities, always see them, for they’re always true”.

( 851 words )