journal compile

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

FOUNDATION IN NATURA AND BUILD ENVIRONMENT

ASSIGNMENT 01

NAME: TAN JO LYNN

STUDENT ID: 0318518

GROUP/SESSION: MONDAY; 0800HR – 1100HR

SUBJECT AND COURSE: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY [PSYC0103]

LECTURER: MR. T. SHANKAR

SUBMISSION DATE: 10TH NOVEMBER 2014

Social Psychology Journal 01

Date: 4th September 2014 (Thursday) Time: 1218hr

Self-Concept

Self-concept, the various beliefs you hold about yourself. As I was revising

the slides provided by the lecturer for the coming test, I realized I never really

did thought about my self-concept before. I started asking myself: ‘what is and

was my overall sense of me? Do the judgments of others affect my self-concept?’

As I was having thoughts about it, I found out that I have changed from time to

time.

When I was young, I was extrovert, outgoing girl who was not afraid of

anything. I was proud of myself as I learn things well and I am always better in

drawing compare to others although I have never been to any drawing lesson

before. I used to be the ‘leader’ of the gang of friends and I will always have an

idea for certain things. I knew the decisions I needed to make and I will always

speak them out. As I grew up, things changed. I became a person who has a total

opposite personality compare to what I used to be. I am shy. I do not speak about

or even dare to share my ideas until someone asked me. I do not know how to

make decisions until an emergency point of time. I became a follower instead of a

leader. I care more and more about how I appear in front of others both mentally

and physically as I been through quite a few of judgmental situation. I am

definitely not proud to be myself today.

Thoughts of the change made my heart sunk a little as I found out how a

society can change a child’s personality and their self-concept, as the

development of our identity are influence by the social group we are in. Social

influences’ impact is so hard on children nowadays that some of them start to

lose beliefs about themselves and degrade their self-concept. Incident like this

could be seen everywhere these days. As for example, models today are more or

unless in an anorexic situation. This caused teenage girls to think that is it

necessary to be in shape like them to be labeled beautiful; girls in bigger size and

shape became ashamed of themselves and start to go on diet. Some even chose to

not have proper meal, causing them to have unbalance diet and lead to all kind of

sickness.

Every one of us should have strong sense of believe in their self-concept

as it is what we are born with and that is what we are.

Self-Serving Bias

Recently, I found myself experiencing certain situation that I could really

relate to a topic I have learnt in my one Social Psychology classes, which is self-

serving bias. It is where people making positive attributions that allow us to see

ourselves in the best possible light. In other words, people in this situation tend

to take credit for success or people’s effort but not take responsibility for failure.

Unfortunately, we could easily find these people around us, in school and

in public. As a student, this usually happen when there is group assignment going

on. Announcing their great efforts and achievements but gave no credit to his or

her teammate. Or at times declaring their accomplishments even though they did

not even contribute 10% to the group work. This personality trait is commonly

tagged as bad character but it is also recognized as a necessity at times. For

example, a great leader is too humble and gave all his or her hard work and

success to all his or her teammate. This could result in teammates to loosen up,

thinking that the leader will supply everything that need and at the same time

taking all credits that do not deserve.

However, in my case, it is definitely a manner that I do not think I could

not put up with anymore further. Undergoing these situations during group

project was not just about taking in new experiences as a life lesson. It is a

suffering and stressful experience that you cannot complain, as it would spoil the

relationship among the team members and would degrade the productivity of

the teamwork.


Date: 10th October 2014 (Friday)Time: 2314hr

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is an incident where people seek out data that support

their beliefs and disregard data that refute those beliefs. I suppose that most

people have encountered this specific situation innumerous times in their life. As

different individual have different personality, each of us doubtlessly will have

certain convictions and perceptions. And we will always fight for it as it is what

we believe. This causes arguments between individuals about what they think it

should be.

I believe most of us have watched the horror movie ‘Annabelle’ which was

filmed not long ago. Some of us were frightened by the scenes and were scared to

death but some were not. One of my friend complained that it is a bad movie and

definitely do not understand why people should be scared of a black ‘Spiderman’.

She said that is it so stupid that she laughed throughout the movie as it is not the

spirits and ghosts she believed to be exist as a Buddhist. She continued to insult

the movie and the beliefs of the Christians by saying how stupid they are.

Not because I am a Christians but as a Malaysian, I definitely do not

support her attitude towards this kind of situation. Her confirmation bias

incident does not seem right for me as people should not be criticizing other

religious’ beliefs. She could comment that it is not a very nice film because of the

story line or the horror scenes was not enough but not how stupid it is to believe

the existence and scared of demons and satans.

Emotional Expression

Emotional expression is the facial expression, eye movements and body

gesture of individuals. These expressions are important in revealing one’s

feeling, giving information non-verbally and showing one’s reactions towards

certain things. It is used in our daily routine and with today’s technology, we

could even use them while chatting on phone via SMS, Whatsapp etc. They are

called the ‘emojis’.

The understandings of emotional expressions are often used by us, the

students to predict the lecturers’ current feeling and emotion. To prevent

scolding and complains of the teachers or lecturers to the parents. We work

according to the emotional expressions shown on them and we gain experiences

each time we used this tactic.

What happened in one of my lecture will definitely shown the important

of emotional expression. It was when the lecture has started and our lecturer

was briefing our next project, if I am not mistaken. Every one kept quiet as we

observed and concluded that our lecturer was not in a very good mood and was

definitely not a good condition to have all fun and jokes like how we usually do.

But there were one of us did not seem to notice that. He was having his time and

playing around as usual. We dare not to speak and warn him but we did give him

stares and gestures that told him to sit and quiet look. The lecturer did not seem

to be caring at first but he enjoyed more as time passed. It was when he started

laughing so loud that the lecturer turned and gave him an ‘if you continue to talk

I will move my way there’ look. That was when he finally realized why we were

all giving him weird face expressions and signs. He sat down quietly at the corner

and the lecture continues in the awkward situation.


Date: 12th October 2014 (Sunday)

Time: 0117hr

Ambivalent Attitude

Ambivalent attitude is when one has mixed emotions, a time when one’s

attitude is both positive and negative at the same time. In other words, it is when

you are in the midst of two choices, certain decisions or feelings. I believe that

most of us have been through this kind of situation many times on their life, as

humans will always have contradiction in their daily routine.

As for me, a person who do not know how to make even a simple decision,

challenged by this specific problem almost everyday. For example, in the very

morning, the weather was too good to be awake. I was awakening by my mum’s

knocks on the door, as I need to leave for assignment meeting at 12 o’clock in the

afternoon. It was 10 a.m. in the morning, chilly weather. Air-conditioned room

with my cosy blanket and pillow, perfect condition for my nap after my sleep.

Positive reaction, high. Nevertheless, the contradiction was in the existent. The

idea of unfinished assignments and the undone planning needed for continuation

of work strikes my head. The negative reaction is high too. It was obvious that I

should be out of my bed as the progresses of the projects are more important but

I cannot resist it.

As the day reached the afternoon, when I finally got to campus and done

with the meetings and planning of work, here comes the decision of life. It was

between a Chinese restaurant and a Japanese restaurant. The contradiction

between was the feeling of me wanting to have spicy curry chicken and my

favorite salmon. I have thought about the restaurant we should have lunch in for

almost 30 minutes and finally decided by two of my hungry friend by playing the

‘scissors, paper, stone’ game.

Both situation shown ambivalent attitude and it happens not just for me

but every one else, as it is a natural human nature.

Observational Learning

Since the first day we came the world, we learn most of our knowledge by

observing things and occasions around us. Observational learning is when we

watch others engage in behaviors and repeat those actions. From an infant to an

adult, we learn and understand things from our parents and those who are

around us. We start to have facial expressions, speak, walk, run etc. All of these

are learnt by observational learning and this process does not end even when

you are fully grown, as the world will continue to develop and there is always

new things to be learnt.

For instance, the ‘first times’ we have in our life, like drawing typical one

draw star, buying a cup of coffee in Starbucks or learning special way of ordering

food in certain restaurant or café. It is most seen nowadays where the older

generations learning how to use the smart devices.

It was when my mum got her first smart phone, Samsung Note 3, and an

iPad. She is a slow learner and she easily forgets stuff. So after our third try of

teaching her, we gave up. Consequently, she began to learn by observing how we

use them. When we were using phone and chatting in the living room to get

better connection of Wi-Fi, she stood beside us and watched the way we use. She

often asked how could we type so fast on such small keyboard while she cannot

even type fast on the big ones. By observing and sometimes asking, she learnt

certain skills like how to download apps and how to change and insert keyboards

of different languages as days passed by.

Learning is a process that should not be stopped no matter what is your

age or what condition you are in.


Date: 19th October 2014 (Sunday)

Time: 1021hr

Counterfactual Thinking

Did you ever think of different consequences of certain incident, which

has already happened? Did you ever wonder what would happen if, your

decision and choices were different? I suppose that the answer is yes. We always

think about the if-s and imagine the desired after-effects we wanted.

Counterfactual thinking is a situation where people imagine different

outcomes for an event that has already happened. It is usually associated with

negative events and is able to improve or worsen our mood. There are two types

of counterfactual thinking, which are upward counterfactual and downward

counterfactual.

Upward counterfactual occurs when the outcome is negative. It was my

piano exam week but at the same time it was also my CNC project submission

week. Everything was coming into my way and so I left my planning for the

preparation for my piano exam aside. It was not a truly official exam but it was a

test that would allow me to move on to the next stage. So everything went on

well, except for my piano practices. It was only about 15minutes I spent in front

of my piano per day as I focused more on my project. Days passed and it was the

day of my test right after the day of the project submission. My hands were

shivering and my mind was half blank, at certain section of the song I could not

even remember how it was supposed to be. As for my aural, the tones of certain

notes were out and there were few rhythms I missed. The result was below

average and my teacher decided to have my lesson repeated all over again.

And here I go, started thinking about all the what-if-s and all the different

outcomes like IF I had practice more, IF I spent more time on my practices

instead of sleeping, IF I managed my time better etc.

It was an experience and a lesson I should learn. After being through this

situation, I will be more aware of my time management and make decisions more

wisely to avoid more counterfactual thinking.

Stereotyping

Stereotyping is when people assume all members of a group shares a

similar feature. It is a typical reaction or thinking and impression of a person

towards a certain group or an individual when they see them. Every one does

that as it is a society where people judge by your appearance and it also human

nature to ‘follow the flow’ of others around them, which creates the same feature

among the group of people.

By cause of me studying in an English based school for quite a long time, I

have lost the habit of speaking Mandarin in front of my friends or with others

around me. This result in people tend to think that I am a ‘banana’, a Chinese that

do not know how to speak Mandarin, although I have even taken Chinese in my

SPM and I have got a B+ for it. My mum reasoned that as I have stayed in the

condition that every one is English educated, the atmosphere has allowed me to

‘look’ and ‘feel’ like one of those who are English educated. Well, I was not fully

Chinese educated as well but I was definitely born in an Chinese based family. My

friends said that I do not even look like a SJK©, Chinese based primary school

student. They thought that I am a full ‘banana’ as I was so used to English that I

looked blur when they were speaking Mandarin, like other typical ‘bananas’.

There are few types of common stereotyping among the teenagers

nowadays. For example, the ‘LALAs’, named after the typical Chinese people, the

Malays, and the Bollywood. There are also people that could not be grouped in

any of them as they are just placed in the middle of nowhere.

Although stereotyping is frequently seen among the society but it does

not mean that we could frankly group a person as certain stereotype because of

what he is born with. For example, the most common mistake done by most of

the people nowadays, racism, or in cases around me it is more like color-ism.

Few of my generation I know and mostly the older generation judge people by

the color of their skin. People are not born racist, but are taught to be racist.


Date: 3rd November 2014 (Monday)Time: 2223hr

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Self-fulfilling prophecy is when we are the cause of our own expectation

to come true by illicit expected behavior from others. It is when the predictions

we made caused us to take certain action that result in the prediction to become

reality. I believe that everyone has been through situation like this before,

regretting what you have done that caused your previous forecasts to come true.

It was during the trial exams before the official SPM. We tend to stress

more for our forecast result compare to our official SPM result, as most of us

used it to apply colleges and universities so that we could go for the earlier

intake. However, trials are always harder than the real exam to boost the

motivation of students. Everything was fine for me, except for my Chinese

subject. As I was quite active in my co-curriculum activities and sports in school,

I tend to miss out all my Chinese classes that were carried out after school. It as

not placed in our proper timetable during school time as there were only few of

us took the subject Chinese for SPM and our school did not take into account

about it.

Hence, I did not give much attention to my standard of Chinese too until

the very last minute. If I am not mistaken, I only started to have my Chinese extra

lessons three weeks before my trials started. My tuition teacher even told me

that if you were able to even pass Chinese for your trials, it would be a miracle.

Hence, the end result was disappointing of course. I knew my parents were going

to be disappointed and angry. I was too afraid to show my parents the result,

especially my mum, I hid my exam paper and I informed them that I did not

receive the paper.

It was when they needed my forecast result to help me apply for

university, as to prevent going for NS by going in for the earliest intake. My mum

realized that I did not have my grade for Chinese. Hence, she went to my school

office to ask for it. She found out that the result was already out long ago and the

paper was in my hand.

So, everything ended up like what I have predicted. I got the scolding and

the lectures and the amount of extra lessons increased right after the incident.

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning is usually use by formal systems like schools,

universities, condominium committee, government etc. It is a technique where

people use reinforcement or punishment to strengthen or weaken a particular

behavior. Operant conditioning could be seen everywhere in this era as humans

are more civilized and knew the ways of controlling and guiding.

This happened to one of my friend. As she was on the way of going back

home, she lost her purse and she could not get into her apartment, as it is

necessary for each and every resident to have his or her resident card to gain

access into the apartment. She was informed to go to the management office to

create another card. The staff told her that if she were going to get a new card,

she would have to paid RM100 as fine and she will have to wait for one month

for the particular card. It was written clearly in the terms and condition list

behind the card that whoever that lose their card will be fined RM100.

As for her purse and other important documents like our Malaysian

MyKad, her driving license and her credit card, she was fined by certain amount

of money too and she was so angry and sad about it. She was complaining how

bad was her day and the money she lost for all these cards and documents.

The main purpose of the fines was not to gain extra money from the

citizens but to ensure them to be aware of their belongings. If every one could

have a new resident card easily right after they lose it, it would be tragic as there

will be tons of people queuing up outside the management office, requesting to

have a new resident card.

journal compile

Education