Psychology Journal11

JOURNAL ENTRY 1

Questionnaire on 5th September 2015

Settings: 2pm-3pm, 5th September 2015Location: Paradigm Mall, Kelana Jaya, SelangorEntry 1: Downwards Social Comparison, Chapter 2Social comparison theory states that we determine our own social and personal worth based on how we stack up against others. As a result, we are constantly making self and other evaluations across a variety of domains (for example, attractiveness, wealth, intelligence, and success). Most of us have the social skills and impulse control to keep our envy and social comparisons quiet but our true feelings may come out in subtle ways. (www.psychologytoday.com, Social Comparison)In social psychology, Social comparison theorystates that we determine our own social and personal worth based on others. As a result, we are constantly making self and other evaluations across a variety of domains. We use others as the standard by which we compare ourselves.Individuals may also seek self-enhancement, or to improve their self-esteem. They may interpret, distort, or ignore the information gained by social comparison to see themselves more positively and further their self-enhancement goals. They will also choose to make upward (comparing themselves to someone better off) or downward (comparing themselves to someone worse off) comparisons, depending on which strategy will further their self-enhancement goals. Social comparison can be mainly divided into two different parts which are the Upward and downward social comparisons.According to PsychologyToday, Downward social comparison is a defensive tendency that is used as a means of self-evaluation. When a person looks to another individual or group that they consider to be worse off than themselves in order to feel better about their self or personal situation, they are making a downward social comparison. Downwards social comparison is a process that helps us enhance our self-esteem by feeling that we are better than other people.Upwards social comparison however, allows individuals to compare themselves with an individual or comparison group that they perceive as superior as or better than themselves in order to improve their views of self or to create a more positive perception of their personal reality. One example on this theory is breast cancer patients look towards survivors for inspiration and hope to live on.On the fifth of September, I was out of groceries at home so I decided to invite my friend to go shopping at Paradigm Mall which is located in Kelana Jaya district. We drove there and parked our car in the basement level for an easier access to Tesco the supermarket located in Paradigm Mall. While I was walking on the basement first floor nearby the supermarket with my group of high school friends which consists of Penny, Wai and Calvin, there was a group of salesman and sales woman that offered us each to do an interesting questionnaire on how conscious we are towards our body and health both mentally and physically. At first we hesitated as the questionnaire was one-hundred questions long but as we find it to be beneficial, my friends and I agreed to solve the one-hundred questions that were asked of us in the questionnaire.My friends and I took about ten to twenty minutes to answer all the answers on the questionnaire before we turned it in for our final results to be marked and determined. We also decided that we would go to get some ice-cream before the results are out as it will take some time to mark the numerous questions on the questionnaire. After a short trip to the ice-cream booth on the first floor, we returned to level basement one to drop by and get our marked results. It was really surprising as the marks that came out were not as good as I had expected. It had turned out that, although I obtained the highest marks with forty-eight out of a one hundred questions, we were way below the average passing mark of seventy marks. We were also graded under the label unhealthy by our markers.Even though I am supposed to be disappointed about the fact that I got a forty-eight, I compared my score to my friends score and found out that I had scored higher than all the three of them. There was not even one of them who had barely made it out of the thirty points mark. With this, I prided myself knowing that I had scored more than them. I didnt feel as upset as I am supposed to be. This is because I used the downwards social comparison concept to make myself feel better and raise my self-esteem.In conclusion, social comparison is a means of measuring our own successes by taking others as a standard to make ourselves feel better about our results. The social comparison process involves people coming to know themselves by evaluating their own attitudes, abilities, and beliefs in comparison with others. We try to compare ourselves to those in our peer group or with whom we are similar.

(801 words)JOURNAL ENTRY 2

Star Teh Tarik, the option we chose over Backofen

Settings: 6pm- 7pm, 10th September 2015Location: Taylors University Lakeside Campus, Subang Jaya, SelangorJournal Entry 2: Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Post- decision dissonance) Chapter 5

Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviours. This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviours to reduce the discomfort and restore balance etc. (simplypsychology.org, Cognitive dissonance) In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, performs an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas or values, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. According to Leon Festinger, when an attitude is not in keeping with a behavior then there is a dissonant relationship. An individual who experiences inconsistency (dissonance) tends to become psychologically uncomfortable, and is motivated to try to reduce this dissonanceas well as actively avoid situations and information likely to increase it. When forced to make a decision however, we have to reject one appealing choice in favor of another, we will devalue the option not selected. ( Kimberly Duff, 2012)Most choices have both pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages, benefits as well as costs. Once we make a choice, however, we accept the disadvantages of that option and give up the advantages of other, unchosen, options. Realization of these consequences leads to dissonance that arises after we make a decision: I chose option A, which has drawbacks; I rejected Option B, which had its own benefits. - (psychologytoday.com) thus, post-decisional dissonance is a form of regret, a worry that perhaps we didnt make the best choice. The post-decision dissonance stresses the devaluation of objects after making a decision under a dissonant state. This devaluation will help us to improve our mood by choosing the other available option.On 10th September 2015, it was another usual windy Wednesday night and I was at my university campus to attend my weekly volleyball training. However this week, I had invited my best friend from high school to follow me and join the training with me, his name is Jared. I picked up Jared from his house and drove together to the basement carpark to look for a parking spot. Our stomachs has already began rumbling even before we had left the house. Jared and I walked towards the commercial block at around 6 to get some dinner to satisfy our hunger before the practise as we were starving. Being new to the campus, my friend Jared was unsure of what is available to eat at the campus. He didnt know what was for sale and couldnt make a decision. So I thought for a minute or two and told him about Backofen, a restaurant located on the lower ground floor of the campus which specializes in selling western meals. When he saw Backofen, the shop which sells western food mainly spaghetti and pasta, Jared agreed as he really likes spaghettis. However, after a look at the menu on display at the store, we had a short discussion and then we decided that the food was too pricy and decided to go and look for another place to eat. We walked around the campus for a few more times around the commercial block before we ended up eating at the mamak stall which is also currently known as Star The Tarik on the located on the first floor of the commercial block for half the paying price of our original budget that we had planned to spent at Backofen. I ordered a roti pisang and a cup of the Tarik while Jared got himself a plate of mee goreng or fried noodles, he said it will satisfy his cravings for spaghetti.As we were making our way back to the volleyball courts, we started to compare both the food outlets, the mamak stall and Backofen. We started to find the advantages of eating at the mamak and the flaws of Backofen. For example, we said that we felt the mamak was more fulling and it taste better. The order queue was also much faster compared to Backofen as the time taken for ordering the food was much shorter. All these was said to help make us feel better by choosing the mamak. In conclusion, based on Leon Festinger theory, when an attitude is not in keeping with a behavior then there is a dissonant relationship. A dissonant relationship requires a third consonant element to reduce the degree of dissonance. When we have to reject one appealing choice in favor of another, we will devalue the option not selected. Thus resulting in the post-decision dissonance. Once we make a choice, however, we accept the disadvantages of that option and give up the advantages of other, unchosen, options.

(800 words)JOURNAL ENTRY 3

The game I play from Journal 3Setting: 10pm- 12am, 30th October 2015Location: Home, PJ Ss2/53, SelangorJournal Entry 3: Social Facilitation, Chapter 1

Social facilitation can be defined as an improvement in performance produced by the mere presence of others. There are two types of social facilitation: co-action effects and audience effect. Studies on social facilitation concern the extent to which a given piece of an individual's behavior is affected by the real, imagined or implied presence of others. (simplypsychology.org, (social facilitation)Social facilitation is the tendency for people to do better on simple tasks when in the presence of other people.In 1898 Norman Triplett noted that competitive cyclists performed better during races than during solo rides. This implies that, whenever people are being watched by others, they will do well on things that they are already good at doing. Social facilitationis the tendency for people to do better on simple tasks when in the presence of other people. Subsequent research confirmed that a well-learned performance is enhanced in the presence of others. This theory suggests that the mere or imagined presence of people in social situations creates an atmosphere of evaluation. Social facilitation has occasionally been attributed to the fact that certain people are more susceptible to social influence, with the argument that person factors can make these people more aware of evaluation. These personality characteristics may cause some people to be more greatly affected by the presence of their observers.I play a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game every night called DotA 2 short for Defence of the Ancients 2. Dota 2 is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. Released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux in July 2013, following a Windows-only public beta testing phase that began in 2011, the game is the stand-alone sequel to Defence of the Ancients (DotA). - (Dotapedia, 2010)Dota 2 is played in matches between two five-player teams, each of which occupies a stronghold in a corner of the playing field. A team wins by destroying the other side's "Ancient" building, located within the opposing stronghold. Each player controls one of 110 playable "Hero" characters that feature unique powers and styles of play. During a match, the player collects gold, items, and experience points for their Hero, while combating Heroes of the opposite team. Every Friday night from 10-12pm, me and my group of high school friends will group together and form a party to play the game. This means instead of random strangers in my team of 5, I get to be in the same team as somebody I know of. We barely loss any games when we play as a group, instead we dominate games and maintained a winning streak. From the above scenario, I compared my feelings when playing the game with and without my team of friends. When playing with my party, I noticed that I tend to tell myself to avoid doing and making mistakes to not disappoint my friends. Besides that, I also tend to play with a higher intensity which means I tend to be more daring when I play as I know they will back me up when I am with them.Other than that, I also compared my solo games with our group games. I noticed that I tend to play better when I am involved in the game with my friends considering the higher statistics I gained in the game as compared to my usual statics. In game statistics are measured by a means of Gold Per minute which states how much Gold you earn in game per minute and Experience per minute which states how much experience in earned in game per minute. Besides that we also are able to take ancients and win games faster and quicker compared to individual gaming.This therefore proves that I can play better in the presence of others that I know of and improve my individual performance. I mentally created an artificial atmosphere of evaluation in my head. I realised that when being watched, my attention level is higher because we tend to be innately competitive. I had used the concept of social-facilitation to help improve my self-performance during the game by playing with my friends.In conclusion, Social Facilitation helps to improve ones self-performance while in the presence of others. This implies that, whenever people are being watched by others, they will do well on things that they are already good at doing. The role of social facilitation is important to consider in social situations, because it implies that people's performance does not rely solely on their abilities, but is also impacted by the internal awareness of being evaluated. Performance can be greatly affected by situation factors, thus making it possible to entirely alter the outcome of a situation.(783 words)JOURNAL ENTRY 4

Results for 7th November lottery

Settings: 10 am, 7th November 2015Location: Home, SS2/53 Petaling Jaya, SelangorJournal Entry 4: Counterfactual Thinking, upwards Counter Factual Thinking Chapter 3

Counterfactual thinking is thinking about a past that did not happen. This often happens in 'if only...' situations, where we wish something had or had not happened. This can be so powerful we can change our own memories, adjusting the facts and creating new memories. It can happen to cover up trauma or may be just excuses to avoid facing uncomfortable truths. It can also be to explain what is otherwise unexplainable. (changingminds.org, counterfactual thinking)Counterfactual literally means contrary to the facts. A counterfactual thought occurs when a person modifies a factual prior event and then assesses the consequences of that change. A person may imagine how an outcome could have turned out differently, if the antecedents that led to that event were different. Counterfactual thinking imagines different outcomes for an event that has already occurred that is usually associated with bad (or negative) events. For example, a person may reflect upon how a road accident could have turned out by imagining how some of the factors could have been different, for example, If only I hadn't been speeding.... These alternatives can be better or worse than the actual situation, and in turn give improved or more disastrous possible outcomes, If only I hadn't been speeding, my car wouldn't have been wrecked or if I hadn't been wearing a seatbelt, I would have been killed. This can be used to improve or worsen your mood. Counterfactual thinking can be divided into two which are upwards counterfactual thinking and downwards counterfactual thinking. Upward counterfactual thinking focuses on how the situation could have been better. Many times, people think about what they could have done differently. For example, "If I started studying three days ago, instead of last night, I could have done better on my test." Since people often think about what they could have done differently, it is not uncommon for people to feelregretduring upward counterfactual thinking.Downward counterfactual thinking focuses on how the situation could have been worse. In this scenario, a person can make themselves feel better about the outcome because they realize that the situation is not the worst it could be. For example, "I'm lucky I earned a 'C' on that; I didn't start studying until last night."My great Uncle from my mothers side is a gambling addict. He invests heavily in jackpot events such as Toto and magnum. On the same Wednesday of the week, he had brought me to Toto store to buy his daily jackpot ticket. He goes there every day to try his luck in winning the prizes. He usually loses most of his numbers but he has won quite some sum. He took me to the counter and grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper. He scribbled some numbers on it and asked me what he should buy for the last remaining number. He brought me a piece of paper and asked me to write down the last remaining number that he should buy, I told him why not my birthdate which happens to fall on August 11 so I told him to buy the number 1108. I scribbled the number 1108 on the piece of paper and passed it to him. He then submitted all the numbers to the cash register with a buying price of RM 5 per number. He collected his receipt and took me to the nearby coffee shop where we have breakfast in.The result of the draws are due to be out and announced on Saturday. When he came over to have breakfast with us on the 7th of November, he took out the lottery ticket that he had bought on Wednesday which happened to be my birthdate 1108. He was very excited about the number I had given him saying that I had always been lucky. He waited patiently for the newspaper delivery man to pass by to deliver the newspaper. He then quickly got up from his seat and ran towards the door to pick up the newspaper.He grabbed the newspaper and flipped to the page where the lottery results were out and noticed that he was only 2 digits away from winning the grand prize. The grand prize happened to be 0811 which is the exact opposite of what he had bought. He moaned that if only he had bought the last digit differently he would have won the grand prize and got enough money to retire then he started making fun of why my birthdate couldnt have been reversed. He had used the upward counterfactual thinking to cushion his disappointment and make himself regret less.In conclusion, counterfactual thinking helps us to get over our loss by imagining realities that were counterfactual to ours.

(787 words)

JOURNAL ENTRY 5

Setting: 7pm, 23th November 2015Location: Home, SS2/53, Petaling Jaya, SelangorJournal Entry 5: Discrimination (Racism), Chapter 7

All human beings belong to a single species and share a common origin. They are born equal in dignity and rights and all form an integral part of humanity. All peoples of the world possess equal faculties for attaining the highest level in intellectual, technical, social, economic, cultural and political development. - (The General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) Race, as defined by the English thesaurus means a group of people identified as distinct from other groups because of supposed physical or genetic traits shared by the group. It determines that humans that people are united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution. While racism, is any action or attitude, conscious or unconscious, that subordinates an individual or group based on skin colour or race. It can be enacted individually or institutionally.In Malaysia, racism is a very common topic among the people who live here. It does not seem to be something out of the blue as Malaysia is a multi-cultural nation that is home to many different ethnic groups. It does not help either with the governing body sowing seeds among the two main races Chinese and Malays daily with many governing policies and playing racial cards to severe relationships among races and which invokes hatred against one another. Government policies of positive discrimination often favour the Malay majority and the Bumiputera status, particularly in areas such as housing, finance and education. These policies which were originally aimed to eradicate poverty among Malays and Bumiputeras have not been fully effective and have further caused a backlash especially from Chinese and Indian minorities. The policies are enshrined in the Malaysian constitution and questioning them is technically illegal.- (May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969. ISBN 9834136765). Racial cards are political moves to spread allegations of a race. One incident such as the Bersih rally which was aimed to bring consciousness to the people of a clean election but alleged to be a demonstration against Malay rights by the government.My experience greatly relates to the hatred and the acts of racial hatred which causes the acts of racism of the two main races Malays and Chinese as stated above.It was a rainy Monday evening. Malaysia has just entered the monsoon season after being plague by months of haze brought from our neighbouring countries. Monday nights are always fun as there is a night market that is being held every week just behind my house. I went to the market at about 7 to pick up some groceries as my mum who would usually do them is outstation. I grabbed my bag and headed of under the slight drizzle towards the entrance of the night market located near Mc Donalds.The night market was a sight to behold, people rushing everywhere grabbing groceries and snacks like apam and air mata kucing along the way. There were also many other things on sale such as shoes and shirts. I walked up to the fruit stall to grab my first haul of apples. The seller was a lady who was in her fifties. Upon approaching the stall, she immediately welcomed me with a smile and passed me a bright blue basket to fill my fruits in. She told me the apples were really fresh and really sweet too. I immediately got down to pick the apples. At about the same time, a Malay woman walked up to the same fruit stall. She took a look at the apples and gestured that she would like some. The fruit seller immediately changed her cheerful and welcoming personality. She told her that the apples cost 10 ringgit for 5 and tossed a dull coloured seemingly old basket in front of her to fill the apples with. The Malay woman who doesnt seem to find the situation strange started filling up her share of apples. On the other hand, I stared blankly at the seller who is now talking cheerfully with another customer whose race is Chinese. The idea of racism covers all racist actions this includes conscious and unconscious actions. The seller is committing an act of racism. I quickly paid for my apples and continued on deeper into the market. I am a part of the Chinese race, but I dont find myself to be a racist. I understand the many differences of other ethnic groups and learn how to tolerate them. Rational thinking helps me to see through the government policies and racial cards. I even made many friends from other races. The fruit sellers actions were a bit rough but I shrugged it off figuring out that maybe she had had some unpleasant experiences against another race group. Racism will only affect us if we let it. I am hopeful that one day Malaysians of all races can sit together and have no conflicts among races.

(820 words)

References

1. (n.d.). Retrieved September 5, 2015, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/social-comparison-theory

2. (n.d.). Retrieved September 10, 2015, from a) http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/f/dissonance.htmb) http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html

3. (n.d.). Retrieved October 30, 2015, froma) http://www.simplypsychology.org/Social-Facilitation.htmlb) http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-social-facilitation-definition-examples-studies.html

4. (n.d.). Retrieved November 7, 2015, from a) http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/counterfactual_thinking.htmb) http://www.psych-it.com.au/Psychlopedia/article.asp?id=401

5. (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2015, froma) May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969. ISBN 9834136765.b) Reilly, Kevin; Kaufman, Stephen; Bodino, Angela (2003). Racism : a global reader. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe. pp. 1516. ISBN 978-0-7656-1060-7.c) Brant, Robin. "Malaysia questions ethnic preferences". BBC. Retrieved 18 December 2013

6. Duff, K. (2012). Think social psychology. Boston, MA [u.a.: Allyn et Bacon/Pearson.]