SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT

NAME: CHIN TZE WEI

STUDENT ID NO: 0315767

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY [PSYCO103]

ASSIGNMENT 1: INDIVIDUAL JOURNAL

LECTURER: T. SHANKAR

ENTRY 1: SOCIAL INFLUENCE

SOCIAL INFLUENCE: The process by which one’s thoughts and actions are

affected by others.

I am sure most of the people out there have experience this kind of social

influence time and time again as I do.

One of those moments came when I was just having my holidays days after

finishing my PSR examination when I was in Primary Six. I can remember clearly

how I was first influenced into the beautiful game of football by my grandfather.

My grandfather will always ask me to sit beside him to watch it on television. He

will like keep telling me about the beauty of it like the top teams, top players and

the skills and plays displayed from that time. Soon, I became really hooked into it

due to my urge to learn the skills and breath-taking plays displayed by footballers

and the team as a whole.

Well as in my life experience, we can see that how powerful social influence is

and how it can shape our lives.

ENTRY 2: INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

INTRINSIC MOTIVATION: Doing an activity simply for the enjoyment of

the activity.

For Intrinsic Motivation, I have experience the interest in studying either History

or Mathematics at one point throughout my secondary years. It was from my

secondary 1 till 3 that I have taken an interest in History. This is because I find it

quite fascinating to learn about what people have done in the past that precedes to

how we live our lives today.

In this case I only learnt it not because of my outer motives but to gain some

knowledge of the mistakes our ancestors have made and try to improve upon it.

The same thing can also be said for my love towards Mathematics as I would spent

hours trying to perfect my knowledge on that specific topic. In this case I treat it as

my spare time to work and improve some topics that I am weak in. This is not to

say I am doing this to impress someone but to let you all know that how far are you

willing to go in order to fulfill your own personal motives.

ENTRY 3: EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION

EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION: It is a construct that pertains whenever an activity

is done in order to obtain some separable outcome

For Intrinsic Motivation, I have experience it once before which was during my

most important public examination to date, PMB. This will determine whether

your path will lead to the Science stream or Art stream in form 4.

So in order to achieve my goal of being in the science stream next stream next

form, my father promised to buy a PS2(Play Station 2) putting in extra hours of

learning and practicing determine to reach my targets. This is because at that time

PS2 was considered one of the more popular consoles among my friends and I

really want one for myself.

This encourages positive motivation inside of me. In the end I did reach my

goals and was able to claim my PS2 as a present my parents on a job well done. So

in this case, it is a win-win situation in terms of my future and needs.

ENTRY 4: CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING: When two stimuli are paired together, they

may come to elicit the same response

In this case, I can relate to how my dogs would react every time my family

members or myself would bring them food to their cages.

At first the dogs would begin to salivate at the sight of food. So this a fixed

stimuli for dogs to salivate at the sight of food. But sooner or later due to the

overexposure of seeing us carrying a pot of towards their cages, the dogs would

just instantly bark and salivate. This is because the dogs have develop a new

stimuli that there is food inside of it and bark and salivate at the same time when

seeing a pot of food afar.

Whereas the new stimuli is being developed from the dogs itself after that

continuous exposure. So the dogs will repeatedly displayed this act of behavior

every time they saw us holding the pot.

ENTRY 5: OPERANT CONDITIONING

OPERANT CONDITIONING: Using reinforcement or punishment to strengthen

or weaken a particular behavior

when it comes to persuading my youngest brother to finish off his work or to

revise back everything that my mother had taught him or in school, my mother has

one trick up in her sleeves.

And in this case, my mother would told him that once he is done, he can go

watch television, play outside or computer games. This can act as a positive

reinforcement in this scenario as my mother tries to reinforce my brother’s

behavior by strengthening something enticing to him.

Positive reinforcement will occur when the likelihood of a certain behavior

increases as a result of the presentation of something pleasant after the behavior. In

this case my brother will display an increase in behavior to get his fun.

ENTRY 6: CENTRAL ROUTE TO PERSUASION

CENTRAL ROUTE TO PERSUASION: It consists of thoughtful consideration

of the arguments of the message.

This act of persuasion can be seen when I followed my mother to the

supermarket to do some grocery shopping. She will surely be indulged in grocery

goods that have a “Buy one, Free one something” slogan.

Ofcourse my mother will only buy goods that my family needs. But when she

came upon goods that have these slogans, she will try to compare goods of other

brands to see whether it is worth to buy it or not. This act of persuasion is called

the Central Route to persuasion. She will often or not choose the one with the

slogan because according to her it is quite worth the money as you can get an

additional product that can be useful to use at home like plates and cups.