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1. Social Psychology
PSY 30203
Assignment 1 - Journal
Name : Kenneth Tan Sin Kwang
Student ID : 0322482
Course : FNBE March 2015 ( semester 2)
Lecturer : Mr Shankar
Tutorial Class : Monday, 8am- 10am
Submission Date : 30th
November 2015

2. Settings : 25th August 2015
Entry 1 : Social Facilitation and Social loafing, Chapter 1
During the second class for our psychology, Mr Shankar briefly introduced a new topic
to us which is call the roof of psychology which include " social facilitation and social
loafing" on that day. Both of this scenario are contradicting each other which it happen in
different occasion. For social facilitation, This concept was defined as a change in
execution processed by the simple vicinity of others. Is the tendency for people to do better
on simple tasks when in the presence of others to have a positive stimulus such that we
perform even better. This implies that, whenever people are being watched by others, they
will do well on things that they are already good at doing. This theory suggests that the
mere or imagined presence of people in social situations creates an atmosphere of
evaluation. In 1898, Norman Triplett noted that competitive cyclists performed better in
the race than during the solo rides. There was also subsequent research confirmed that a
well performance is enhanced by the presence of others. Meaning that, during the presence
of others, we will perform better in different situation.
For my evaluation, this theory actually often happened in our life with realising it. For
example, I personally is a volleyball player which I often represent the states or Malaysia. I
usually went to practice alone with my coach at the volleyball court somewhere nearby my
house. I usually did the same thing during my training as people always said that " practice
makes perfect'. During my training, I will only get 6-7 shots of my serve in out of 15 shots
which probabilities is around 55-60% and caused me to feel frustrated every time during
training session. But when comes to competition, I tend to do better where the most of the
points I won is because that I've have been serving well throughout the whole match.
As I've been practised my serve all the time during my training session, it had become a
well learned skills. This well learned performance process will start to become a simple
task rather than a complete task by practising more. Besides that, this caused social
facilitation to occur when there is a well learned performance and individual contribution
are able to be identified. I also realised that I am able to perform better during competition
period is because of the presence of others make me more competitive. Competitive allows
me to perform even better and also supports from the crowds in order to increase my
individual performance to helps my team to win during competition.
On the other hand, Social loafing describes the tendency of individuals to put forth less
effort to achieve certain goals when they are in a group. Individuals tend to perform when
they are working own their own. This appears to be a direct contradiction to Social
Facilitation, but can be explained by the differing circumstances in which it occurs. The
idea of working in groups is typically seen as a way to improve the accomplishment of a
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3. task by pooling the skills and talents of the individuals in that group. Social loafing
occurs because members can feel that their contribution will not be worth much to the
overall cause because so many other contributions can or should occur. This leads people
to not contribute as much or at all in large groups as they might have in individual works.
This effects continued to increase as the group size increase. This theory was conducted by
Max Ringelman. He asked participants to pull on a rope both individually and in groups.
What he discovered that when people were part of a group, they made less of an effort to
pull the rope than they did when working individually. Therefore, individuals make less of
an effort when in a group than they would if they were attempting to achieve the goal on
their own.
There were examples that I experienced social loafing is during my 1st semester for my
foundation course here in Taylor's University. One of my friends name Stevie. When
individual assignment were distributed by our lecturer, he would immediately broken down
the assignment into steps and started doing it right away and also put full effort to complete
the assignment on time. At the end of the day, his result for the individual assignment was
among the top five best results in the class. However, when comes to group assignment, he
will only went to the meeting occasionally by giving several excuses such as having tuition
classes or exam is around the corner. Social loafing tendency makes it likely that he would
put less effort into the project. Instead of assuming responsibility of a certain tasks, he will
minimize his contributions because he felt that his effort are not noticed by others and from
there he started to 'hand the back' and free rider to avoid all consequences of not
contributing any works. Free rider allowed to benefits because in each case, the outcome of
the group performance is shared equally to all group members base on their group results.
Lastly, this is the reason that caused him to achieved a better results when he is working
alone.
In conclusion, social facilitation occur when people are performing in the presence of
others yet individual contributions are be identified and also occur if there is well learned
performance. In contrast, social loafing occurs when a person are performing a task as part
of group and individual effort cannot been identified and also exerting less effort to achieve
a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone.
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4. Settings:28th August2015
Entry 2 : Motivation,Chapter 2
Motivation is a theoretical construct used to explain behavior of us. Motivation is an
internal state or condition that sometimes we used to described the need, desire or want
that serve to activate or energize our behavior. Motivation can also be defined as one's
direction to behavior or what or what is the factor that caused a person to repeat a behavior
and vice versa. Based on my understanding, motivation can be able to differentiate into two
parts which is called the intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation
occurs when we act without any obvious external rewards. We simply enjoy an activity or
see it as an opportunity to explore, learn, and actualize our potentials. Intrinsic motivation
refers to behavior that is driven by internal rewards. Basically is about your hobby where
you did it it's because of interest of yourself. People that are intrinsic motivation take a
certain action for the sake or enjoyment and also lead them to be more fully engaged,
greater curiosity and pleasure. In contrast, extrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is
driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades and praise. People with extrinsic
motivation takes a certain to response external pressure or obligation because it might be
done to avoid punishment or to earn a specific rewards from someone. It can actually
inhibits behavior if used at the wrong time.
I remembered that there was a one time, my school sport manager came to my class and
asked me whether I'm interested with the upcoming invitational interschool tennis
tournament that will be held at our school tennis court. I actually stop playing for quite
sometimes because I actually had cramping problem with my left leg. I did not accept the
offer from the manager immediately because I was quite hesitate whether to join or not to
join due to my leg condition. My parents actually discourage me from joining the
tournament. They actually quite concern with the condition of my leg but after few
consideration with them, I've decided to join the tournament because it's been quite a long
time since I touched the tennis racquet and I also enjoyed the moment I wanted to had fun
and also enjoy myself for a while.
During the tournament day, I was chosen to play a single match with a guy from the other
school. Just half way during the match, my left leg started to cramp. I called for medical
timeout in order to let my leg to take a break. I were given 3 minutes medical break, as the
St John Ambulance members actually advised me to give up the match. I wanted to win that
match so badly so I just went on even though I was cramping. At the end, I won that match
and I felt so proud of myself. I was sent to the medical room and they soak my leg into the
ice water to cure the pain. Just after 30 minutes, I finally get rid of the pain and everything
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5. went back to normal. To me, this is what it means for the intrinsic motivation. Even though
my leg condition was not fit and not suitable for me to join the tournament, but at the end
I still did it because I enjoyed the moment when competing in the tennis court.
I believe that extrinsic motivation does occur on everyone of us. Extrinsic motivation
happened on me when I study hard to obtain a good grades in school. To be honest, I'm not
a person that usually spent my time on doing revision or reading books as what people
normally called it " book worm". Besides that, my parents keep on advising me that I must
put more effort in studying to have a better future and get a better job. In their mind,
people who are higher graduated also empowers us to make a difference in the world. But
realistically, people who had a higher graduated or higher academic certificates end up to
have the better chance to get hired by those big companies also paid them with high
salaries every month. Other than that, my parents also promised me that they will buy me a
new mobile phone if I obtain a good grades in the upcoming examination. This is the factor
that motivated me to study hard in order to succeed.
However, I'm a person who easily get distracted by all sorts of electronic devices such as
mobile phone, laptop and also television while doing my revision. To prevent it from
happen, I will put my phone aside or maybe leave it at the living room and asked my
family members to lower the volume of the TV so that I could concentrate myself while
studying. When I'm studying, I have to explain why I do it. So I can explain to myself that I
am doing it for the reward. I normally will starting copying the notes giving by our teacher
in a piece of paper and highlights those important key words. Then I will start to find
words that I don't understand from the dictionary. Finally, I will start to read over and
over again so that it is easier for me to memorise all those important key words in order
to let me score during the exam. This situation proved that extrinsic motivation occurs as
I'm being forced by the reality to study get good grades and learn a specific rewards
instead of benefiting myself for the knowledge that I've gained and learned.
In conclusion, intrinsic motivation occurs when we acted without any obvious external
rewards. We simply enjoy an activity and see it as an opportunity for us to explore, learn
and actualize our own potentials. It also refers to the reason why we perform certain
activities for inherent satisfaction or pleasure. In contrast, extrinsic motivation refers to
tendency that we perform activities is for the purpose of external rewards such as money,
praise and also can be used to avoid punishment.
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6. Settings:5th September2015
Entry 3 : Heuristics,Chapter3
Based on what I had learned from my psychology class, Heuristics is basically a simple
rules that can reduce mental effort. A heuristics is refers to a mental shortcuts that helps
and allows us to make decisions, solve problems, makes judgement quickly and efficiently.
These rule of thumb strategies shorten the decision making time and allow people to
function without constantly stopping to think about their next course of action. Besides that,
It also have been proposed to explain how a person makes decision, come to judgements
and solving problems typically when facing complex problems or incomplete information.
While heuristics helps us to speed up our problems and decision process . Heuristics can be
differentiate into two parts which is the availability heuristic and framing heuristics.
The availability heuristics is our assessment of how likely an occurrence is based on how
likely of an event can easily be recalled. Most of the time our brains use the availability
heuristics without us even realising it. I remembered last year after our final examination in
high school, our class teacher decided to organised a 3 days 2 nights trip in Pulau Redang.
We were discussing whether it is more convenient to travel by plane or to take a bus. The
benefits of travel by plane takes shorter time to reach the destination as compare with bus
takes around 4-5 hours. After several discussing among all the subject teachers, they
decided to go there by using plane due to saving time and the price is just slightly expensive
than bus which it's more worth it.
After that, I went home and started to discussed the information about this trip with my
parents. They stopped me from going right away when I told them that we are going there
by plane instead of bus because they think that it's dangerous. This happened due to after
seeing the tragedy of the Malaysia airline flight 370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went
missing until today. After several months, the another plane of Malaysia Airline flight 17
travelled from the route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur had being shot down at the
Ukraine - Russia border. This caused them to think that such incidences are relatively
common nowadays and they would think that travel by bus are safer than using a plane. But
realistically, the probability of car accidents are more as compare to air crash. However,
they would only allowed me to join the trips if I travel by bus. To me, this is what it mean of
the availability heuristics where people give greater credence to this information and tend
to overestimate the probability and likelihood of similar things happening in the future.
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7. Framing heuristics is also one of the part of heuristics. Based on my understanding,
framing heuristics is part of an example of cognitive bias, in which people react to particular
choice in different ways depending on how it is presented, as loss or gain. Besides that,
framing heuristics defined people tend to avoid risk when positive frame is presented in
opposition to people tend to seek risk when negative frame is presented. It causes us to
solve problems differently based on the way it is been presented. Prospect theory shows
that a loss is more significant that the equivalent gain, that a sure gain is favored over a
probabilistic gain and that is a probabilistic loss is preferred to a definite loss.
I remembered last Sunday my family and I went for our breakfast at the coffee shop
somewhere nearby our house. After we're done, my mum told my dad we should go to the
hypermarket to buy some groceries and also top up some household items as it is finishing
soon. When I passed by the detergent area, I saw a detergent company named "company X"
sales man trying to promote their detergent. I heard an interesting slogan shouted by him "
our detergent kills 99% of bacteria, the more you buy the more you save." After shouting,
many customers including my mum were attracted by the slogan and started to go near to
have a look of it.
After that, Most of the people started to buy the detergent because they were attracted
by the slogan that attached on the packaging " kills 99% of bacteria". Besides that, they
were another companies which named " company Y" had a cheaper price as compare as the
previous one. But the number of the customers are twice lesser than company X because
the slogan for company Y is " contain 1% of bacteria". Majority of people tend to choose the
detergent produced by the company X more than company Y. But realistically, the overall
meaning of both slogans are exactly the same just worded differently.
As a results, availability heuristics is a mental shortcuts that relies immediate knowledge
to comes into mind. It is also used to makes decisions based on knowledge that are readily
available instead on examining the alternatives one. Framing heuristic is a decision making
based on the framework in a situation and how the item is presented to us. Lastly, it is also
explored how different phrasing affected participants' responses to a choice in a
hypothetical life.
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8. Settings : 10th September 2015
Entry 4 : Cognitive Capacity , Chapter 4
Cognitive capacity refers to the total amount of information or experience our brain is capableand received
of retainingat any particularmoment. This amount is finite,so the total capacity of our brain will beonly ever
100%. The amount of the cognitivecapacity thatis goingto used toward a particular tasksatthe any particular
given time is called the cognitiveload. It also has been theorized that an impoverished environment can
contribute to cognitiveload. By followingthe model of attribution proposed by Gilbert Pelhamand Krull in the
year 1988, itwas hypothesised that care staff experiencingcompeting cognitivedemands at the time of
observingCBs linked with dementia would be more likely to make internal and controllableattributions
regardingthe causes of such behaviour. Besides that, the three stages of the model of attribution will bea
behavior is automatically characterized,depositional inferencearemade and situational factorsareableto be
weighed in if the observer is cognitively ableto do but it's required time, motivation and energy to overcome
the automatic dispositional attributes.Based on my understanding,cognitivecapacity will bedivided into
three parts which is actor-observer bias and the self- servingbias.
First,the concept of the actor-observer bias states the causes of behaviors and events in our lives are
motivated by attributions or inferences we make on about our own behavior or others behavior.This bias tend
to happened when individual makingdispositional attributionsto others behavior whilemakes situational
attributions for our own behavior.This concept actually happen every day in our basis interaction with others.
For example, I remembered lastyear before my mid semester examination,my few others classmates planned
to meet up in the school library every afternoon after finishingclassto do some revision in order to face the
upcoming examination.I remembered that time they asked me whether I'm interested to join them but I
automatically rejected their offer becauseI was not even bother to study becauseI was thinkingthat I'm able
to scoregood grades even though I did not study. I actually failed to observe my own study behavior and
leadingup to the exam.
After around 2 weeks after the examination,our results aredistributed back from our teachers and I noticed
that I actually failed 3 out of 6 subjects.I started blamingthe situational factors thataffectmy results such as
the classroomwas hot and humid that time, the guy besideme was noisy and keep on disturbingme. But
realistically ,Ithappened becauseof my poor study habits thatI did not prepare for the exam. However, one
of my classmates named Steve. Besides me, he also did poorly on that exam. I immediately considered that
how often he skipped classand never focused in class even without knowing the actual reason thatcaused him
to scorea bad grades.Besides that, I also blamed his personal choices,behavior and actions sayingthathe is
lazy and refused to put any effort towards the exam. However, I was unware that he was actually sick for the
pastfew days.This happen because of lack information to make accurateattribution.The spontaneous traits
inference automatically infers traitfrom his behavior.
On the other hand, A self-servingbias isany cognitiveor perceptual process that is distorted by the need to
maintain and enhance self-esteem, or the tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorablemanner. Is the
tendency to attribute positiveeffect or successful behavior to dispositional factorswhileattributenegative
effects and unsuccessful behavior to situational factors. Both motivational processes such as self
enhancement and cognitiveprocesses such as self esteem actually influenced our self servingbias.Self serving
bias occurred quite often in our daily life with knowing it. This example actually happened on my friend Darren.
During his final examination in high school last year, He got an 'E' which mean it's fail for the subject Chemistry.
He started to explain that the grades was caused by the situational or external factors.He blamed that the
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9. questions for the exam is too tricky ,teachers did not provides any exam tips,blamingthe teacher is poor in
teaching and did not explain properly.But realistically,hedid not study enough and fail to observe his study
behavior.Another scenario thathappened on my cousin named Melvin. LastSunday, he car broke down in the
middleof the highway when he's on the way home from work. He tend to blame that his car broke down
happened is becauseof his car is old then he is makinga external and situational factor.Lastbut not least,
people tend to make internal attribution to positiveoutcome of an event. For example, Stevie is a currently
rank No.1 tennis player in Malaysia.He represented Malaysiato compete in several tournament such as SEA
GAMES. He is really good atitand won quite a number of gold medal from that event. Every time after he
won a tournament, he will startto tell other people his hard work pay off and also heis natural talented. This
caused him to attributes his winninggames to his internal force.This also shows thatStevie makes internal
attribution of a successful event.
In conclusion,actor observebias is theconcept that explain the errors that one makes when forming
attributions aboutthe behavior of others people. When tend to judge themselves as an actor,they will tend to
attribute their actions to a particular behavior when they are facingnegative or unsuccessful outcomes. In
contrast,when they arethe observer, they will more likely to attribute others behavior to dispositional factor
rather than situational factors.Lastly,self servingbiasis theconcept that explain thatpeople make external
attribution for negative outcomes whilemake internal attributions for positiveoutcome due to personal
feelings,traits and behavior.In other words, this means that people take credits for success butnot
responsiblefor failure.
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10. Settings : 20th September 2015
Entry 5 : Classical Conditioning, Chapter 5
Classical conditioningisa type of learningthathad a major influenceon the school of thought which is
known as the behaviorism.Itis also a learningprocessthatoccur through association between environmental
and a naturally occurringstimuli.This process aredivided into two part which is before and during
conditioning.The firstpartof this process requires a naturally occurringstimulus thatwill automatically elicita
response. When there is unconditioned stimulus then there will be unconditioned response. Next, the during
conditioning the previously neutral stimulus isrepeatedly paired with the unconditioned stimulus.As a result
of this pairing,an association between the previously neutral stimulusand the UCS is formed. At this pointthe
neutral stimulus become known as the conditioned stimulus. This was discovered by a Russian Physiologist
named Ivan Pavlov.When he observed that when food is presented in front of a dog, the dog will
automatically started to salivate.Then he began to pair the bell and the food together. After several
subsequent trail,he realised thatjustthe bell was enough to causethe dog to salivate.Moreover, classical
conditioningcan bebroken down into two part which is the mere exposure effect and the name letter effect.
The mere exposure effect also known as the familiarity principles.Itis a psychological tendency that causes
an individual to prefer things and option that they have been exposed to it before to have option that they had
never encountered. This mean that we tend to prefer or likefamiliarity breed more than contempt. This effect
happened quite often in our daily lifewithoutknowing it. I remembered this effect happened on me few years
back.I remembered that time my dad promised me if I scoregood grade in my final exam,he will buy me a
pair of sport shoes as a reward. After that, he brought me to the sport shop which is located in Sunway
Pyramid.I remembered that time the shop was havinga clearancestock promotion.Everything items in the
shop are 50% off except for all new arrival items.However, I was confused between two opposition of options
because both of the colour arequite similar.My dad suggested me to get the shoe from a new known brand
or other brand sinceboth of itare quite similar.Besides that, the prices arealso cheaper as comparewith
Nike. After some consideration,I decided to choose the shoe manufactured by Nike because I know the brand
more and had more trust with itbecause of previous exposure of the brand.
Besides that, music is unmistakeably somethingthatcommonly uses the mere exposure effect as a tool . An
example of k-pop, K-pop has become worldwide sensation and become very popular nowadays in all over the
world. Many people are listeningto their music and also bigfan of k-pop especially for female. To be honest,
duringthat time I wasn'tinterested to Korean music becauseI felt that because of the mindless lyrics,
repetitive words,the useof randomEnglish and generally bad quality lyrics.This caused me to feel that it's so
boringand I couldn'tunderstand the meaning of the lyrics too.After that, I realised thatI started to likeK-pop
is becauseof my sister which is a crazy bigfan of K-pop. I remembered she kept on tellingme which boy band
are the best such as EXO and BIGBANG. She even introduced me the name and the age of each members of
the band. In addition,every time me and my family aregoing for dinner she will started to switch the radio
channel to Korean channel.The moment when she's at home, shewill also started to play with Korean music.
After several months of repeated exposure to K-pop music,I slowly come round started to get interested on it
and also searched several songfrom Youtube. It's makes me to get better likebecause I felt a senseof
familiarity towards itdue to repeated exposure.
On the other hand, for the concept of name letter effects refers to a person's tendency to favor the letters in
their name over the other letters of the alphabetand itis one of the widest used measures of implicitself-
esteem. This also shows that individual tend to liketheir name contain in their names more than other letters
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11. of the alphabet. I remembered one of my classmatename Henry which is firstnamebegan with the letter H. I
realised thathe is more likely to pursue his goals or even when purchasingobjectthatthe brand or something
that begin with the letter H which the letter is contain in his name. For example, I remembered lastyear
when he scoreresults with flyingcolor he father bought him a car as a rewards.His father brought him to
several different type of brand for test drive. His father suggested himto chooseToyota Vios becauseit is
cheaper and the technology of itare also more advanceas compare to other brands of car. But at last,we is
more inclined to choose the brand from Honda because the brand begin with the letter H. Besides that, we
also decided to study in Herriot Watt University rather than Taylor's University.This effect affects the
preferences of individual towards other pursuits,products,and also services.
In conclusion,classical conditioningoccurswhen two stimuli arepaired together, they may come to elicitor
evoke the sameresponse. Furthermore, the mere exposure effect explain that object will become better liked
to us after repeated exposure such as from radio,advertisingand we tend to prefer or likethe object once itis
familiartowards us.Lastly,the name letter effect is the tendency to show preference for the letters contain in
our name and the stimuli thatcontain those letters.
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