1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
NAME: Gan Jet Foong
STUDENT ID NO: 0315998
GROUP/SECTION: MONDAY, 1-4PM
SUBJECT: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY [PSYC0103]
COURSE: FOUNDATION IN NATURAL & BUILD ENVIRONMENT
SUBMISSION DATE: 12th MAY 2014

2. Date: 29th April 2014 (Tuesday)
Time: 10pm
Concept: Motivation
In the second lecture, I learned about two types of motivation which are intrinsic
motivation and extrinsic motivation. I got very interested in this part because motivation
was important to keep me work hard and not give up. I had never realised that there are
two different motivation, intrinsic which is for the sake of enjoyment and extrinsic is to
avoid punishment or earn a specific reward.
I think I'm more similar to extrinsic motivation. This is because my parents are very strict
and I'm afraid to do any mistake to make them punish me. When I was nine, my mom
wanted me to learned piano but I was not even interested that time, I was not talented and
lazy to practice the piano. Until one day my piano teacher got angry and kicked me out,
my mom was even more furious and throw all my books outside, my dad hit me with a
cane.
I felt disappointed to myself and do not want to experience this kind of punishment again.
So I practice hard and finish all my graded exam until diploma level without giving up.
This motivation made me work hard and also avoid any serious punishment.

3. Date: 30th April 2014 (Wednesday)
Time: 4pm
Concept: Counterfactual thinking
In lecture 3, I was attracted to one of the sources of bias which is counterfactual thinking.
It means that we imagining different outcomes for an event that has already occurred.
There are two types of counterfactual thinking, the upward counterfactuals which is
negative thinking and downward counterfactual that is positive thinking.
I remembered I had an upward counterfactuals when I got my SPM results last year., it
really brought me down because I had bad results and most of my friends got good results.
So I kept asking my if only I would study more then I could get a better results. This
upward counterfactual lead me to a more depressing mood because I can't do anything to
change the results.
I'm grateful that I learned from this lecture and my past experience, I should be more
careful to avoid any future counterfactual thinking.

4. Date: 3th May 2014 (Saturday)
Time: 4pm
Concept: Self-fulling Prophecy
In lecture 4, I studied self-fulling prophecy means we are the cause our own expectation
to come true by acting in ways that ecilit expected behavior from others. It happened to
me when I get bad results for my mathematics, I was afraid because I knew will get
punished for sure, so I hid the test paper under the sofa and hoped that my parents will
not find out.
During that day dinner time, I felt very guilty but they will going to find out sooner or
later. So I begun to tell them that the mathematics exam was really hard, I said that I had
never did those questions before and hoped that they can forgave me. In the end, I
showed the results to them, unfortunately they got really angry because added that I hid it
from them.
Through this lecture and experience, I learned that it is better to be honest so that the
results might be better.

5. Date: 3th May 2014 (Saturday)
Time: 5pm
Concept: Balance Theory
In lecture 5, I found that the balance theory was reflected to my attitudes toward my
friends. Balance theory stated that people desire 'cognitive consistency', it means that we
feel comfortable with others who share our attitudes but feel uncomfortable with others
who do not share our attitudes.
When I was in school, I was still quite and shy person so I often mixed around with
friends who are similar to me, it made me felt more comfortable because we understand
each other, we can even became talkative together. But it did not meant that I did not
made friends who were different from me, I felt uncomfortable with them because they
saw me as a different and weird person. However, I still tried my best to fit in with them
by sharing some similar interest that we had. It was not easy but I did improved a lot until
today.
This theory had differentiate the balance state and unbalance state between my friends
and I, I learned to balance the relationship between us.

6. Date: 4th May 2014 (Sunday)
Time: 2pm
Concept: Racism
In lecture 7, I studied the causes and consequences of stereotypes, prejudice, and
discrimination. One of concept of discrimination was racism, it its often found in
Malaysia because of multiple different racial groups in the country. Racism is
discrimination directed at a specific racial group in a negative way.
When i started in secondary school, it was a new experience to make friends with other
races because I was from a Chinese school. I learned that other races had different
cultures but I understand that difference and manage to make good friends with them.
However, the teacher was more racism towards the other races. I was surprised because I
thought they would be more matured about this behaviour. My class teacher had the
Chinese students stand up to educate us on the first day, she told us to behave like the
Malay students, she also said the Chinese were rude and did not respect the teacher even
thought we were innocent.
Through this experience, I dislike the discrimination like racism. Its is very rude and I
hope that the new generation of Malaysian would ignore the differences of racial groups.