This document contains 7 journal entries by a student discussing concepts from their Social Psychology course. The concepts covered include intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, stereotyping, confirmation bias, halo effect, observational learning, and Fritz Heider's balance theory. Each entry provides an example from the student's daily life that relates to the concept being discussed for that journal entry.

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL AND BUILT ENVIRONMENTS
NAME: CLAUDWIE TAN WAN SIEN
STUDENT ID NO.: 0317997
SUBJECT: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (PSYC0103)
ASSIGNMENT 1: INDIVIDUAL JOURNAL
LECTURER: MR. T. SHANKAR
SUBMISSION DATE: 10TH NOVEMBER 2014

2. Journal Entry 1
Concept: Intrinsic Motivation
24th October 2014, Friday
Motivation is characterized as the process that initiates, guides and
maintains goal-orientated performances. Motivation is a desire that pushes a
person to do something willingly. It is what causes us to act, whether it is
getting water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge.
There are two different kinds of motivation, namely intrinsic
motivation and extrinsic motivation. For this entry, I would like to talk
more about intrinsic motivation, and the latter will be mentioned in the next
entry. The concept of intrinsic motivation is defined as behavior that is
driven by internal rewards, which arises from within the individual. Rather
than receiving any obvious external rewards, the individual enjoy taking
what he or she does as a chance to explore and learn new things.
When thinking of an example that can relate intrinsic motivation to
my daily life, the first thing that comes to my mind is definitely exploring
bits and pieces about art. I love drawing, painting and sketching since
young. Both of my parents are very into art, and my mom used to be an Art
tutor. Their artworks and illustrations never fail to fascinate me so much
that I was inspired by them and I wanted to be as good as them. And so, that
was when I started to draw, paint and doodle every single day until now to
keep exploring more methods of expressing my thoughts and emotions
through art. I guess my passion for art will never die.

3. Journal Entry 2
Concept: Extrinsic Motivation
27th October 2014, Monday
In the second lecture for Social Psychology, I’ve learnt about
extrinsic motivation, as well as intrinsic motivation which has been
mentioned before. Extrinsic motivations are those that arise from the
outside of an individual and it often involves rewards such as prizes, praises
or social cognition. Beside the motive or to earn a specific reward, extrinsic
motivation might be also done to avoid punishments.
One of my daily events that happens to be able to relate to this
concept is whenever I learn to play Liu Qing, a traditional Chinese musical
instrument. My mother is a very strict person so I tend to express extrinsic
motivation more as I am afraid to make mistakes and I will always try to
avoid being scolded or punished. When I was in primary six, my mom
wanted me to take up one co-curricular activity and she has chosen Chinese
Orchestra Club for me because she thought letting me to learn playing
Chinese musical instrument would help me to inculcate patience. I ended up
choosing Liu Qing not because I like it, but because its size is the most
suitable one for me to carry.
I do not have much of passion for Liu Qing and I am lazy to go for
lessons and practices. I was very disappointed because I could not play
songs smoothly even after various practices. I was very afraid of being
expelled from the club because my performances was below average and
my will be, for sure, very furious about it. Therefore, I practiced really hard
in order to perform well and to impress my mother, but I never enjoy
playing Liu Qing.

4. Journal Entry 3
Concept: Stereotyping
28th October 2014, Tuesday
In the third lecture by Mr. Shankar, he has mentioned about
stereotyping and I could relate this concept to my past experience, which
had happened not too long ago. Basically, stereotyping means a fixed, over-generalized
belief about a particular group of people and the belief may not
be accurate as there will be differences among everyone’s opinion. Most
stereotypes tend to convey a negative impression; such as women are poor
drivers.
During the sixth lecture for Business on the week before mid
semester break, Mr. Joe, our lecturer for Introduction to Business, has
mentioned about ‘introvert’ and ‘extrovert’ in his lecture about Emp loyee
Behaviors and Motivation. I was quite astonished, and surprised at the same
time, when he told the whole class that one of the students in that class that
he thought is an introvert is me myself because I looked like a shy person
who will abhor large crowds and frame myself from mixing with others.
I admit that I am partially an introvert but being an introvert doesn’t
mean that he or she must be stereotyped as a socially awkward loner who
have discomfort and anxiety in situations involving social interactions.
From my point of view, I think that I am not exactly a shy person, I
may feel confident and at ease around people, but simply need more alone
time to balance out the energy they spend in social situations. I do like
people, and I will feel insecure whenever I am alone but I tend to typically
favor quality over quantity when it comes to friendships. I will choose to
focus on creating a smaller circle of close friends, rather than a large
network of acquaintance. For me, I like going along with people I feel
comfortable with, rather than the popular kids that I have no common

5. interest with. I usually portray the assertive and outspoken side of myself
whenever I am with my close friends and people who I am not close with
might think me as a quiet and shy to express myself person.

6. Journal Entry 4
Concept: Confirmation Bias
30th October 2014, Thursday
Confirmation bias is described as people actively looking for
information in a way that supports their beliefs and disregarding evidence
that contradicts expectations will be discounted or forgotten. People love to
be right as it helps us to make sense of things and one of the ways they
strive to be correct is by just looking for evidence that help to confirm that
they are correct.
There was once I used to work for three months in a café selling
coffee and desserts back in my hometown after sitting for SPM and my
manager who is a young lady hired a good-looking Eurasian that turned out
to be unprofessional, incompetent and rude to customers. She did not notice
that everyone is doing work for him and cleaning up the mess he made
because she is so impressed that he showed up everyday, right on time for
work maybe because he had given a very good first impression to her.
Hence, confirmation bias is clearly portrayed by my employer
towards that Eurasian employer.

7. Journal Entry 5
Concept: Halo Effect
31st October 2014, Friday
During the lecture on the forth chapter, it is the first time that I was
exposed on the Halo Effect. I was told that the halo effect is a type of
cognitive bias in which our overall impression of a person influences how
we feel and think about his or her character. When I heard of this concept in
class, I was instantaneously reminded of my younger sister, Carmen,
instantly.
My sister is a typical Korean pop music fan since elementary school
because of her friends’ influence when K-pop has swept the word in the
past few years and she is a huge enthusiast for Korean dramas. So, due to
her massive interest and attentiveness in Korean celebrities as well as their
songs, dramas and even reality shows, she began to favor everything related
to Korea and Koreans. She began to buy products that were made in Korea,
such as cosmetics, apparels and food, she learnt Hangul (Korean writing
system) in order to catch up Korean dramas or reality shows that did not
have English subtitles, and she has been to Korea twice.
Because of her favoritism for Korean celebrities and everything
related to their country, she unconsciously had perceived all Koreans as
attractive, funny and likable, she also tends to see them friendly, polite and
charming due to the Halo Effect.

8. Journal Entry 6
Concept: Observational Learning
1st November 2014, Saturday
In the fifth chapter, Mr. Shankar has taught us about observational
learning and I found that the concept basically could be applied to my daily
experiences. Observational learning is one of the ways of acquiring attitude,
which occurs when a person observes another’s behaviors, which enab les
one to reenact those behaviors that they are exposed to.
I used to work in a café that was under my mother’s friend. On my
first day of work, my trainer showed me a series of instructional videos on
how to prepare all kinds of beverages and desserts served in the café when I
was still under training so that I could observe the job functions I was going
to undertake. Besides, the trainer had also paired me with an employee that
performed well to train me and observe me performing the job task that I
had to take in-charge of. This enabled me to observe the experienced
employee, allowing me to learn through observing the experienced
employee’s actions and behaviors.
I do believe that observational learning is efficient and applicable to
many aspects of daily life. Therefore, observational learning is often used as
a toll for both teaching and learning.

9. Journal entry 7
Concept: Fritz Heider’s Balance Theory
3rd November 2014, Monday
In the fifth chapter, I was exposed to Fritz Heider’s Balance Theory
that mentioned about people desire cognitive consistency. Cognitive
consistency is used to label our necessity for a consistent, coherent world
where things fit things together and make sense. It is said that the need to
experience a coherent world is already present even in babyhood.
Sometimes, it is quite strange that you choose who to be your friend
unconsciously, without knowing the reason. For example, when this
happens to me, I tend to approach and express myself more to the people
around me I feel comfortable talking to. So I assume this is what they
actually mean by people expects and desires cognitive consistency.
Correspondingly, relating to Fritz Heider’s Balance Theory, it
intellectualizes the cognitive consistency motive, which is the urge to
maintain a person’s values and beliefs over time, as a drive towards
psychological balance.
From my past experience, I tend to feel uncomfortable when I was
sitting next to a girl in my Physics tuition class last year on every Sunday
afternoon. Both of us barely have common interests among ourselves and
throughout the whole year, I was struggling to find a topic to talk to her,
from which secondary school she was studying at to what would she do
during her free time. I have tried my best to fit in with her by understanding
more about her but I was in vain. Most of the time, I would just give up the
intention to strike a conversation and paid more attention to the tutor. Hence,
I guess not everyone is comfortable with each other’s company, which this
is described as an unbalanced state just because the two individuals do not
share their attitudes.

10. Journal Entry 8
Concept: Routes to Persuasion
5th November 2014, Wednesday
Earlier August, our Effective Public Communication lecturer, Ms.
Thivilojana, approached our class and started to announce about the
predisposition regarding a trip to Penang Island for assignments that
involves three subjects, which is Effective Public Communication, English
II and Economics from the 7th to the 9th of November. Without any further
consideration and hesitation, I was easily persuaded by the idea of this trip
through both central and peripheral route.
Through central route, my group members and I began to discuss
and Google trip advisor up about Penang and the reviews online are
certainly attractive. Other than that, the price offered was affordable and
reasonable, if compared to the price you would be offered by any travel
agencies, since we only have to pay as much as RM200 for our three-day-two-
night trip including the transportation, accommodation and food is
provided as well. Besides, Penang would be a suitable and good spot for us
to complete two different assignments at the same time because we found
out that there were numerous street art and murals that could be related to
human communication, which would help us in our EPC assignment.
On the other hand, through peripheral route of persuasion, I have
never been to Penang and not to be mentioned, I was longing to get to taste
the scrumptiousness of their local delicacies such as the prominent and
well-known Penang Char Kuey Teow, Asam Laksa and Ais Kacang.
Moreover, a few of my close friends had also already paid to go to this trip.
In the end, I was persuaded by the offer and I had decided to make
my payment.

11. Journal Entry 9
Concept: Racism
6th November 2014, Thursday
In the seventh lecture, I was taught about the causes and
consequences of stereotype, discrimination and prejudice. One of the
concepts of discrimination is actually ‘Racism’, which is normally
unearthed among the people of our country due to multiple racial groups,
cultural behaviors and ethnics in Malaysia. This concept is commonly used
negatively and is associated with race-based prejudice, discrimination,
violence and abhorrence.
Relating this concept to my past experience, one of my life events
that happened to be able to connect to racism is when I first entered
secondary school. My family moved to a new area that is located in the
center of the city after I have completed my primary school education and I
had to leave my primary school friends because it would be easier for my
parents to send me to and from school if I moved to a new secondary school,
which is nearer. On my first day in the new environment, I found
difficulties whenever I tried to make new friends. It is because I was from a
Chinese primary school and the students there were mostly the Bumiputras
and the Malays. Other students over there would gave me an awkward look
whenever I tried to strike a conversation with them.
I felt really depressed and I had really low self-esteem at that
moment as I barely had any friends. I even wanted to move school at first.
Because I was all alone in that new school, I have nothing else to do when I
was free, except to complete my homework and to study, while others were
able to chitchat among their pals happily. In the first semester exams, I
managed to be the top student in the class and since then, people started to
talk to me and be nice with me.

12. After this experience, I am very afraid of the practice of racism
among the people in the country because it is one-sided and biased for the
person who is being discriminated. Every individual should share the same
freedom and priority because we are all the same.

13. Journal Entry 10
Concept: Egoistic Model of Helping
8th November 2014, Friday
During the lecture on the eighth chapter, I have learnt about the
Egoistic Model of Helping and the first thing that came to my mind was the
final business assignment, a charity drive that is going to be held in the
campus. From the lecture, I was able to understand that the egoistic model
of helping happens when one helps others just for his of her own benefits.
The act of helping people is not motivated to surge the welfare of others,
but it is actually for one to achieve rewards and good reputations or just for
him or her to feel better.
In the charity drive project that I was assigned to for the
Introduction to Business subject, we were required by our Business lecturer,
Mr. Joe, to list down the products that we were going to sell during the
charity drive and a welfare organization that we were going to donate all of
the profit we made to. He had also stated that every group must made at
least a net profit of RM2500 in order for us to pass that assignment.
Relating to the egoistic model of helping to that particular
assignment, I could feel that we were involving in the charity drive not
solely for charity but it was actually for the sake of passing the assignment.