The document provides details about the author's experiences with various cognitive biases and social psychology concepts. Specifically, it describes 3 instances where the author experienced confirmation bias by incorrectly assuming someone was looking at them. It also discusses 2 examples of false consensus bias, where the author overestimated that others shared their preferences or hobbies. The document then explains how the author witnessed social loafing in group projects with unmotivated members. Finally, it shares 2 examples of downward social comparison the author engaged in, related to comparing academic performance and other attributes.

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
NAME: LOO SIAH MONG
STUDENT ID: 0321995
GRUOUP/SESSION: MONDAY (1PM-3PM)
SUBJECT/ COURSE: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY [PSYC0103]
SUBMISSION DATE: 11 NOVEMBER 2015

2. ENTRY 1
TOPIC – CONFIRMATION BIAS
17 AUGUST 2015
Confirmation bias is a theory that we pay attention only to information that
supports our beliefs but disregarding information that conflict with our beliefs. In a
scientific method, this a process for conduction research that minimize different
types of bias. Not only that, for some people, they tend to maintain their original
belief, even in the fact of contradictory data. For instance when people say fruits
is good for health, but one’s refuse to belief because they thinks that fruit is not
good for health. Peoples are also actually causes belief about something to
become true by behaving in a manner consists of those belief, this could causes
some bad consequences because of some self-ego attitude. I noticed that we
subconsciously tend to sense that someone is looking at us and our eyes
automatically glance at that person. This is a simple mistake that easily occur in
everyone daily routine. This theory of confirmation bias happens to me quite
often, especially when some good looking guy is looking at me. This also happen
when we stare at the same person for long enough, eventually in the course of
maintaining awareness of their environment, they will look around and notice you
looking at them.
Most people have had the experience of sensing somebody staring at them,
turning around. I remember that there is one time where it happened to
embarrassed me the most and could not forget about it. It was a good sunny day
and I was sitting in a café shop with a hot drink while waiting for my friend to do

3. assignment together, the café was so crowded on that time. And so, I notice that
there is a guy, a quite good looking guy was staring and smiling and waving
towards my direction. The moment when I realize that he was looking toward at
me, I feel quite awkward and shy for a moment, the situation got even awkward
when I tried to say hello and smile back at him. I couldn’t resist his delightful
smile. When the moment I realize that guy was actually waving to his friend,
when his friend was actually walking from my back so I couldn’t see him and also
due to overcrowded situation in the café shop. But then I realized that it was
coincidence to have a false consumption and assume that when peoples
are looking around were curiosity or a desire to attract a person's attention. I feel
so embarrassed when I realized my friend watch the whole process of it and
keep laughing at me. In the end we ended up chatting together and totally
abandon and forgot about the assignment. As matter stands till today, I still feel
so embarrassed for being a clown in front of my friend whenever they mention
this incident again.
Another example of confirmation bias that I experienced is that I always think
that woman are bad drivers even though I am a woman. This bias is even in
forced to me when most of the time when I was driving, I realized that most of the
woman, they either drive over speed or they drive under speed. Not only that,
during a junction, they don’t even used their indicator, I realized that this is a very
dangerous act because this irresponsible moves would simply lead to car
accident. There was a time when I just came out from the shopping mall and
about to get home. While I was waiting at the traffic light, there was a girl that

4. drove a BMW were putting on her make up while driving and almost break up an
accident that driving fast. Even though that driver honked at her, she did not
bother but just drove off. After I got back home, I told my dad about this shocking
incident since I was still a beginner on the road. My dad told me that although
there were minorities of woman that drive recklessly, it does not mean that every
woman drives like that woman. He advised me that we are not supposed to
simply make assumptions because sometimes a mole in the army cannot
represent the whole army. Ever since that day, I listened to my dad and I would
not simply make a judgement based on the criteria given but to observe.
After these incidents, I realized that this theory seems that it happen quite often
in our daily routine this is because the human visual system can determine pretty
quickly what direction another person is looking in. It is especially good at
determining if someone is looking directly at you. I have learnt to pay more
attention and be careful next time to prevent incident like this happen again. Last
but not least, I also learnt to let my drain observe first before I take any action.
As a conclusion, confirmation bias is something that normally happened in our
daily life if we do not pay enough attention on something. Many people tend to
believe something based on criteria and expectation but not something realistic.
As such, everyone should try to reduce the act of confirmation bias as it might
get people to misunderstand some people’s simple action as complicated as
things could happen sometimes.
(879 words)

5. ENTRY 2
TOPIC – FALSE CONSENSUS
24 AUGUST 2015
In psychology, the false-consensus effect or false-consensus bias is a
cognitive bias whereby a person tends to overestimate the extent to which their
beliefs or opinions are typical of those of others. This is a tendency that
overestimates the numbers of people who act or think as we do. This may serve
as a self-protection function and reinforced by the company we keep. This
creates a false consensus, which can influence our decision and behaviors.
False confirmation is also an unfair prejudice and it will very easy to form a false
consensus. Other than that, people also tend to believe that their opinions are
common. False consensus describes this phenomenon, as people believe that
the consensus opinion or majority opinion that people only agrees with their own,
regardless of what their opinion. Besides, people would have a strong false
consensus when the matter in a question is of great importance to the individual
and when one’s attitude, behavior, or belief seems to be directly linked to a
specific situation. In contrast, false consensus would tend to be weaker when
people beliefs and behavior actually are shared by the vast majority of individuals
and also when it involves a negative aspect or view of the individual.
An example of false consensus that I experienced was that I remembered the
night when me and the whole squad went to watch movie in a cinema. I am a
coke lover. I would prefer to choose coke rather than other types of soda. So

6. there was a night that the whole squad decided to watch movie together during
weekend. As I thought that if I love coke, I would just simply assume that all of
the squad would also share the same tastes with me. Supposing that one of my
friend that in charge of buying snacks and beverage called up that they will be
reaching late due to heavy rain. As because of that, me and two of my friends
reached half an hour early before the movie start to buy the snacks and
beverage for the whole squad. So because of this so called ‘false consensus’ I
only purchased coke to serve instead of buying any other of the beverage that
available in the cinema even though that two of my friends advised me that some
of them might not want to drink coke. During the movie time when we were
distributing the snacks and beverage, I was surprised that most of them did not
want any of the coke because they said they would prefer any other type of
drinks rather than coke. By that time I realized that I overestimated the number of
friends who would share the same preference with me. This is an example of
false consensus when I was very confident that my point-of-view is correct or
more valid than others.
The other example of false consensus that I also experienced was that I tend
to belief that everyone enjoy a certain hobby as I do. There was a long time ago
when I was in age of 9 to 10, my hobby was playing basketball. When the period
of time as a basketball lover, I always thought that everyone would enjoy and
love the sports as I do. During my time in primary school, I even joined basketball
club and went to few inter schooling competition with some other school. During
that period of time, I spend most of my weekend time at the field in front of my

7. house on sports especially basketball with my cousins since we stay nearby to
each other house. Not only that, as a basketball lover, I also spend most of my
time to play friendly match with the team during extracurricular to improve my
shooting and passing skills as these two skills was my weakness. As so, one day
I decided to invite all my neighbor’s friends to join us and play basketball along
with me and my cousin as the more the merrier to play together. I was surprised
when they rejected me as they said they preferred to play futsal with their friends.
It’s even hurt when they said that they don’t like to play basketball. As much as I
love basketball, I realized that I have false consensus when I tend to belief that
other people would share the same hobby with me. From that day onward, I’ve
learnt that whenever we love or like something, it doesn’t meant that everyone
would share the same taste with us as everyone have their own opinion.
As a conclusion, the false consensus could affect us hard when we
overestimate people’s concerned about some issues. The effects would be
stronger in instances when we are very sure that our beliefs, opinions, or ideas
are the correct one. As the solution on this false consensus could change when
we decided to not overestimate’s people opinion and we are unsure about how
others might think or act during any of the situation.
(831 words)

8. ENTRY 3
TOPIC-SOCIAL LOAFING
7 SEPTEMBER 2015
What is social loafing? In social psychology point of view, social loafing is the
phenomenon of people exerting less effort to archive a goal when they work in a
group than when they work alone. The idea of working in a group is typically
seen as a way to improve accomplishment of a task by pooling the skills and
talents of the individuals in that group. This is also a tendency for some people to
perform worse or simple tasks, yet better at complex tasks when there are in the
presence of others. This can be explained when there was a group of people
working in a group, it can be easier to conceal laziness when we are working in a
group. Social loafing has negative consequences for both the group and the
individual. An individual in the group might get effected when the individual start
to gauge their ow effort based on what others are doing instead of maintaining
standard of excellence towards achieving goal as this could lower the level of
satisfaction for the task in all members of the groups.
Social loafing can be promoted when the size of the group is large because
when there are plenty of group members in the group, it is easier for individuals
who are not motivate or productive to hid because there are more people to pick
up the slack. Not only that, low level of motivations can also promotes social
loafing through the absence of motivations prompts poor group participations.

9. I faced the situation where I have to lead a group that most of the group
members were fine but just one of the mole in the group that have lack of effort
and laziness would lead most of the group members to feel frustrated. This
‘unfortunate’ incident happened not long ago. It was during the first semester on
the first year of my university life. I would never expect this would happen as
every assignment before, me and my group members were going just fine and
smooth until we were having our final project on that time. For this time, I teamed
up with different group members and the group members consisted of 7
members. During the process of finishing the assignment, when most of the
group members were trying their best to finish up the assignment together but
there was one of member was not attending most of the meeting and could not
finished the only task we asked to finish. That member showed up with an empty
work during the submission date and due to insufficient time, everyone had to
help up with her work. And it was very luckily that we submit the project in time
but everything was in a mess when the group member showed up with nothing
much done. This causes everyone to be mad as this was supposing a group
work as this is unfair to everyone that contributed a lot when there was someone
in the group that put the least effort and get the same grade with everyone. After
this unfortunate incident, I have learnt to choose group members wisely because
most of the time, there will always be a member that can ruin the whole project.
Another life experienced that I experienced from social loafing was that, in every
course in university, every students will have the task of working collectively on a
paper and also group work. I met a very selfish member which that member in

10. the class did not make much effort working on the group work even though they
made an effort on other assignments in which they worked alone. I remembered
for that assignment there were 10 group members in a group, as social
psychology states that the larger the group, the more likely it is that social loafing
will occur. It was the time during a meeting where everyone was paying attention
on giving some idea how to work on the project, that member would just sit at the
corner doing own individual assignment. Even though we asked that member to
stop what she doing and asked her to give some opinion that would help us up
for the group assignment, she would not bother us and just continue with her
individual work. This is a very selfish act where that member should not do, as
this is a group work, everyone should have contributed some effort on it to get on
a better grade. It is not only about getting a better grade or not, most important is
that we tried our best and give the best opinion we can during a group work is
teamwork.
It is important to keep in mind that social loafing does not always occur. For
example, Karau and Williams (1997) found that social loafing did not occur for a
cohesive group. Moreover, the findings of their second study suggest that people
may actually make a greater effort when working with coworkers who are low in
ability (a social compensation effect)
(835 words)

11. ENTRY 4
TOPIC – SOCIAL COMPARISON
28 SEPTEMBER 2015
Social comparison is a concept that occurs when we use others as a standard
by which we compare ourselves. There are two kinds of social comparison,
which is upward social comparison and downward social comparison. Upward
social comparison states that we compare ourselves to those whom we believe
we are better than other people in all aspect. For downwards social comparison it
states that we enhance our self-esteem by feelings that we are better than others
people. Not only that, this concept also states that how 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 and for example, attractiveness, wealth, intelligence, and success. In
this concept, we learnt about our own abilities and attitude by comparing
ourselves with other people with their different opinion. Mostly, we seek to
compare ourselves with someone against whom we believe we should have
reasonable similarity, although in the absence of such a benchmark, we will use
almost everyone.
Other than that, we also can utilize this concept to find out other people with
whom the target people compares themselves then either get those reference
people to adopt the desired action or find a way of persuading the target to select
a better reference. Mostly, we compare other people to know more about

12. themselves by evaluating and revealing our own attitudes, abilities, and beliefs.
In most of the cases, we try to compare ourselves to those in our peer group or
with whom we similar.
An example of downwards social comparison that I experienced during my high
school was that during my high school time, I have been significantly issues with
myself worth and comparing my academics results to others. I was never happy
with my academics results although the result I got was satisfied with my parents.
I always believe that I am a failure because of not getting higher result comparing
to my friends in my class. As a result, this always makes me feels incredibly
useless and frustrated because I always thought that I have put so much effort
on it and in return I only gain a little. In the period of time , I felt so helpless and
felt that there is no point in doing any revision as I felt that I am going to get a
bad result anyway, which is a heartbreaking news for me cause I just don’t feel
satisfied with my results no matter how I look at it. As so I try to change my
perception towards comparing my result with my friend. From that day onward,
me and my friend learn and study together, we helped each other with our works
by not comparing each other’s result as sometimes our result might be up and
down. I realized that it doesn’t matter if we did well or poor, the most important
thing is that during the process of learning, we all learnt from it and try harder
next time, and most importantly not repeating the same mistake again.
Another example of downwards social comparison that I also experienced that I
remember deep in my heart until today is that not only on academic, I also used
to compare on my extracurricular performance with my friend. I used to think that

13. I am good in the field. I thought I was in this category, but later I found out that I
do even better when I do something with passion. I always thought that people
can do better when they have something to compete with because it gives them
incentives. As a result, I always compete with my friend to getting the first in
every competition. Think weren’t goes as smooth as I though, the result keep on
surprising me and brought me down even when the only things that comes on my
mind is all about winning. I am who I am, I am good at what I do, but I began to
realize that there will always be someone out there in the world who will better in
that field. Along the process when I was learning, I slowly realized that winning is
not that important after all sports it’s all about teamwork. Without teamwork, there
would be nothing much left to compare about. In the other way, we should
supposedly have healthy competition with one another but not unhealthy
competition. During the final year, I found that some of most successful people I
know are passionate about what they do. They don’t pay as much attention to
what other people criticized about but they just go ahead and do what they
supposed to do. This prevents them from experiencing too many negative
emotions such as the jealousness of someone stepping a step in front of you.
As a conclusion, people should apply more on upward social comparison as
we mostly compare ourselves with people who we deem to be socially better
than us in some way, which is a healthy competition compare to downward social
comparison.
(848 word)

14. ENTRY 5
TOPIC-MOTIVATION
12 OCTOBER 2015
Motivation is a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way.
Motivation can be categorized into few types which the first type is extrinsic
motivation which means that people taking certain action in response to external
pressure or obligation. This might be done to avoid punishment or to earn a
specific award, this motivation can actually inhibits people’s behaviors if they
used at the wrong time. And secondly is self-esteem. What is self-esteem
motivation? We might think of it as our inner voice which is the voice that tells us
whether we are good enough to do or achieve something. Self-esteem is about
how we value ourselves, our perceptions and beliefs in who we are and what we
are capable of. Our self-esteem can be misaligned with other people's perception
of who we are. Not only that, self-esteem is important because it is a fact that we
cannot always rely on others to encourage you, if we a have positive friends who
are always there when we need them then we are indeed lucky and very much in
the minority. But in contrast, if we are lonely or have few friends we you face any
difficulties in our life we must rely on our own motivation to get us through.
Depression would occur if we are lack of self-esteem motivation.
An example of self-esteem motivation to me was during my study time I would
said myself as a hardworking student as I did a lots of revision every time before
a minor or major exams, I always believe that with the revision I did , I would get

15. a better result. Not only have that, I always believed that I can achieve good
things and that I make a positive contribution to my environment and in my
relationships. I generally think in a positive way, and every times I made a
mistake no matter major or minor, I will comfort myself to say that it is okay and I
will try to see mistakes as an opportunity to learn so I don’t repeat the same thing
again. Besides, during my primary school time, I joined in team activities or try
out during physical education. I give exercise a go and did try a lot of new
exercise which included high jump, 400-meter dash and few more activities
during sports day. My level of self-esteem increased when I realized that
difficulties are a normal part of life and we all have to face them daily, weekly and
sometimes these problems seem very difficult to overcome. I would say that if we
can change our attitude towards these “problems” and see them as “challenges.
And the last type of motivation is intrinsic motivation is when I am motivated by
internal factors, as opposed to the external drivers of
extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation drives people to do things just for the fun
of it, or because they believe it is a good or right thing to do. Other than that,
intrinsic motivation is also a motivation to motivate peoples on taking a certain
action for the sake of enjoyment, this motivation can lead us to be more fully
engaged and also lead us to greater curiosity and pleasure. Intrinsic motivation
involves engaging in behavior because it is personally rewarding for examples
essentially, performing an activity for its own sake rather than the desire for some
external reward. As due to above explanation, I would say that myself as a type
of intrinsic motivation because I remember that was one time during school

16. holiday, my cousins and I went to stay with my auntie’s apartment nearby Mont
Kiara. Every morning, we joined her to gym since it is free used by every
residence that stayed in the apartment. Every morning, when I was around at the
gym, when I am on the treadmill run, I would use headphones in ears while
running and looking like this is right where I want to be. Others plod along when I
also kept constantly checking the screen to see I have reached desired time,
distance or calories burned and always get scolded by aunt for not paying
attention on my running. From this life experienced about, I realized that
everyone have a lot of different reasons for doing the same thing. Not every that
doing the same thing with us, it could mean that they were been forced to do
since they have no motivation on it. But for those who finished their work with
motivation that came from extrinsic motivation, it means that they require
something outside themselves to keep them on task.
Of overall, I think that it is important to have extrinsic motivation and having high
self-esteem motivation is important rather than intrinsic motivation and low self-
esteem motivation as it could not only lead us to archive something with
confidently but also could help us to pay more attention and understand more
detailed about something.
(824 words)