1. The document is a series of journal entries by a student named Lee Jo Yee reflecting on lessons about self-concept, self-serving bias, and how memory works. 2. In the first entry, Lee discusses doing an activity where they wrote statements about themselves and shared in a group. Lee reflects on how their self-perception has changed from high school to university. 3. The second entry examines the concept of self-serving bias and whether it is good or bad to take credit for successes. Lee concludes a moderate amount is not wholly bad. 4. The third entry discusses how memory works, noting it is a reconstructive process influenced by biases rather than a precise storage system.

1. JOURNAL/ PERSONAL REFLECTION ONE
NAME: LEE JO YEE
STUDENT ID: 0314880
COURSE: Foundation in Natural and Built Environment (FNBE) April Intake 2013
DATE OF SUBMISSION: WEEK 7, 20th Nov 2013 (WED)

2. 1st ENTRY: SELF- CONCEPT
In this lesson, we are asked to list down 5 sentences starts with "I AM..." and then form a group
of 5 and discuss about it. I have written down :
I AM happy. Because I really do, at the moment.
I AM forgetful. I have lost 2 phones in half of a year. Justify?
I AM serious. That is the other side of me when my head was deep in the assignments and
projects. Sometimes I have gone beyond the bar and irritated my teammates.
I AM talkative.
I AM a control freak. I feel more comfortable and less anxiety when every situation is under my
control and most of the decisions that are going to make are supervised by me.
Our lecturer, Miss Pang later explained to us that the perceptions that we had toward ourselves
sometimes are not 100% equivalent to the others' point of view. Hence, it is good that we were
able to sit down and exchanged our opinions so that we can behave more comfortable and
confidently in everyday life.
After the lesson, I was in deep ponder. I feel true and starting to reflect on my own. I have
noticed the changes on me from high school to university. And the question is, I am not sure
whether this is going to the right way or the wrong way.
For example, I used to be wild and crazy back to high school. After going to university, loads of
assignments and projects started to pile in on the second week. I tend to be a more serious and
strict person when doing assignment. I will request my teammates to be productive and achieve
what I was expected. That was the time when people perceived who am I, the first impression.
These behaviors are not doing me bad , as in my academic results are better and people look up
for me as a responsible leader.
But in the same time, I was called bossy and demanding. I was not able to join the carefree gang
and was not able to act stupid or funny like before because they will find it eerie or weird. They
would not expect my behavior to be reckless and to the worst, they would not expect me to be
part of their gang. I was excluded. I feel like I was not able to reveal my true own identity and
have been hiding in this fake shell for a long time.
Anyway, I did not give up. Trying bit by bit. Hope will always be there, just a matter of time.
In a nutshell, I found it hard to change people first impression toward you and it takes a longer
time than you imagined to change their views. I know it because I have experienced.
Be more careful in giving people your first impression.

3. 2nd ENTRY: SELF- SERVING BIAS
What is self-serving bias? The tendency to perceive oneself favorably. The nature of us tend to
accept credit and praises from others upon achieving success. Is that a good or bad?
I once came across an article talking about our body or mind tend to eliminate those bad things
from the surroundings, be it the bacteria, the nail on the floor (we react quickly by turning away),
the ranting from parents, the complaints from girlfriends/ boyfriends and etc. And we will
eventually blame it for other external factor such as bad luck and cover the shorts we have.
Ironically, we tend to dislike people behaves like that don't we? This kind of people toot their
own horn and brag about their achievements. They avoid the responsibility and pointing their
fingers toward others.
On the other hand, there are people who are on the opposite. The Humble, we called.
When come to crediting, they will share the glory with their teammates and even attribute the
success to good luck. They will keep quiet when their names are not mentioned during the
excellent performance appraisal. They appreciate the hard work and dedication of their partners
and deeply believe this glorious moment was a part of everyone.
This kind of people, are people we look up to, such as those worldwide millionaires, big
cooperation CEOs and famous celebrities. It does not mean that they lack of self-serving bias,
they are just less posses of it. And I believe, the older you grow, the more experience you get, the
less self-serving bias you have, provided you have the right mind.
From this context, is obviously self-serving bias is bad, of course. But are not wholly bad.
Self-serving bias can act as a protecting weapon. In this 21st century, everywhere in the society
is a trap, lurking you to go into the honey-coated candy house and push you down into the deep
dark dungeon.
For example, when you share the achievement with other, your peers might took you for granted
and accept all the praises even that they did not put in a single effort. They might throw you with
all the burden and responsibility and leave you alone doing it because they knew they will share
a piece of cake in the end. They steal all the limelight and get all the promotions that you should
have. You are being taken advantage.
Beside, constantly "not praising" yourself is not a good habit either. Even scientists put on
experiment on flower or water concluded that living or non-living organisms grow, live and
behave better with everyday praises and good words.
A moderate amount of self-serving bias is not that bad at all, in fact, you gain confident and
motivation to move on in your future.

4. 3rd ENTRY - CONTRUCTING MEMORY
I was one of the 90% who agree the following statement:
"Memory can be likened to a storage chest in the brain into which we deposit material and from
which we can withdraw it later if needed. Occasionally, something is lost from the ‘chest’ and
then we say we have forgotten. "
I was told wrong for the answer. Instead of giving up and accepting the statement given, I went
Google to find out what is laying behind.
What is memory? According to www.about.com, Memory refers to the processes that are used to
acquire, store, retain and later retrieve information. There are three major processes involved in
memory: encoding, storage and retrieval.
I guess the part that we are talking about is memory retrieval. Memory are not copies of our past
experience. In fact, we reconstruct the memories when recalling some past events or experience.
And when doing so, we tend to smudge things up or add up the information that was not
discussed. This is due to one phenomenon named memory bias, which is used to enhance or
impair a recall of memory.
I look up examples of memory bias too. They are childhood amnesia, choice-supportive bias,
fading affect bias, generation effect, hingsight bias ("I-knew-it-all-along"effect), self-serving
bias(tell story more beneficial to our own) and etc.
A more plain explanation is that our mind do not simply memorize precise or detailed things, we
only store in a general scenario. Hence when recalling back, we are influenced by different
aspects such as the bias, current emotion and feeling and audience. Therefore the memory reconstructed are not exact same as before.
In a nutshell, I found memory is interesting. Is better that we make our own sticky notes to
remind us about future events all the time because even the most sophisticated decision maker
can be tricked by the memory.
Reference:
http://courses.eller.arizona.edu/mgmt/delaney/p_chapter3.pdf