This document contains summaries of 5 journal entries by a student about topics in social psychology. The topics discussed include social influence, social loafing, self-concept, self-serving biases, confirmation bias, counterfactual thinking, covariation theory, self-fulfilling prophecies, and classical conditioning. For each topic, the student provides a brief example from their own experience and draws a short conclusion.

1. Name : Lynette Law Yong Yi
Student ID :0317761
Session: Monday ( 4pm – 6pm)
Subject: Social Psychology (PSYC 0103)
Course: FNBE O214
Submission date : 10th November 2014

2. JOURNAL 1
Social Influence
For the first class of psychology, that one topic which I had much thoughts on it was
social influence. Well, social influence is indeed a common sight in our community. The first
thing I had in mind was how we can change our decisions or conclusions easily if we’re
influenced by others. For example, in physics class during high school, we were asked to
differentiate equation A or equation B was the right one. I was pretty sure that A was
indeed the correct one. The other classmates started to shout out that B is definitely the
right one, I was still determined that I was correct but when one of them started to explain
why B was correct, I started the doubt my answer. Of course I had second thoughts for it
and wasn’t as confident as first with my conclusion. I was asked to answer the question and
as a fickle minded person, I was influenced by the answers given by the other classmates
which was B. So in the end, I concluded the right one was B. Guess what? I was wrong. The
first answer I had was the correct one. In a nutshell, this minor situation was actually related
to social influence which one’s thoughts and actions are affected by others.

3. SOCIAL LOAFING
Another topic which was quite relatable to me was ‘ social loafing ‘ . According to
class, social loafing is the tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their
efforts toward a common goal than when they are indivually accountable. Social loafing
actually involves in our everday life but mostly seen in collaborating a class project. This is
one of the main reasons why I prefer individual work over group works. I remembered when
we were assigned for our first ENBE group work, it seemed like a challenging task as we
were still new to it. On challenging tasks, people may perceive their efforts as indispensable.
As we were all still new to each other or strangers to be exact at first, one of my group
mates and I saw the others in our group were quite unreliable or unable to contribute much,
so we had to work harder instead and that was how I had my first overnight in the studio.
Furthermore, free riders are also identified from the situation occurred. From my point of
view is that individual contribution in a group is often hard to be identified as some would
say that he or she may claim that person A is the rider and does not contribute at all but
that particular will of course defend himself by saying he actually did a lot of work.

4. JOURNAL 2
Self Concept
What is self concept? It refers to a person’s answer to the question, “Who am I” .
Well, it actually made me thought a lot about myself. Who really am I? How do I really see
myself as? It’s actually really hard for one to describe themselves. For example, I’ve through
a lot of interview since high school till now. I remembered the first time I went for an
interview was to join Leo Club. The first question threw to me was, “What kind of person do
you think you are?” and “Please tell me what are your good and bad personalities.” I was
indeed a super tough question to answer because I don’t even know who am I clearly. Then
it came to me that if I don’t even know myself well then how are others going to know who
really am I. “ I believe that I’m an introvert, I fear of crowds and socializing with people
around me which explains the reason why I want to join this club to change myself into a
would take up the faults I made and I wouldn’t blame anyone for my mistakes in any other
way. In my opinion, everyone has his or hers dark side and same goes to me too. I’m quite
of a judgemental person but that doesn’t mean that I judge people by their looks instead of
how they act and speak. But over the years I’ve changed this personality and I became not
of a judgemental person but a observer instead just like how people would always say “
Never judge a book by its cover”. Well, I have a bad temper. I tend to be angry or stressed
out over little stuffs.” But over the years, I believe that my friends and family are the biggest
influences to help me shape my personality to a better person than who I was and help me
rise up as an independent girl.

5. Self Serving Biases
Now, we see this happen in both public and schools. May it be a leader or a
bad trait of a person but it might be a necessity for one instead. For example, during our
previous project, member A and I had finished our final model but member B insisted that it
was not very good and we might fail. We believed our decision was right so we didn’t accept
her suggestion. I had to leave earlier before the presentation so I couldn’t take care of the
final model. Well, the worst had happen on presentation day, member B changed our whole
model at the very last minute without prior notice to any one of us including our leader.
Long story short, we were very lucky that we got grade A- . Member B went announcing to
others that she was the one who saved our group from failing but it was actually our
leader’s achievement. He was a humble one and gave all the effort to his group members
instead. So in every way, “self- serving bias” has its pros and cons, it just a matter of fact of
balancing the praise that we should deserve.

6. JOURNAL 3
Confirmation Bias
For this week’s lesson, our lecturer brought out the topic “confirmation
bias”. Generally, this is labelled as a common trait found in everyone. For example, when we
hate someone, it becomes a schema and we tend to pay attention only to the negativity of
that certain someone that supports our belief that he or she is a bad person. During the first
day of college, I got to know person A and everything went well until she did something that
irritated me. I felt that she was a sarcastic and fake person so I began to kept a distance
from her day by day. Everything she did disgusts me as my schema of her being fake was
operating even though others told me that she’s actually a nice and helpful person although
she might be straight forward at time. But I neglected what they said and my confirmation
bias towards her became even stronger from time to time and at the end of the day, I still
belief that she’s a person full of negativity no matter how much good deeds she did because
my mind was telling me that everything she did has a no good reason behind it. Well
confirmation bias towards a person may be good or bad, it is how we balance it with our
believes towards that someone.

7. Counterfactual Thinking
Now I find this interesting, this is an open topic on “counterfactual thinking”
which is a common sight in our daily life but we never realize it until I got to know about it.
Counterfactual thinking is about us imagining different outcomes for a situation which
actually occurred. Counterfactual thinking is divided into two categories which is upward or
downward counterfactual. For example, Starbucks came up with three new drinks as it’s
almost Christmas. I wanted to try the new “Christmas Cookie Frap” but I wasn’t sure
whether the taste of it was worth or not. I was in a dilemma of choosing over “Peppermint
Mocha Frap” which I’ve tasted before but I wanted to try something new. So in the end I
bought the Christmas Cookie Frap. To be frank, it was quite a disappointment as it only
tasted average. The thought of “I should have bought the peppermint one instead so I won’t
be wasting my money” was roaming in my mind but it was too late to do so. For another
situation which is a very common one among us student. Last few weeks, we had our
business test. I really wanted to ace well in it as it was my final exam but I wasn’t really good
in business theories. I got a grade B instead an A that I was aiming for but it came to my
mind that at least its not a grade C so it’s still acceptable. This situation is the downward
counterfactual thinking. In a nutshell, counterfactual thinking is a way of lifting up or worsen
our mood in negative situations.

8. JOURNAL 4
Today’s lesson is an interesting one, it’s about “Covariation Theory”
according to Harold Kelly’s Theory. For example, once I went to the cinema with my
friends for a movie. During the funny part of the movie, I laughed out loud together
with the other audiences. This shows high consensus because all of us are doing the
same thing. If I was the only that laughed, the consensus is low. The reason I went to
watch the movie was because my favourite actor was in it, I only laughed when he
appeared at certain scenes in the movie. Distinctiveness of my behaviour is high
because I behaved the same way in similar situations. If I laughed throughout the
movie the distinctiveness is low because I did not laughed at only the scenes my
favourite actor appeared. I always watch the movies he acted in because he is a very
good comedian. The consistency here is high because I always laugh at his movies no
matter how good or bad he acted. If there was one movie he acted but I did not
watch it, then the consistency is low. So here I conclude that Kelly’s Covariation
theory is actually about the behaviours we act in our daily life which shows our
personality and how our character help us to socialize with people.

9. When you fear of being hated by someone or that someone whom
you hate so much, we may behave according to the beliefs above unintentionally
causing them to be true. Well, this is called the “self-fulfilling prophecy” . It came into
my mind that there was once when a friend of mine’s girlfriend suspect that he was
cheating on her. She sent me a message asking me about his whereabouts and which
girl he’s very close to. I did not want to backstab my friend so I kept silent but
somehow one of his friends called me and said : “ Hey, did his girlfriend contact you
or anything? His girlfriend told him that she knows everything and someone spilled
the beans to her.” I was shocked but I denied everything. I was in fear of my friend
thinking that I backstabbed him. I acted and spoke quite unnaturally in our
conversations. It was actually just me being afraid of losing his trust. Slowly, our
friendship faded away. After a while, someone told me that, he felt that I was a
weird and fake because I didn’t make eye contact with him whenever we talk or I
didn’t greet him in public. I was just being afraid of him losing trust on me so I acted
all uneasy and awkward. Well, my fear became true and I’ve lost a very good friend
of mine. So here I conclude my sad experience as a “self-fulfilling prophecy”, if I
didn’t behave in the manner according to my fear, I might not have lose this friend
instead. “Self-fulfilling prophecy” may be good or bad in certain ways, sometimes we
might find out the true face of someone by behaving in the manner that supports our
beliefs.

10. JOURNAL 5
Today’s lesson is about “Attitudes” . I guess we may or may not realize that being
afraid or reacting to certain stuff is actually a “classical conditioning”. It is when two
stimuli occurs and creates a same response. I guess many of us are afraid of the sound
of thunder, well, I am. My mom used to tell me that I will scream to the top my lungs
whenever I hear thunder and chew my fingers when I was young. I remembered that
there was once the sky turned cloudy all of a sudden. To my surprise I saw a weak
lightning striking down to earth from far. Well, it did not scare me or make me scream at
all. I got up to my car and went home. During the journey, it started to rain heavily. All of
the sudden, there was a thunder storm and lightning flashed out everywhere with huge
sounds of thunder going BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! I started screaming in the car and
biting my finger nails. My dad was shocked and tried to calm me down. Until today,
whenever I see a flash of lightning I will still scream like mad even before I hear the
thunder. From this lesson, I got to know that the thunder sound that I was afraid of since
young is actually an unconditioned stimulus which made me response in a scream but I
was not afraid a lightning during that time. But when I saw both lightning and sound of
thunder after that, I will response in a fearful scream and biting my nails. This is known
as during conditioning. After the conditioning, I was also scare of lightning and will also
give out the response of screaming and biting my nails as the lightning became a
conditioned stimulus.

11. Life is full of choices. Should I get the pink dress or the black
one? What should I eat today? Subway or mamak? Well, these decisions are
just minor ones. When you’ve graduated from high school, the first thing that
comes in mind is which college should I attend? Six form or private college?
Which course should I take? The choices we make has its pros or cons. At
times of realization, we tend to think : I pick A , which has its drawbacks ; I
rejected B which has its own benefits. This is where post-dissonance come
into place, a form of regret that we didn’t make the best choice. Few months
back when I just got my SPM results, I was offered a busary from the

12. government to enrol in IB course but I was already taking my foundation
course in architecture and I could upgrade the scholarship I’m currently
holding on to World Class scholarship with my excellent results. Both of the
offerings are equally attractive and it’s indeed a hard decision to make.
Withdraw my current architecture course and transfer to IB course which is
free till I graduate or continue my current course and upgrade my scholarship?
Choosing either one will create a little dissonance. This is where “ Cognitive
Dissonance takes places in condition of the net desirability of the chosen and
unchosen options whereas the importance of decision. If I choose to transfer
to IB course and get a free education for life, I could lessen the burden of my
family. In the end, I chose to stay in architecture course. At times I would
regret a bit for not choosing the even better option but then I thought that, if I
was unlucky and to fail my IB course, my parents would have to repay the
horrendous amount of money for it and I would have to pay another sum of
money to restart my architecture course if I want to go back for it. So I
conclude that, the more important the decision, the more dissonance we
should experience.