The document is a student's journal entry discussing various experiences with discrimination based on race, age, and sex. Regarding race, the author describes initially holding prejudices against Malay students in high school due to coming from a Chinese primary school, but realizing those views were wrong after being helped by a kind Malay class monitor. On ageism, the author is surprised by grandparents being more fit than younger family members in a charity run. And on sexism, the author acknowledges that while physical strength differences exist, abilities are not determined by gender alone.

1.
SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
Name: Khoo Zer Kai
Student ID: 0320500
Group/Session: Monday (9am – 11am)
Social Psychology (PSYC0103)
Assignment 1: Individual Journal
Lecturer: T. Shankar
Submission date: April 27th
2015

2.
Entry 1: Discrimination 24th
April 2015
Discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different
categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.
Normally these three categories are the most obvious exampe for
discrimination we called it as racism, ageism and sexism.
For me, although I am not be that old and experience but I had met a
few racism, ageism and sexism situation before in my life and even I also will
discriminate others as well.
Racism
I am a Chinese, I study in a Chinese primary school for six years and
Malay high school for 5 years. At the first few days in high school, I didn’t dare
to talk to any Malay students. Why? The first reason is because our language
are different, I can’t really understand what are they talking about, I was afraid

3.
that they will mock at me when I don’t understand their language, but another
reason is because I assumed that they were gangsters. What was in my mind
was that all Malays are gangsters, and often pick fight with Chinese. I also
heard about the rumors that in high school, there are many conflicts and fights
between Malays and Chinese. I don’t dare to say that I am a very decent
student but during that time I was rather timid and I was small in size. So, I
afraid that the Malays students bully me; but at the fifth day in class I still don’t
understand what teachers are teaching, and I don’t know what homework had
teacher gave. After class, most of my friends (Chinese) don’t know what are
the homework had been given. Suddenly, a Malay student approached us and
introduced himself by English. His name is Adam; he is the class monitor. He
briefly taught us about the class just now and tell us what to do for homework.
I was so surprised, happy and guilty. Surprise is because I didn’t thought that
any Malay student would help us; happy is because someone is helping us for
nothing; guilty is because he is Malay!
From
that
day
onwards,
I
dropped
grudges
off
Malays
and
look
at
them
in
a
completely
different
way.
And
from
now
on,
I
have
quite
a
number
of
Malay
friends.

4.
Ageism
Many
people
will
think
that
older
people
is
more
weaker
while
younger
people
is
less
experience
than
us.
Are
older
people
really
weaker
than
us?
Are
younger
people
really
less
experience
than
us?
After
I
finished
my
high
school,
I
had
a
long
holiday.
During
that
holiday,
I
heard
about
a
charity
run.
I
plan
to
participate
the
charity
run.
I
told
my
family
about
it,
then
all
of
my
family
members
were
interested;
include
my
grandfather
and
grandmother.
I
was
worried
about
them,
because
it
was
an
8km
long
marathon,
and
my
grandmother
is
around
60
years
old;
grandfather
is
around
70
years
old.
During
the
marathon
day,
my
brother
and
I
ran
in
front
of
my
grandparents,
we
ran
very
fast
at
first,
but
when
we
reached
about
4km,
we
ran
slower
and
slower,
because
we
already
tired
and
exhausted.
When
we
reached
about
6km
we
saw
our
grandparents
pass
through
us,
although
they
didn’t
ran
fast,
but
the
speed
of
my
grandparents
are
constant
since
they
started
the
run,
they
didn’t
slow
down
and
didn’t
seems
tired.
After
that,
I
asked
my
grandparents
about
the
run,
how
come
they
not
tired
and
stamina
of
them
are
so
good.
My
grandparents
told
me
that
they
used
to
work
in
jungle
and
do
many
heavy
work
since
young,
they
always
carried

5.
heavy
things
and
deliver
to
some
place
far.
For
now,
they
also
will
have
some
exercise
every
morning,
that’s
why
my
grandparents’
stamina
are
better
than
us.
Now
I
know
that
older
people
might
be
better
than
us,
sometimes
we
don’t
need
to
worried
about
them,
sometimes
they
might
be
worried
about
us.
After
a
few
days
later,
I
stated
to
play
a
game,
Minecraft;
my
cousin
who
was
just
9
years
and
I
am
18
years
old
that
time,
he
said
he
play
this
game
before.
Then
my
mind
was
like:
“Nah,
just
a
kid,
how
come
he
knew
how
to
play,
my
age
is
two
times
of
him”.
After
that,
I
put
my
Ipad
on
the
table
and
go
to
the
washroom.
When
I
came
out,
I
saw
him
playing
my
Ipad,
then
I
saw
him
craft
the
items
by
the
techniques
that
I
didn’t
knew.
I
was
totally
shocked;
I
just
realized
that,
I
am
the
one
who
doesn’t
know
how
to
play
to
the
game.
After
that,
I
learn
from
him
how
to
play
the
game.
The
knowledge,
skills
and
etc.
is
not
about
what
age
you
are,
it
is
about
what
you
have
been
through
and
what
you
had
experience.
I
should
not
discriminate
others
based
on
their
age.
From
now
on,
I
will
learn
from
everyone
no
matter
what
age
he
or
she
is.

6.
Sexism
Men
are
stronger
than
women?
Probably
physically
but
doesn’t
mean
that
men
is
better
than
women.
Most
of
the
men
can
focus
on
one
task
but
most
of
the
women
can
do
many
tasks
at
a
time.
Long
time
ago,
women
has
been
labeled
as
weak
and
only
fit
to
do
house
chores.
Do
you
think
that
a
mind
set
like
this
still
exist?
In
my
family,
we
didn’t
state
that
women
cannot
be
the
leader
of
the
house,
but
it
was
like
an
unstated
rule,
men
are
the
leader
for
most
of
the
time.
Like
my
grandfather
and
grandmother
in
young
age,
when
my
grandmother
married
with
my
grandfather,
when
she
get
the
salary
from
her
work,
she
will
give
the
money
to
my
grandfather
and
let
him
decide
how
to
use
the
money.
We
always
think
that
men
is
a
better
leader
or
better
person
who
can
done
the
work
better,
actually
its
not,
its
depend
on
the
person,
no
matter
he
is
a
man
or
she
is
a
woman.

7.
Entry 2: Kitty Genovese Syndrome 24th
April 2015
Kitty Genovese Syndrome also known as the bystander effect. This
effect is a phenomenon that refers to cases in which individuals do not offer
any means of help to a victim when other people are present. The probability
of help is inversely related to the number of bystanders. In other words, the
greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will
help.
Sometimes I think this syndrome is cause by the unmoral person that
using symphatic of human nature to cheat people and cause that we become
“cold blood” to protect ourselves. Why would I said that? This is because
before that I think that we need to help when someone needs help. Like when
a car broke down at roadside, we can help them or ask them what can we
help. But some of the robber using this technique to let people stop their car

8.
at the roadside and drive away his car or rob him. This causes we don’t want
to help oters to protect ourselves. But for this bystander effect is talking about
the more people present, the less people might help.
I am a st.john ambulance member in high school, we got learn some
life saving and warping wounds technique, in our school we are the rescue
team but unfortunately we are less in number. We are about 40 active
member in this club that time. Our task wasn’t just saving people’s life, we
also need to participate marching during sports day. During sports day, we got
33 member are in the marching team and only 7 people are the rescue team,
but during the marching session, we need to stand under hot sun for a long
time, so many people will heat stroke and faint. But 7 people need to take
care a few hundred of people it is quite a big ratio. So we are out of number.
When someone faint, many people just standing there and wait for the rescue
team to help out. Even the member of st.john ambulance in marching team
also waiting for other member to help the faint people. We all give out the
responsibility to other people, we just don’t help and think that other people
will help. But when the leader of our marching team stand out to help, there
was a few people also started to stand out to help to carried te fainted person
too.
Another example is when I walk with my brother and pass by a shop,
we saw a robber is robbering a woman, and we thought maybe they was just
shooting a flim, because many people pass by also do nothing to help, so we
just walk pass by, but after that we saw the robber ride on the motor and ran
away and then the woman was running and calling for help.

9.
Another one is I and my brother going to play at the river it was at a
jungle place, and I and my brother are quite short and we doesn’t know how
how to swim. We were nearly drown but there was a lot of adults standing
around us, but even we shout they didn’t give any help, they just watching us
with a weird expression. Luckily, I and my brother still able to get out from that
river after we try our best to escape from drown.
I was quite dissapoint that we had this kind of bystander effect. I think
that I will help during the situation, but what if I really in that situation, will I
really stood up and help?

10.
Entry 3: Social Loafing and Social Facilitation 25th
April 2015
Social loafing is the phenomenon of people exerting less effort to
achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone. Why
would this happen? This is because in a group, their individual effort has less
been seen, so they won’t put more effort in a group.
Social Facilitation is the tendency for people to do better on simple
tasks when in the presence of other people. This implies that, whenever
people are being watched by others, they will do well on things that they are
already good at doing.
I meet this kind of situation almost everytime, every single time. In our
course, we got a lot of projects because projects are how our grades are. We
have to focus more and we need to do projects to get marks, not exam, unlike
the QS students. Although we got exam, but it just take a small percentage
only. Most of our projects are group work, you can found social loafing and
social facilitation in most groups.
In my foundation course, we form a group for projects, no matter how
many person there are, we need to choose one group leader as the
representative for the group. What I met was the leader wanted to do better
but the group members are exerting less effort for the project. Why? This is
because the group leader’s effort can be seen but group member’s effort less

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likely to be seen, and the final result is whole group get the same marks, so
why would group members work so hard. When a groups done well, what
would other people say? They would said that “This leader is so good in
leading” or “This group is so good”. Most of the time they would say the leader
is good in the group; even they said the group is good, then somebody still will
ask “who is the leader?”
Sometimes, it can get really depressing because nobody seems to volunteer
being the leader and at the end of the day, nobody is the leader and there
goes the group.

12.
Entry 4: Social Pespective 25th
April 2015
Social perspective is the study of how people form impressions of and
make inferences about other people. We learn about other's feelings and
emotions by picking up on information we gather from their physical
appearance, and verbal and non-verbal communication. There are 4 main
categories which are sociocultural perspective, evolutionary perspective,
social cognitive perspective and social learning perspective.
Last time on television, I saw a news about terrorist, it is talking about
someone tied a bomb on his own body and triggled the bomb in a crowded
place. A lots of people died in the scene. I don’t understnd why would the
terrorist do this. From my perspective, he is very stupid, he won’t live after he
triggle the bomb, killing people also wrong too, how come he willing to do that.
My dad told me that this is my perspective, not his. Maybe from his
culture tell him that, if he triggle the bomb and kill those people, he can go to
heaven, because he work for the “God”,this is from the sociocultural
perspective. If look from the evolutionary perspective, he might also can’t life if

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he refuse the task too. From social cognitive perspective, maybe he doesn’t
even know that kiling people was wrong. If from the social learning
perspective, many people that he knew also killing people, it just a normal
things for him to kill.
After my dad told me all this, I finally knew that, not what we think is
always same with others, many person have different perspective, common
sense for us is just a spontaneous view.

14.
Entry 5: Social Influence 26th
April 2015
Social influence occurs when one's emotions, opinions, or behaviors
are affected by others. Human are very easy to being influnce, like when
many people looking up at the centre of the street, when you saw it, you also
will look up too.
Last time, got a short period is Bieber fever time. His song, baby, make
him famous and everyone is singging this song everywhere. At school, tuition
centre, house, even at toilet also can heard someone singging this song. After
that, Justin Bieber got lots of bad habbits, that’s why many people change
from fans into hater. This is what I heard about, and after listen this all bad
habbits of him, I also don’t listen his song anymore. I am not his fans neither

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hater. But when I listen to his song, many people will make a disgust face.
Hence, I don’t listen to his song. But when I grow up now, I started to think,
why? Is he a big criminal or what? I don’t even know him, even though he is
really bad, so what? All I like is just his song, not him.
Now I know that social influence were quite scary, they can change
your mind, like one people told you that 1 plus 1 equal to 3, you don’t belive,
what if one day hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of people told you that
1 plus 1 equal to three?
Other than that, there is aonther easy way to make us being influence,
that is telling something that we were not sure about and repeat it many times.
Last time got a person in shopping mall, he told my grandma that he is selling
a stone, it is a magic stone, can make our family healthy and wont get sick
easily, it also can prevent cancer, even treat cancer. My grandma doesn’t
belive then when we want to walk away, got a old woman walk towards the
guy who sellling the stone and hold his hand said: “Thank you, my son got
cancer last time, he almost die, but after I buy the stone from you, I follow the
step you told me, now my son is recovering, doctor tell that it was a miracle
for him to recover!”. My grandma still don’t belive it, and when we about to go,
another person when tho the guy again, and said something like the first
woman said. My grandma started to belive. When she want go towards the

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guy, a policeman wal towards the guy who selling stones, and caught him. He
is a cheater, luckily we didn’t got cheated by him. But the important things I
want to tell in this experience is that cheater is very good in using social
influence.