This document contains a student's journal entries on various topics in social psychology. It includes: 1) An entry on confirmation bias where the student realizes they have shown confirmation bias in their strong belief in ghosts despite scientific evidence. 2) An entry on the false consensus effect where the student thinks smoking is more common than it is due to the social groups they interact with. 3) An entry on stereotyping where the student discusses experiencing racial stereotyping when traveling and how it affects their experiences.

1.
NAME : WONG DE­VIN
ID : 0319814
SESSION : MONDAY 4PM
SUBJECT : SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
COURSE : FNBE
SUBMISSION DATE : 27 APRIL 2015

2. 20 April 2015
Journal 1: Social Psychology
Entry 01: Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias explains that we mostly do only pay attention to the only information
that confirms our perception. Confirmation bias actually do happen very often in our daily lives
example like how we think that only male can enlist to join the military but we often ignore the
fact that there are also female in the military nowadays and only paying attention on male
when we hear the word ‘military’.
Since I was born, I was forced to believe
that ghost actually do exist in our lives. Even
though I do not really believe in any religion but
from what I observe throughout the years that
there are people who don’t believe in god but
most or almost everyone I know do believe in
ghost. And therefore until today I strongly do believe that ghost do exist. There are many
news or facts that some scientist actually prove that ghost do not exist.
There was an article I once read that says some people often see glowing object or
sparkles in the cemetery and believe that those are the ‘ghost’ but the scientist says that this
actually happen due to a type of gas that produced by the dead body when they start to rot
and when it leaks to the air it reacts with oxygen to produce what we called ‘ghost’. Even the
scientist has proven that it’s true but until today if I see videos or pictures of the ‘sparkles’ I will
still believe that spirits do actually exist. And there was also once article recently that I read
from Facebook that says that some scientist has discovered recently that afterlife do exist.

3. Comparing to the both article of how they affect my perspective towards ghost, I
realize that confirmation bias has actually taken effect on my life for many many years. I tend
to ignore any news or facts that disapproves my perception towards ghost and only choose to
accept the facts that confirms what I believes. Not only by articles, sometimes when there are
some recorded camera videos that shows that there are ghost in it, I always choose to believe
that it is actually happening in the real world than than to choose to believe that it has been
photoshopped or the ghost is actually a human being.
I find there are some pros and cons towards confirmation bias, the pros is that
sometimes we do get motivated towards what we believe and ignore any obstacles on your
way to your goal and also I think it is good in a way because for example if we choose to
believe in a religion, we tend to behave well and not to go against the rule of the religion and
we will behave well and stay well. The cons is that if we choose to believe in something so
much, we tend to ignore almost every other information towards what you believe even if it is
a fact or even what you believe is actually killing you for example smoking Marijuana or most
people call it weed. It is proven that weed does cure cancer in a way but people who smoke
weed will believe in that and ignore every single piece of information that is saying that weed
does actually screw them up.

4. 21 April 2014
Journal 2: The Self
Entry 01: The False Consensus Effect
From my understanding of The False Consensus Effect, it explains that people
overestimate the amount of people is acting or having the same habit as them just because
they think it is normal. This happens to us because the circle of friends we have might have
the same habit or behave the same way like we do to make us think it is normal to behave
that way but what we do not realize is that outside of the circle there might be very little
people or sometimes none that behave like the way we think they do. One example is that an
athlete's circle of friends are mostly athletes as well, so most of the friends that he have do
sports a lot. So if we interview and ask him how many percent of people in the world does he
think that will do sports frequently his answer would most probably be a much higher
percentage than the fact.
From my experience of The False Consensus
Effect, I will take smoking as what I think The False
Consensus Effect has affected me. Since I enroll into
Taylor’s University, I noticed the most people that I know
from Taylor’s either smokes or started smoking after they making friends with smoker. I slowly
think that it is actually normal for universities student or people our age to take up smoking.
After a few weeks, I went to the club and also noticed the most people at my age
including the female smokes. So my perception towards smoking changed, if you ask me how
many people at my age do I think who smoke regularly worldwide? I would say it is around 55
percent and people who tried at least one puff of it? I would say it’s around 85 percent.

5. Harvard University came out with a report and it says only 33 percent of people at my
age who actually do smoke. From this I slowly then only noticed that only Taylor’s University
have such a high population of smokers compare to other Unis, and that I think is The False
Consensus Effect has took placed in me.
I personally feel that The False Consensus Effect is an important factor that
sometimes we have to take note of because it will affect us. From what I have experienced, I
think I would be smoking as well because I think that it is actually very normal at first to smoke
as a university student until that I realizes it’s not. So from that, I think if some people do not
find out and just assume that how they are behaving is actually perfectly normal, they will
slowly set themselves up a wrong path.

6. 21 April 2014
Journal 3: Social Cognition
Entries 01: Stereotyping
Stereotyping is in our lives since we
were born. It gives us a mindset towards
something from what we were taught or from
our experience towards what we are facing.
There are various type of stereotyping like
what will we think when we heard the word
tree. The image that comes in our head will
definitely be a big green tree from what we
were taught and based on the experiences we have relating a tree. Even if when someone
says another type of tree for example Ornamental Tree, we wouldn't say it is red unless we
have been taught what it is or we have actually seen the tree and know it’s name.
There are many types of stereotyping and the one that really annoys me in my life now
is racial stereotyping. I feel very confused sometimes how the way people judge me by my
race.
From what I had experienced, there was once I went to London and I noticed that any
chinese looking asian that visits their country they all assume that they are all visiting from
China and they really hated the chinese I don’t know why. The way the people there treated
me and my family really annoys me. Then after they realize that you’re not actually from
China they slowly treat you better. From what I have seen throughout the years of travelling,
China tourists are very rude and snobbish, they tend to not care about other peoples feeling
or opinion on their behavior and behave however they want like littering or smoking in non

7. smoking areas. From this I would say that they are giving the world a racial stereotype on
chinese due to their behavior and even if there are well behaved chinese tourist, they will be
also viewed the same as the badly behaved ones.
Racial Stereotyping is really something that we has been affecting the way we live until
today especially in a multiracial country like Malaysia. We tend to judge people by their races
just because some of them did something that gives us an image on them like what I see a lot
is people always call Indians gangsters as if all Indian will get a machete and chop your hand
off the moment they see you. For the muslims I heard a lot saying that their lazy just because
maybe we had experienced working with some muslims that are lazy and Chinese I get a lot
people calling us money minded people.
I think that we should stop educating that younger ones and give them a bad
stereotype based on races to prevent more and more people judging too early.

8. 23 April 2014
Journal 4: Social Perception
Entry 01: ​Recency and Primacy Effect
From my understanding of recency and primacy effect, it explains that we have very
deep impressions of someone or something only due to the experience we had with them
recently or when it first happens. We often do not have a very deep image of something
between the first and last time we approach it for example a lecture in universities. We tend to
only remember deeply of the lecture given in the first few minutes when the class starts and
last few minutes before the class ends. This doesn’t mean that we won’t remember what
happened in between it’s just that we don’t have an impression as deeply as we have in the
first few and the last few minutes.
I would put this effect on a similar situation I have been through with my girlfriend.
When I first met her, my first impression towards her is kind, nice and a very open minded girl.
Even after a few months being in that relationship, every time when I think about her, the kind,
nice and open minded side of her is always in my head. I wouldn’t even remember what shirt
she wore for the past few weeks but I can still remember exactly what she look like and what
she wore from head to toe on the very first day I met her. That I would say primacy effect has
taken place in my life.
For recency effect on the other hand, I would put it in a situation I also came across
with my girlfriend. Sometimes when we have disapprovals and arguments, I always don’t look
at her the same way as I always do. When we argue, my view towards her kindness, nice and
open mind disappears. When I argue with her, I would see her as a not understandable and
close minded girl. I tend to not put the image of how I normally see her the same way in that

9. situation. I would say that it is the recency effect has taken place in me. I couldn’t think of any
positive value of her in that situation every time.
Another example that I would say the primacy and
recency effect has taken place is that everytime when I
want to note something down like grocery shopping. If I
would write down a list of what I would want to buy,
even though I have read it again after I written
everything down, I could only remember the first few
and last few items I have listed without looking at the
list. This I would also say that how primacy and recency
effect has affected me.

10. 23 April 2014
Journal 5: Attitudes
Entry 01: Post Decision Dissonance
Post decision dissonance occurs all the time in our lives. It basically means that we
always get annoyed after we make a decision regarding the possibility of it being incorrect.
There are many situation in our lives that can relate to this and one of it is gambling. If
we gamble for example poker, every time we raise the bet sometimes just to scare people off
and try to make them quit so that we eat up the money pool even though we have don’t have
any winning cards, but if someone calls your bet, that’s when post decision dissonance
happens. We then will get annoyed with our decision or regret it because when someone calls
your bet and the possibility of you making everyone quit got lower and the possibility of you
losing your money is also way higher.
By relating it to our daily lives, one of it that happens to me the most or I think happens
to everyone is that have you ever bought something somewhere that is fairly cheap and then
realizes that a shop you go later sells the exact same product at a cheaper price? I once went
to a street market in Thailand that sells a lot of stuff and I saw this shirt that I liked, they were
selling it for 200baht which is around 20 ringgit in Malaysia. I tried to bargain for a cheaper
price for awhile and the seller wouldn’t give me a cheaper price, I bought it anyways because
20 ringgit is very cheap compare to what we get here, even though it was very cheap, after
buying it I wasn’t very happy with my purchase, that’s when the post decision dissonance took
place, I was worried that the shops I will be walking pass later will sell the same shirt I bought
at a cheaper price. I wasn’t satisfied at the price I bought my shirt with until I went down the
street and saw more shops selling the same shirt starting at the price of 350baht. After seeing
that it comforts me and I was immediately satisfied with my purchase.

11. From that I would say that post decision dissonance has taken place in me. I wasn’t
satisfied with my purchase because there are so many shops that sell the same product in
that market and the possibility of a shop selling the same shirt with a cheaper price tag is
high.
We often change our perception due to this dissonance, sometimes we worry so much
that we might even change our decision just because we are afraid of it being wrong. If we
have a mindset or a goal of what we are trying to achieve, post decision dissonance will
sometimes get in our way and stop us. If we think that what we are doing is right and
achievable, we should stick to our believes and go for it.