Psycho journal

CHERILYN CHIA | 0321986 | PSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL
School of Architecture, Building and Design
Foundation in Natural and Built Environment
Assignment 1: Journal
Name: Cherilyn Chia Qiao Xin
ID: 0321986
Subject: Social Psychology(PSYC 0203)
Lecturer:Mr Shankar
Session:Monday 1pm-3pm
Intake: January2015
Submission date: 16th
November 2015

Journal 1 SocialFacilitation
Social facilitation is the tendency for people to perform better on easy jobs in
the presence of others. When a person is being watched while doing their tasks, he
or she will perform well in doing the things they are already good at. Even so, people
who does unfamiliar tasks in the presence of others will not perform as well when
they are alone. This is due to the awareness of evaluation from other people. A
person’s performance does not depend only on his or her capabilities but it is also
impacted by their consciousness of assessment by others.
In certain cases, some people perform to impress the other gender. I had
encountered some of my classmates who did things to impress the opposite gender.
During my primary school days, I had a friend who performed well in the science
subject. When other guys were around her, she would answer all the questions
asked by the science teacher. But once no guys were around, she would not answer
as much questions or even not answering when questioned. The role of social
facilitation was clearly portrayed by the different performance she had in different
situations. Due to the fact that my friend was conscious of what the guys think about
her, she reacted to the situation more often by responding to the questions.
On the other hand, social facilitation also affects a person’s performance
negatively. For example, the same friend who fared well in science did not know
much about the Chinese language. Since she was a person who liked to learn, she
tried to answer questions probed by the Chinese subject teacher when she had a
one-to-one tuition with the teacher. In a contrasting situation, when my friend was
questioned in class, she would more likely be silent until the question was answered
by other people. This showed that when in the presence of others, my friend had
less confidence as she was more aware of others’ evaluation on her answer,
resulting in the act of not answering the quiz in class. In this case, social facilitation
created the fear of being laughed at by the audience, thus decreasing my friend’s
performance in the class.
The understanding of social facilitation could also be used to improve a
person’s performance in the crowd. For instance, the fear of answering questions in

Chinese class can be overcome through training. My friend who responded to
questions during one-to-one tuition class should be exposed to tuition classes with
more students. As time goes by, the act of answering questions in tuition classes
with more audience can result in a habit, thus reducing the effect of social facilitation
on her performance in class. This solution could help to adjust her awareness of the
potential evaluation and eventually being able to overcome her fear in answering
questions about subjects she was weak in.
Personally, I also had the tendency to do things better in the crowd. As I was
a person who took others’ views seriously, I tried to please others by showing my
efforts while doing a task which I was good at. As an example, I would answer the
questions given by the English teacher in class voluntarily. The English subject was
the subject that I had the most confidence in. Due to social facilitation, I answered
the questions given more often to gain recognition from others. To me, obtaining
good remarks from others was important to help in developing my self-confidence. It
could also benefit me through the realisation and improvisation of my abilities.
In contrast to the positive effects, social facilitation also caused a decreasing
effect to my performance. Even though I was able to understand and scored quite a
bit in my Chemistry exam, I still did not fully understand about the subject. Due to the
lesser confidence I had towards the subject, I could not help but to avoid the
questions given by the teacher in class. To a person who took others’ comments to
heart, I had to step back from being active in answering the quizzes. I did want to be
seen as the not so intelligent one in class as it makes me feel unimportant and this
also further decrease the confidence I had. Now that I look back at it, I can say that I
was timid and afraid of judgements. I could not bear to imagine that my friends would
look at me as if I was a joke.
Learning about social facilitation made me think about my friend’s action when
she faced the situation and also evaluate on my own choices when I encounter these
situations. It helped me in identifying the motivations and obstructions to an action.
Now, I am able to notice the effects and prevent the negative sides of it to hinder me
from taking a step forward when facing other similar situations.

Journal2 Self-efficacy
According to Albert Bandura, self-efficacy is “the belief in one’s capabilities to
organise and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.”
It displays self-assurance in the capability to manage a person’s own driving force,
behaviour and social setting. All of us have our own vision of success in different areas
and we also think about the changes that can be made to be a better person.
Nevertheless, many of us think that it is a challenge to achieve those dreams. We
should be clear that it is a person’s faith over his or her abilities which allows them to
achieve their own goals.
Through this 18 years of living, I had experienced much in problem solving and
these encounters built me up in terms of my mind-set and the faith I had in my own
aptitudes. One of the experiences I learnt was about public speaking. Even from a very
young age, I had always been chosen by the teachers to compete in the story-telling
competition. Now that I think about it, the teachers actually chose representatives of the
class randomly for the competition. It was the first time then, for me to be story-telling in
front of the parents and teachers. I think it was because of the good first attempt for the
competition, my teachers kept choosing me for several competitions later. Even though I
was very nervous every single time I got on stage to speak, I managed to pull it through
with a bit of mistakes I have made throughout the session.
To be honest, it was as nerve-racking now as then. Even so, my parents said that
I made mistakes and stuttered quite a bit in the competition. These comments were the
truth but it actually affects me as I have a weak sense of self-efficacy back then. I lost
my confidence in public speaking after that as I was afraid to deal with the possible
failures and get negative feedbacks from others. I stopped participating in public
speaking competitions when I moved on to primary and secondary school. I completely
shut the doors to these competitions throughout the years.
The years went by without me moving forward from my circumstances. I began to
face a bigger problem, which was stage fright. When performing individually for a music
exam in class, I could not focus well on blowing the recorder. There were even times

when we were required to do oral presentation for our language subjects in school.
Although I could do quite well in one-to-one oral tests with the teacher as my only
audience, there were times where I had to do the oral presentation individually in front of
the whole class. My voice was shaky and I had difficulty in having eye contact with the
audience. After all these experiences, I moved on to my fourth year of secondary school.
In Form 4, I managed to bring myself up to sign up for an interclass debate
competition. It was during the season of final examinations then and many of the groups
that signed up for the competition gave up on it. It was left with only two groups to
compete, with me and my two other friends in a group and another group of three
students. As the debate was only held in a small classroom with minimal audiences, I
managed to speak well and finally won in the competition. Even though the competition
was small, but I gained my confidence a little by little after the event.
Now that I am in my foundation year, I was forced to push myself to the next level
as oral presentations are very important and I could not afford to lose my marks because
of the fear I had about public speaking. I began to build up my self-efficacy by having a
stronger sense of commitment towards my presentations and have the confidence in
presentation, thinking that the nervousness can be overcome easily through the faith I
had towards my ability. I also found a way to overcome my fear by not think about the
possible failures I might face, but to focus on the main message that I wanted to convey
towards my audiences, which are the lecturers.
What I could say about my current situation is, no matter how it has been in the
past, with the strong fear I had about public speaking and the weak self-efficacy, I am in
the progress of building myself up in the midst of these weaknesses. It is true that I still
have not get rid of the nervousness that has been haunting me throughout the years, but
I am willing to take a step forward to overcome this problem. To me, there is no bigger
challenge that could stop me from moving forward and achieving my goals. I am a better
person now and I will continue to improve myself daily in the years to come.

Journal3 Stereotype
A stereotype is an extensively held but fixed and overgeneralized concept or
idea of a particular type of person or thing. It occurs without conscious awareness
and it assumes people based on the standards, prospects and interpretations given
to them. Through stereotyping, we are able to categorize things and people. The
categorization of information allows us to respond quickly to situations but it also
suggests that we ignore the variations that could possibly happen. Therefore, it is
crucial for us to identify the stereotypes in order to make correct judgements based
on the surroundings and not through stereotyping.
Stereotypes are actually quite common in my daily life. It occurs almost every
time I meet new people in university. As I am quite conscious of the people around
me, I tend to categorize them through their outlooks and behaviour. There was one
time where I met a group of people with good skin condition and I assumed them as
Koreans. This was because I have been exposed to the knowledge of how Koreans
took care of their skin and the food they ate which resulted into a better skin quality.
These information about Koreans caused the thought to be created when I met with
those people. In reality, I disregarded that there were tons of people out there with
great skin but were not Koreans.
There were also times where I judged a person’s intelligence based on their
appearance. For instance, I had the mind-set of thinking that people who wear
glasses are quite smart. Well, this assumption was actually influenced by the people
I met who were smart and wore glasses. In fact, most of my classmates who were
smart, wore glasses. Even so, I ignored the fact that many smart people in school do
not wear glasses and the people who wore glasses is not necessarily intelligent. This
stereotype affected my views on people, where I treat people who wear spectacles
as my mentor, thinking that they are intellectual.
Besides, I had always thought that people who were overly active, talkative
and could not stay still were people with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD). Since I have known quite a few friends who have this disorder and

analysed their symptoms and behaviours, the idea of people who were very talkative
and could not stay still had ADHD. Even though some guesses might be accurate, I
should not have that mind-set as it may lead to discrimination towards them. I should
also consider that not all of them who had some of the symptoms, had the disorder.
One of the most common stereotypes I had in mind was that a slim person
would not eat as much food as a normal person would. In my group of university
friends, I have met with people who were slim yet they had a big appetite. Till now, I
still had no idea how they could finish up a filling meal with meat and still feel hungry
after that. I used to ask these friends when they would be full and the answer I got
was, never. One of them even said that they just do not get full and it was just that
they were not hungry after the meal. Well, I can only admire them on their
unchanging body size after all that eating.
Sometimes, I did hate the stereotype people had towards my choice of career.
Being involved and studying in the field of architecture , I disliked the views of other
people on career choice. Many of them had the same mind-set about architecture,
where guys were more suitable in the field. Although it may be applied in the past
eras, but there were many female architects out there in the world and many more to
come in the future. People should change their thinking since many females can do
better than males in the field as well. They should show their support to us and
believe in our abilities instead of having those stereotypes on us.
Through the learning of stereotypes, I was able to identify the thinking of other
people and my own personal thoughts. In fact, I learnt to take careful note on these
thoughts and preventing them from developing into prejudices, causing
discrimination towards others to occur. The knowledge about stereotypes also
allowed me to think further and understand how these stereotypes were formed
against other people. Stereotypes formed might be positive or even negative. Even
though these groupings upon objects and people were generated without us being
conscious about it, I think we should be able to recognize them and use the
knowledge for our own good.

Journal 4 Confirmation Bias
The confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a
way that enhances one's presumptions, preceding to statistical errors. Many people
believe that their viewpoints are the product of years of encountering situations and
the objective analysis of the existing facts. In reality, our beliefs are often influenced
by confirmation biases, where we select the information which supports our beliefs
and ignore other contradicting data. In order to have more accurate perspectives
when evaluating a circumstance, the propensity to provide more consideration and
importance to data that fit with our principles should not lead us off course as a rule.
Being brought up in a Christian family, I have been influenced by my family’s
traditions and the Christian culture. These practices have been stored into my
schema since young and my thoughts on different situations and others’ behaviour
are deeply influenced by them. Even though there were times where I was able to
think wisely and analyse things through the adaptation of knowledge learnt through
different aspects, I still fell into the problem of selective thinking. As it was easier to
follow the information that supports my beliefs, I chose to go along with them and not
wanting to look at the opposing info. It was the decision that affected my rationalism.
Now that I have been exposed to the knowledge of confirmation biases, I
reflected on my behaviours in the past, and I came to analyse the situation. I
remember I have been placed into a circumstance where I had a discussion with my
friends regarding the topic of our favourite music star. Well, all of us do have a
common craze about our preferred music stars, judging either their looks or talents,
and some of us even have the same taste. Even so, there were still some friends
who hated the stars we like and gave the worst comments ever about them.
For example, one of my friends was obsessed with Justin Bieber’s songs. She
even bought the whole collection of his physical albums and downloaded his songs
via iTunes into her gadgets. Then, there was this friend who hated Justin’s songs
and reviewed them poorly. Even though my friend who was a devoted Belieber was

shown the negative news about Justin Bieber by the other friend, she continued to
support his songs without fail and still think he is a good person. In contrast, the
friend who hated the songs ignored the good news of topping the charts and focused
more on negative news of the singer. Both of my friends had confirmation bias in
play which resulted in their opposing behaviours towards the celebrity.
In a recent case, I was exposed to the news about terrorist attacks in many
places. Since a few months ago, the news about these terrorist attacks were mainly
about the ISIS. Several countries had been attacked with the involvement of suicide
bombing, massacres and many others. The whole world was alarmed by the
enormous number of deaths reported. After all these influences by the news,
whenever I heard about a report about bombing or shooting, I would relate them to
terrorist attacks. This was due to the confirmation bias I had towards these killing
cases. I had only looked through the cases of terrorism instead of thinking of other
possibilities that could cause the killing cases, such as a normal war.
Even when looking through the news report online or through the social
media, whenever I came across a headline stating, “200 died in an attack…”, my
mind would automatically link the case to terrorist attacks. When I looked through the
report and noticed that it was indeed about terrorism, it showed that I was actually
pursuing for the confirmation of my thoughts that the case was about terrorism but
not others. If the report showed otherwise, I would ignore the report and still think
that it was related to terrorism. The effect of confirmation bias towards reports of
death to be related to terrorism could actually bring about the problem of not knowing
the truth with the existence of ignorance.
Getting to learn about how confirmation biases are in play in our lives is very
essential for us to have a clearer view of our opinions. When dealing with situations
that requires us to have unbiased views, we should be aware of our own thoughts
and avoid confirmation biases which leads to the distorted truth. We should try
thinking in different perspectives, and analyse them individually without being
affected by any other misleading views that could manipulate our thoughts. Only by
then, we could achieve the rationalised thinking that we aimed for.

Journal5 OperantConditioning
Operant conditioning is a learning process where it uses reinforcement or
punishment to strengthen or weaken a particular behaviour. In this case, when a
person who did the wrong thing was punished, he or she would learn from their
mistake and avoid acting in that way. In contrast, a person who was rewarded as a
result of their good behaviour will continue their actions as they learnt to have that
behaviour in life. Both punishments and rewards would be able to amend the
behaviours accordingly.
Since young, I have been exposed to learn with the involvement of
punishment and rewards. As my family that practices strict rules, all of us have to
obey them to avoid punishment. For example, if I behave properly when interacting
with the elders, I will be rewarded through the compliment of my behaviour. In
contrast, if I were to act rudely towards the elders, I would be scolded by my parents.
Even so, one incident in particular portrayed the operant conditioning process clearly
where I would never forget.
In a family with two brothers and being the youngest sister in the family, I
have been exposed to boyish attitudes and behaviour. The toys that I played and the
clothing I wore were all from my older brothers. This leads to creating a boyish
character in me. After years of exposure through the television programmes and the
surroundings, my hot tempered personality was further built and I like to argue and
fight with my brothers. The fights I had with my siblings were still small back then and
I only ended up with scolding from my parents. It took years to grow into a bigger
fight when I finally got my first caning in my life.
I remember I was only around six years old then. The usual argument about
who gets to play the computer arose and the bad feelings I had bottled up after
several incidents like this came bursting out of my mind. I thought, “I’ve had enough!
Why should I compromise anymore?” This mind-set led to a huge fight with my
eldest brother. I did not bother about the consequences I might face later on as I
have not been punished by my parents yet. I shouted as loud as I could at my

brother and I started throwing a plastic chair at my brother. Even though it was
intentional, I did not throw the chair to hurt my brother but to scare my brother off in
the argument.
It was then my parents came back after working. The chaotic scene got my
parents into an explosive mood. They scolded my brother and my father even asked
me to meet him in his room. In the room, I was scolded as bad as my brother but I
still did not admit my wrongdoings. I even tried to refute my father’s scolding. The act
added fire to the situation and my father burst out in rage. He grabbed hold to a cane
placed in the storeroom and came up to the room. He then caned me while I jumped
up and down whilst screaming and trying to avoid the caning. It was then I
experienced the pain of caning first-hand and I finally admitted my transgressions. I
realised that being the youngest and the only girl amongst the siblings, I had the
most attention from my parents. But I should know the limit to my bad behaviour and
consider the costs I had to pay from the actions I have taken.
After this incident, I learnt to be moderate in an argument and not make things
worse by my irrational actions. Knowing that a bad fight would lead me to
punishment, I chose to be patient in arguments and even seek for advice from my
parents. The next time I face an argument, I will be more aware of the consequences
and choose the right way to solve issues. The reward I gained from learning through
the incident was that I will not go through the pain of caning anymore and my parents
will not be angered by my actions.
Sometimes, we have to experience these physical pains in order to discover
the little imperfections we had in our personal behaviour. Punishments may seem
cruel to us but they enable us to learn new lessons in life. In fact, they could also
help in improving a person’s behaviour, thus creating a better and improved society.
Even so, to balance the punishments we had, we ought to receive rewards from
being good. The rewards given out would create a good example for others to follow.
Only through the equilibrium achieved, we would be able to reduce our bad
behaviours and adapt good behaviours in our life.

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