1) The document is a series of journal entries by a student named Tan You Liang discussing various topics in social psychology, including social influences, self-efficacy, counterfactual thinking, self-fulfilling prophecy, and observational learning. 2) In the first entry, Tan describes how he was influenced by his friends in high school to engage in problematic behavior but then changed his ways after meeting new friends in university. 3) The second entry discusses how Tan's self-efficacy and belief in himself improved after joining the basketball team and receiving encouragement from his teammates.

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND
DESIGN THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD
ENVIRONMENT 2014 FNBE AUGUST INTAKE
Social Phycology Assignment 1 - Individual Journal
Name: Tan You Liang
Student ID: 0320215
Session: Monday 4pm-6pm
Course: Foundation in Natural and Built Environment
Submission Date: 27 April 2015

2. Entry 1: Social Influences
5 Aug 2014
Social influence is a major topic in social psychology and looks at how individual thoughts,
actions and feelings are influenced by social groups. More about various types of social
influence including peer pressure, obedience, leadership, conformity and persuasion. Social
influences occurs when one's emotions, opinions, or behaviours are affected by others.
For instance, before I came up to university, during the days in high school I used to hang out
with one of the well-known gang in the school. We were so called the “well-known” gang
because of creating too much problems to our teachers and people around us. During the days
we were so spoiled that we often commit crime such as bullying, stealing, gangsterism and so
on. After all these years of childish act I’ve done during my life high school, it finally came
to an end. Fortunately I managed to graduate and the moment I first stepped in my university
life, I realised everything was so different compared to high school. The first friend I met in
here was Roy, he is an optimistic, diligent as well as an active person. Not only him but also
another few people that I started to get along with. Initially during our project 1, I was still a
lazy and procrastinating person that always trying to give excuses for not completing work
and not coming for meetings and stuffs. However during project 2 they didn’t leave me for
my behaviour. Instead they tried to understand my past as well as trying to lend a helping
hand to change my attitude. I was so touched by their kind act towards me. Ever since that, I
learned from all my mistakes and been through a real change in life. Turning over a new leaf,
I am now a completely different person from the past, I became a better person.

3. Entry 2: Self- Efficacy
22 Nov 2011
Self-efficacy is a person's judgment about being able to perform a particular activity. A
person with low self-efficacy will try to avoid difficult tasks and produce low quality of
outcome because they do not believe in their own ability. For people with high self-efficacy,
they tend to believe in their own ability. They see difficult tasks as challenges, they give their
best to accomplish the work so that the outcome they produce with be way better than the
outcome produced by individuals with low self-efficacy. Even though an individual with high
self-efficacy produce a lot better work but overly high self-efficacy in an individual may not
bring out a good result sometimes.
For example, during the days I was in high school, everyone was compulsory to take part in
sport. Everyone deserves an opportunity to choose their favourite sport. Therefore I chose the
basketball club. The reason I joined basketball club because I was so amazed by the
basketball athletes. Their skills, performances, attitude caught my eyes. Before joining the
club, my knowledge for basketball was only through sports channels but as soon as I became
one of the member of basketball club, I signed up for their training programme every
weekend. The training was tough and tiring, my stamina was not strong enough to catch up
my teammates. I was not flexible enough on sports. I find it too hard for myself. I had once
thought that I was not talented in sports and eventually I was about to give up on playing
basketball and performed inadequately during the training session. However things were not
so bad, my teammates found out my problem and came to assist me. He told me not to give
up easily as Rome was not built in a single day, he also told me that as long as I kept on
believing in myself and not giving up, eventually I will become someone greater than I
thought. From that day onwards, I trained hard and consistently to brush up my skills. My
first competition impressed the coach and he offered me to play for his team. I am now a state
basketball player. My teammate’s words gave me the most motivation and that was what
makes me what I am now, I promised myself not to give up easily when I face harder
challenges in future.

4. Entry 3: Counterfactual Thinking
12 June 2014
A concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives
to life events that have already occurred. A counterfactual thought occurs when a person
modifies a factual prior event and then assesses the consequences of that change. A person
may imagine how an outcome could have turned out differently, if the antecedents that led
to that event were different. This often happens in 'if only...' situations, where we wish
something had or had not happened. This can be so powerful we can change our own
memories, adjusting the facts and creating new memories.
Counterfactual Thinking is classified as two different categories that is Upward
Counterfactuals and Downward Counterfactuals. For my experience I will be talking about
Upward Counterfactual Thinking. “People always say life is too short for regrets. But the
truth is, it’s too long.” ―Sarah Addison Allen. One of the most difficult things to deal with
in life is regret. Sometimes something will happen, and you will respond in the wrong
way, and for a while thereafter you will wish you had done it differently. This is hardly the
worst kind of regret. Well as for myself, one of the greatest thing I’ve regretted on was my
relationship. Her name is Chelsea. The story started a year back, we met each other in
school, after months of pursuing her we started dating like any other couples do. We shared
a real sweet moment before everything went downhill. As everyone know, examples of
relationships that didn’t work out will go through 6 main stages that is the meeting, the
chase, the honeymoon, following the comfortable, tolerance and eventually to downhill and
breakups. As for my case it was more likely when we could not make it through the stage
4, the comfortable. The time when we were comfortable with each other, we truly act as
ourselves in front of each other. It depends on what you do with that comfort, some use it
positively, continuing to work at their relationships, grow together. However for Chelsea
and I, we allowed each other to create distance. Whether it is taking each other for granted,
or people changing over time, the bottom line was someone stops trying and gradually our
feelings aren’t strong as before anymore. We had a terrible argument and that ends
relationship between us. I knew it was my fault for not being understanding enough, I
shouldn’t scold her for being with another guy as they were discussing to surprise me for
my upcoming birthday. However our relationship had gone irreparably damaged. She
couldn’t bear with me anymore. I should have made things clearer before I talk. Even until

5. now I will constantly remind myself, thinking that what if I didn’t throw those words to her
and acted differently that day, probably we are still able to work it out.

6. Entry 4: Self-fulfilling Prophecy
3 April 2014
Positive or negative expectations about circumstances, events, or people that may affect a
person’s behaviour toward them in a manner that he or she (unknowingly) creates situations
in which those expectations are fulfilled. This happens because our beliefs influences our
actions. For example, if a woman thinks that her husband will leave her for another woman,
she will act in ways that will directly or indirectly cause her belief to come true. She might
get jealous easily and make a fuss about him being friends with other women. She might pick
fights whenever she suspects that he is cheating on her, or she might go through his personal
things to look for evidence of cheating. Eventually, her actions will put a strain on their
marriage, and her husband just might leave her, causing her prediction to come true.
Based on my experience, I was once got into an interview for a job. It was during my school
holiday. That was my first job interview. Before the interview, I was so afraid that I could not
get that job. I even decide the result that I could not get the job for myself before the job
interview. I was so negative thinking back then. I was so nervous and kept on doing rehearsal
so that I will not fail to get the job. But when I got into the interview, I couldn’t utter a word
as I was too nervous like butterfly was fluttering in my stomach. In the end as my expectation
I could not get the job. After this incident, I will not think any more negative expectation but
positive expectation so that same thing will not happen again.

7. Entry 5: Observational Learning
23 April 2012
A tremendous amount of learning happens through this process of watching and imitating
others. In psychology, this is known as observational learning. It tends to be the most
common thing during childhood as children learn from the authority figures and peers in their
lives. It also plays an important role in the socialization process, as children learn how to
behave and respond to others by observing how their parents and other caregivers interact
with each other and with other people.
Observational learning is a process in which a person observes another person's behaviour
and the consequences of the behaviour. If the consequences are positive, the person may
imitate the behaviour. Based on my experience, I had a job in sales. However, I had no sales
experience. During my first day I observed an experienced salesperson. I believe that helps
me to gain knowledge of the statements and behaviours of an effective salesperson. Another
experience of my observational learning was during my childhood. When I was a kid I
witnessed another boy on the playground get in trouble for hitting another child. I learnt from
observing this interaction that I should not hit others.