This document is a student's journal entries for a social psychology course. The first entry discusses the student's experience with negative social influence from excessive TV watching as a child and how it impacted their health and academics. The second entry provides examples of social facilitation and social loafing from the student's group projects in foundation studies, noting how performance improved or worsened depending on being observed or working alone/loafing as a group. The third entry defines social perspective as how people understand others based on appearance, communication, and discusses main social psychology perspectives.

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Name: Michelle Tung Man Kaye
StudentID: 0324175
Group / Session: Monday, 8a.m – 10a.m
Subjectand Course: SocialPsychology[PSYC0103]
Assignment1: Individual Journal
Lecturer: MR. T. Shankar
Submission date: 30 November2015

2. Entry 1: Social Influence
Social influence is defined as change in an individual’s thoughts, feelings,
attitudes, or behaviors that results from interaction with another individual or a group.
This is an example of my own experience
of a negative influence. I can say that I’m a
person who is addicted to watching TV which I
can sit there on a couch for the whole day just to
watch TV. But, when watching TV the metabolic
rate is much more slower than when simply
sitting there silently, doing nothing. In addiction,
watching too much TV are usually overweight
which I often snack on junk food while watching
TV because it is very relaxing and enjoying! TV
has also lots of unhealthy consumption habits. TV will have some commercials to
consume unhealthy food such as fast foods and high sugar level foods which attract
and influenced me to have these kind of foods and will more likely to be overweight.
This is true! When I was in the age of 10 years old to 16 years old, I’m the kind of
people who get influenced very easily. Furthermore, I spend more time on watching TV
than studying and this affected my result and also my brain development which I tend to
work less on my homework and sometimes I do my homework while watching TV and
this will tend to retain less skill and information. As well as, will lead me less likely to be

3. able to read. And sometimes, TV is full of programs that show risky behaviors such as
violence, alcohol, drugs use and sex that can affect a children thoughts and children
would not think this is good or bad they will just learn and follow the actions. Therefore,
I think that parents nowadays should be more aware of the hours your kids watch TV,
which children needs to develop more skills like language, creativity and also social
skills. Parents should ask their children to go outside and get more active not just stay
at home watching TV or playing video games, this will give our children a better future
and a healthier lifestyle.
Thus, this is another example of my own experience of a positive influence.
Throughout my life, there have been lots of people that influenced significantly who I am
today. Through love, discipline, encouragement but the person that has influences my
life the most is my father, especially how to take responsibility for my actions and also
do my best to achieve what I wanted for. However, my father is an engineer and he had
his own business since he was 25 years old, he has pretty much worked in his whole
life. My father has to wake up early in the morning to go to work at 6a.m without
complaint. In fact, we have 5 family members which is my father, mother and 2 of my
older brothers including me, therefore my father has to work even more harder to
provide a comfortable environment and also school fees for three of us. He tries his
best to keep our family happy. He works hard to make money for our family. He loves
me a lot and always tries to cheer me up whenever I am in a bad mood. Also, his
success has made me want to do the best in life that I can do. His ability to provide very
well for our family is a huge motivator for me to get through school.

4. Futhermore, my father also influences the way
I approach life. I have gained a lot not only
knowledge, but have applied his teachings in my life.
Because of the example he has set for me, my father
has provided the path for me which I need to achieve
my goals so that I can lead a happy and successful
life. Today I am 18 years old and at this tender age,
my father has taught me a lot of things that people at
this age fails to understand. He has showed me the
way to success. He has showed me the opportunities
that exist in front of me. But at the same time he has
also left the decision up to me in terms of which path
to choose. Everything that my father has ever done has been overshadowed by the
thought behind it. When I finished with my school, and have a career of my own, I hope
to be as successful as my father is.
In conclusion, influences can be positive influence and negative influence. As a
result, influences that you choose and pick which one you are going to use in your life,
the one you react to the influence determines what kind of impact you receive from the
influence. As can be seen then, social influences can be summarized as different
circumstances where our opinions and choices are being affected by those around us.
( 814 words )

5. Entry 2: Social Facilitation & Social Loafing
Social groups are a basic part of human life. With every group we’re in, we see
different effects, advantages, disadvantages and consequences. The effect we’ll
discuss in this lesson are social facilitation and social loafing. This kind of situation
always occurred in our daily life. Working in a group certainly has a number of
advantages and disadvantages. In my personal experience, I met this kind of situation
all the time when we are having a group assignment. When I am still in FNBE
foundation semester one, we have lots of assignment which this is our grades given due
we doesn’t have exam except for English. So, we focused on our projects a lot and
perform well.
In 1898, Norman Triplett noted that competitive cyclists performed better during
races than during solo rides which known as social facilitation. 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 other, they will do well on
things that they are already good at doing. People often think that our performance is
determined by either hard work, genetics, or a combination of both, however there are
many more determinants that influence the quality of our performance. One factor on
how we perform is through social facilitation. However, social facilitation helps us to
appreciate that our motivation for doing a task is also influenced by how good we
perceive ourselves to be at the task and whether we are being evaluated by others. In a
group, all the members will put on more efforts to do well on the projects because they
are being observed. This is a fair situation for all the group members.
For example, when I was still in foundation semester one, we have a group
assignment which we have to form 12
people in a group. However, 12 of us will
work together and help each other but still
each of us have our own different task to
search and find for information. There can
be a leader or no leader, it doesn’t matter.

6. Besides that, all the group members will get different grades which everyone will find
and search for their own information and present it in front of the lecturer. So that the
lecturer will give the grade for each members in the group with a fair way.
In 1883, Max Ringelmann conducted a study from which he concluded that an
individual’s performance actually gets worse in the presence of others which known as
social loafing. 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. This says that when a
group people are working together, the leader will then contribute and tell the group
members what to do, so that it is more efficient and faster. But then individuals tend to
put less effort in group which individuals always feel like their contributions don’t matter,
and therefore, they decrease their effort and contributions. Individuals also think that if
they put more effort than others but they will still get the same marks, so why did they
have to do more than others. This is really unfair for those who put more effort. In other
words, some of the group members would sit back and watch while other members did
the majority of the work. This situation is quite common and can be found in many ways.
We have been a part that demonstrate social loafing.
Remember that when I was still in
foundation semester one, we are having a
group assignment which we have to form a
group of 8 people. Then there was 5 boys
and 3 girls which we did not know each other
very well. My friend Meagan who was a
leader of this group, she ask the whole group
for the first meeting and all the group
members attended. After that, we are going to combine all the information which my
friend has contributed for all of us but then there are some group members did not come
for the second meeting and give a lot of reason to not coming for meeting. Some
members just simply email to my friend for the information but those information is very
little and is a last minute work. However, all the group members do not work together so
that my friend decided not to care about their work and three of us work together to

7. finished the assignment. Then there goes the presentation day, everyone in this group
appeared and ask the leader of what they going to present afterwards. Lastly, all the
group members still get the same grade which they do not even help to do any of the
work.
( 800 words )

8. Entry3: Socialperspective
Social perspective is the study of how people form impressions of and make
inferences about other people. We learn about how others feel and their emotions by
picking up on information we gather from their physical appearance and verbal
communication and non-verbal communication. The four main perspectives that social
psychologists may take are the sociocultural perspective, the evolutionary perspective,
the social cognition perspective and also social learning perspective.
Besides that, the sociocultural perspective focuses on the relationship between
social behavior and culture. The evolutionary perspective is a perspective that focuses
on the physical and biological predispositions that result in human survival. Next, the
social cognitive perspective builds on behavioral theories and demonstrates how an
individual’s cognitive process influences how is influenced by behavioral associations.
Lastly, social learning perspectives is a perspective that stresses the particular power of
learning through social reinforcements and punishment.
Based on the true story, rape of women
by men has occurred throughout recorded
history and across cultures. I have read about
a news that a 5 year old little girl have been
raped by 2 men in car parks, while the family
is searching around for their child, they found
her being dumped in park near their home
which the child is lying unconscious and
bleeding in a park three hours after she went
missing during a power outage in the area.
First, sociocultural perspective, from this
culture tells the two men that, if they raped that little girl, they will be very proud of
themselves because the culture places a greater emphasis on objects considered
valuable than it does people. Second, from the evolutionary perspective, the 2 men
raped the child because of acquiring certain objects can improve the changes for their

9. survival. They might think that this is the emphasis is on survival of the gene pool. Next,
the two men might not know that sexual violence against girls and women is wrong,
because cognitive processes have not been established that identify sexual violence as
wrong. No cognitive conditioning has occurred to link that sexual violence with a
negative experience. Last but not least, social learning perspective is which sexual
violence has been established through observation, which they think that it is a common
case to rape a girl or a women. A sexual violence is perceived as an acceptable
behavior.
In my personal experience, I remembered there was one day I heard my
neighbor’s dog, jojo was crying very loud. I went out and look for him wondering what
was happening. When I stepped out from my house, I saw my neighbor aunty Joyce
which is the owner of the house was beating jojo. I was very shocked and asked her
what was happening? Then she starred at me and said “Nothing happened just that jojo
is not behaving ”. In addition, there have been lots of different cruelty like animals are
kept in cages stacked on top of each other, gave little food and water. From my
personal opinion, I do not think that if an animal is not behaving, we should use this kind
of punishment. This is a very serious case as known as Animal Cruelty.
First of all, Sociocultural
perspective. From this culture tells us that
beating an animal is a way to teach and
tells them it is wrong because the culture
places a greater emphasis on objects
considered valuable than it does people.
Second, from the evolutionary
perspective shows that aunty Joyce is
beating jojo because of acquiring certain objects that can improve the changes of her
survival. Next, aunty Joyce might think that beating jojo is not wrong because in
cognitive perspective, there have not been established that using beating as a
punishment is not right. Then in social learning perspective, beating as a punishment
has been established through observed which aunty Joyce think that it is the way to

10. beat jojo just to give jojo a lesson to know that it was wrong and to behave next time.
Beating as a punishment is an acceptable behavior in aunty Joyce thought.
In conclusion, after being shown in the above of the true story and my personal
experience of using four different perspective such as sociocultural perspective,
evolutionary perspective, the social cognitive perspective and the last one will be the
social learning perspective. Each perspective have their own situation and thinking
point. I know that, not the way you think is same as what others thought, everyone have
their own perspective and spontaneous view. Common sense is our natural
understanding of things. We sometimes assume that social psychology is common
sense because the subject matter is often personal and familiar. We believe that we are
naturally knowledgeable about human behavior, but many of our common beliefs have
been disproved by social psychologists. Social psychologists cannot rely on common
sense because they must base their conclusions on evidence that is achieved through
careful and deliberate study. So social psychologists form theories that predict behavior
before it occurs.
( 829 words )

11. Entry 4: Discrimination
Discrimination is all about being treated differently to everyone else because of
something about you that someone doesn’t respect. Everyone has the right to be
treated fairly and respectfully, but when you discriminate, you choose to treat someone
differently based on characteristics about them. If someone is treated badly or unfairly
because of their characteristic, it is known as negative discrimination. Common reason
that people are being discriminated are their sex or gender, their race and any kind of
disability. At the same time, discrimination is often linked with bullying and harassment
meaning that when someone behaves in a way that is intended to disturb or upset
another person. It is actually against the law to be discriminated against in a lot of areas
of public life including in the workplace, education and so on.
Besides that, there are many different signs and actions that can indicate
discrimination may be taking place. Such as, someone saying hurtful things, being
made fun of, having made to feel inferior because of someone’s comments, remarks or
actions and more. Basically, if you’re being made to feel uncomfortable, then this
consider as someone could be discriminating against you.
First common type of discrimination is sex and gender. Sex and gender
discrimination is treating individuals differently in their employment just because an
individual is a man or a woman. When I was 15 years
old, I was finding a part time job after I finished my
PMR and UEC ( final examination ). I went to a mall
and look around for part time job, searching
around…… and finally I saw there was a restaurant
wanting to employ someone which doesn’t need any
qualifications or experiences. Then I went into that
restaurant to get interviewed, after all, time passes,
the manager came out and say that : “ He is sorry,
they need a male employee.” At that tender age, I did not ask for reason. I guess they
think that I’m just a young little girl who cannot help that much and give that much effort

12. on work than man does so they wanted to employ a male employee. I never thought
that this is one of the discrimination.
Second, race discrimination involves treating someone unfriendly because the
person is of a certain race or because of personal characteristics such as skin color
complexion. I still remember that my father brought us out for lunch at a malay
restaurant. When we take out sits at the corner, everyone is starring at us with a pair of
questioning eyes. We ignored them and did not care about how they going to talk about
us and continue to ordered our food, while ordering, there was a waiter treated us with a
very bad attitude and asked us hurried up to make our decision of what we wanted to
order and say that he have a lot of things to do yet not much time to served us. At that
moment, we felt so uncomfortable under this environment. We didn’t take our lunch at
that malay restaurant and left. However, this is also one of the discrimination just by
different race or skin color complexion. It is unlawful to harass a person because of that
persons race or skin color.

13. Lastly, disability discrimination is that people will think that younger age is always
stronger and more active than older age. Is this true? There was one day, I went to
jungle trekking with my mother which is already the age of 45 years old. Not that old by
the way but still worried about her ability. Before we start our journey, I asked my
mother “Are u okay with it?” then she said “Don’t worry! Not I’m the one who gave up at
the end, its you”. I found this funny just by that I don’t believe that an older age people
can be that strong and active. But I still look after her during the journey. When we
reached until half of the mountain, I felt very tired and exhausted then I take a rest
under a tree while my mother did not rest and pass through me. After that, when we
reached the top of the mountain, I ask my mother how was it? My mother said it was
super fun and satisfied. I asked her “Don’t you feel tired?” she said just a little bit
because when she was young, she use to walk to school back to home and somewhere
else. At her age, they have not enough money to buy a vehicle or even a bicycle. This is
what I have learned that age doesn’t determine your ability. Everyone at their age can
do their best to achieve goals. As can be seen then, it is not about what age you are, it
is about what you’ve been through in your life, age does not determine the ability you
have.
( 818 words )

14. Entry 5: Self-fulfillingprophecy
A Self-fulfilling prophecy is a positive expectations or negative expectations
about circumferences, events, or people that may affect a person’s behavior toward
them in a manner that he or she creates situations in which those expectations are
fulfilled and also causes a prediction to come true, due to the simple fact that he or she
expects it to come true. It has two types of self-fulfilling prophecies and it is based by
personality and influence of others. These two types of prophecies are self-imposed by
others; self-imposed is someone who expects affect the person’s behavior. While
imposed by other is influence to other people they take their actions has been affect by.
Whether you think you can. Or whether you think you can’t. You’re right!
This an example of someone who expects affect the person’s behavior. When
I’m in high school, students have to make their decision of which club are they going to
join. As I am quite interested in badminton, so I
decided to joined the badminton club. However, our
school principle has invited a professional
badminton coach to teach us which this coach have
won a lot of championship. We are a new batch of
students and also just a beginner who joined this
club to gain more skills. But then this badminton
coach expects freshmen to be less skilled which is
true, so he does not put us in to play very often and
teach us very little. In contrast, the badminton coach
put more concentrations and effort on those seniors
which to improve them just that seniors are going to
have a competition and when the badminton coach
put us in, we do not know how to play and have less skilled which we turned out rusty
and don’t do well, thereby, this is his thought and what fulfilling his expectations.

15. Expectations others put on us, whether we like it or not, have a huge influence on
our everyday life and who we grow to be as a person. For example, let’s talk about
society expectations. Society has formed this perfect person, with expectations that no
one could ever reach like for girls expectations are high, to be pretty they’ve got to have
long hair, flawless skin, big eyes and a thin but curvy body to wear clothes that expose
themselves. However, for guys expectations have much lower expectations than girls,
clear skin but not necessary, short hair, need to be on a sports team and when it comes
to appearance, nothing much.. just a pair jeans, a T-shirt and that’s it. For instance,
boys are expected to have leadership skills, be critical and logical in their thinking and
excel in technical domains. For girls, on the other hand, are expected to be sensitive,
caring and excel in managing the affairs of the household. It is unfair, which on a daily
basic people are being put down and are losing confidence because of such high
expectations.
You can think that self-fulfilling prophecy as a circular pattern. Our actions toward
others impact their beliefs against us. This pattern can be negative, like my own
personal experiences of being a freshmen badminton player’s example, but it can be
positive if you change your thoughts.
And also in my personal experience, my best friend named Yee Wen, we use to
call her “wen”. She is a type of girl that is very kind, polite and
hardworking. For her appearance she is very pretty and her height
and body size is just nice but she always thought that she look
ugly and fat. She always had a crush on a guy which is our
classmate, Edward. She is very afraid and try to avoid when she
sees him. Edward also one of my friend which we use to hang
around in campus. Then there was one day Edward told me about
that he thinks that my best friend Yee Wen is very pretty and
wanted to ask her out for a date, but every time he wanted to talk
to Wen, she started to walk away and ignored him. Yee Wen
ignored him because of her personal expectations which she
thinks that she doesn’t have the chance to hang out with Edward.

16. So Wen start to became very depressed and didn’t controlled her diet and also her
appearance. After some time, Wen become very ugly in Edward’s eyes. Though
Edward would not have considered dating Yee Wen anymore. As can be seen then,
Yee Wen reacted to the situation based on her perception, and the original situation
came true in the end. This is what Self-fulfilling prophecy are.
In conclusion, we tend to fulfill ourselves and others thoughts or expectations. In
other words, an expectation about a subject can affect our behavior towards that
subject, which causes the expectation to be realized. Otherwise, change your thoughts
and you change your world, your beliefs are a magnet that create your reality. As
Norman Vincent Peale said “ no matter how dark things seem to be or actually are,
raise your sight and see possibilities, always see them, for they’re always true”.
( 851 words )