The document discusses several cognitive biases and social phenomena: - Social facilitation is the tendency to perform better on simple tasks when observed by others due to increased arousal and motivation. The document gives an example of someone running faster in a race than when alone in training. - Extrinsic motivation refers to motivation from external rewards like fame or medals. The document discusses someone being motivated to win first place for these rewards. - Downward counterfactual thinking is imagining a better alternative outcome to events. The document provides an example of someone thinking they did their best after losing a race. - Post-decision dissonance is changing perceptions to make a decision seem better after it is made. An example discusses de

2. 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 others, they will do well on
things that they are already good at doing.
• In social facilitation, individual contributions can be identified and
hence they will do better.

3. • During normal training days, Lee always practised alone in the jogging
track. He found it very exhausted and find it very hard to
breakthrough his limit.
• However during the racing day, there were a lot of other competitors
and under this circumstances. He then realized that he ran much
faster than when he was training alone.
• This is because of the social facilitation.

4. EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION
• Extrinsic motivation refers to motivation that comes from outside an
individual. The motivating factors are external, or outside, rewards
such as money or grades. These rewards provide satisfaction and
pleasure that the task itself may not provide.

5. • Because of fame, Lee is motivated to go pass his limits to get the first
place.
• So he was ahead of most the competitors.
• The motivation factor in this case is the medal. If it wasn’t for the
medal, Lee would not have run as fast as he would.

6. DOWNWARD COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING
• Downward counterfactual thinking is the tendency to create a
positive alternative outcome to life events that has already happened
or occurred. Something which is different from what has actually
happened.

7. • Lee was overtaken by one of the competitor. He
tried his best to catch up but the distance
between them just kept getting bigger and
finally, his opponent crossed the finish line
before he did.
• As hard as he tried, he still couldn’t get first
place. But he just told himself that he tried his
best and at the very least, he was not the last.
• Lee’s way of thinking is also known as
downward counterfactual thinking.

8. POST-DECISION DISSONANCE
• Post-decision dissonance means that after we have made a decision,
we will feel dissonance regarding the possibility of it being wrong. We
will often change our perceptions to reduce this dissonance and make
the decision seem more attractive.
• This concept is just like “Sour grapes’’.

9. • Although Lee didn’t get the first place, he
still felt a little bit jealousy to his friend
who got the first place.
• However, he was not intend to show his
dissatisfaction and tried to devalue that
the champion was annoyed by so many
people but luckily he was not.
• This way of thinking is post-decision
dissonance.

10. THE PRIMACY EFFECT
• The primacy effect is the tendency for the first information presented
to be remembered better or more easily, or for them to be more
influential than those presented later. We also tend to assume that
information at the beginning of something are of greater importance
or significance.

11. • One year later, Lee entered high school.
• He becomes a popular student in the school since everybody knows that he was
the one who got a place in the race last year. Every students in school admire
him because of his sports ability although they don’t really know him in person.
They just think that Lee is cool and awesome so they treat him as an idol.
• This situation shows the primacy effect.