Social psychology journal

1. Name: Koo Jian Xiang
Student ID: 0322975
Group / Session: Monday 10am
Course: Foundation in Natural and Built Environment
Submission Date: 16th November 2015

2. 11th August 2015 6.20 p.m.
Social perception is meant by forming an impression of others based on available
information. I agree that this occurs in every human being in the world naturally. For
example, I walked into a restaurant days ago and I saw a Ferrari branded car parking
outside the entrance of the restaurant. At that moment, I assume that the owner of the
luxury car must be very wealthy. After that, I ordered my meal. I saw an old man wearing
an old T-shirt and a boxer walking into the restaurant. I did not pay much attention to the
old man as his appearance is not attractive. Eventually i will assume that he is from an off
family, based on his attire. However after the meal, I saw the old man entering the Ferrari
and drove off. At that moment, I was stunned, and I know i was wrong. I had a
misperception towards the old man by judging the book by its cover. From this, I learnt that
we shouldn’t be so judgemental and we must be humble.
Another day when I went to the supermarket for grocery shopping, a young girl with two
pony tails approached me. She seemed pitiful, innocent and helpless. She looked like she
had just cried. Her eyes were swollen and she was sobbing. When she came up to me,
she wiped off her tears while requesting me to lend her my phone to call for her parents.
Eventually I borrowed my phone for her in order to help her because she seemed very
helpless. At the moment, I heard a shout from far. Piqued by curiosity, I turned up to look
for the sound. But there was nothing. What shocked me was, the girl standing in front of
me had gone no where. She left without returning me my phone. She was a thief. I should
not believe her. Again, I was perceived by her first appearance. She seemed to be very
kind and harmless. This is the reason I would lend her a hand without hesitating much. But
she disappeared and from that moment onwards I noticed that I got scammed. From her
skilled technique in getting people involved in her trap, I can see that she was a young-
aged well-trained theft. I learnt a lesson that our respective social perception sometimes
may lead us to the wrong way, we must not make conclusions based on first attempts yet
we must consider about the consequences before every actions. I should be aware of the
surrounding to prevent incidents to happen.
Not only in personal, I experience the same thing in the community as well. When i am
pursuing my study in high school, I am very active in every aspects especially curriculum

3. activities. I am selected as president for 24 festival drum club, basketball club and many
more. I score well in academic too. Not only that, I like to make friends too. Because of
these, I manage to develop reputation over time through my behaviour and relationships
with the others. However, there is always have to be good along with bad, just like a coin
with both sides. There are people who like me, and also people who dislike me. People
who like me, are normally people who are close to me and know my personal character
well. People who like me, are people whom I experience a lot of things and solve problems
together in life. People who like me, are people who are willing to share their stories with
me. From their words, they like to be with me because of my attitudes towards them and
not my appearance. However, for people who dislike me, they do not even approach me
yet they make assumption about my character based on their social perceptions.
Eventually, gossips or negative statements about me are spread by them in every corner
of school, even if my behaviour is not actually bad. Rumours are spread saying that I’m a
proud person, an attention seeker, wanting to be famous and etc. So from what I’ve
experienced, I realise that my friendly character to people had somehow form a
misperception for people who dislike me - they think I am acting too exaggeratedly. So
they begin to judge me, talking bad about me at my back. Those people who dislike me
are people who spread rumours, causing misunderstanding in relationships. This leads to
conflicts to arise as people tend to believe in rumours. They naturally believe in the way
they heard but not from what they see. I am very innocent in this way. I thought that we
should be friendly to people in order to create a peaceful environment. Perhaps different
people have different social perceptions towards the other. People believe in different
ways. Of course I will be happy and willing to deal with people who like me. But for the
haters? Well, i shall ignore and just be who i am.
Last month, when I was buying stuff at the wet market with my mother, I saw a
handicapped old man standing in the middle of the road begging for some money. He was
old, with a huge ripped shirt and a torn short pants. His left arm is broken and his body is
covered with smelly odours. For people like us, we would behave naturally by avoiding to
pass by him in order to prevent any necessary incidents. We do not know his intention at
all. Suddenly, a Malay guy with his face wrapped with a cloth snatched a woman’s purse,
right in front of me. Without further hesitation, I quickly walked to the other side of the
corridor in order to prevent involving in the incident, so do my mother. At the peak of the
time, there was the old handicapped man crossing over me, shouting and chasing after the
Malay guy. Although he is handicapped but he could run very fast with his pair of legs. He

4. managed to catch the thief and he hit him with his right hand. Then, some pedestrians
helped to stop the thief. From what I have witnessed, his bravery touched my heart.
Although he was poor and helpless, based on his personal appearance but I can see that
actually deep down in heart, he is a kind man. Even though he is handicapped, old and
often being excluded from the society, we should not judge him. From all of my life
experiences, first impression based on available information seems to be vital in order to
live in the current society. Not to forget, we must not act blindly based on false social
perceptions.
( 1108 words )

5. 17th September 2015 3.41 p.m.
Intrinsic motivation is meant by taking a certain action for the sake of enjoyment. It leads
us to be more fully engaged, greater curiosity and pleasure. This motivational action had
been applied in my life since a very young age. Since young, my hobby is to watch
children programme on tv. However, I have a very strict mum who constraints me on this.
When I was seven at age, she had passcode locked on tv for cartoon tv shows. I was very
upset as I do not get the chance to watch cartoon shows as entertainment. Despite seeing
this, my mom gave me a condition, which is I have to study and complete my homework
first, then she will allow me to watch cartoon shows for 2 hours. I was very excited every
time I completed my homework as i get to watch my favourite cartoon shows. From that, I
take that “award” as my motivation to get my homework done and my study finish. Sooner,
this award had become my intrinsic motivation to achieve what I want. Other than that,
when I was in my high school, I have a feeling towards a girl. In order to impress her, I
have to do something to attract her attention. It was my high school’s annual sports day, I
managed to get in the finale list to participate in the running competition. I stand by the
track to prepare for the 100m hurdle sprint competition. I tell myself that I must win in the
competition. That was the time when the girl whom I admire promised me, only if I could
win a gold medal, she will go for a date with me which I have requested for a long time.
That pinky promise had become an intrinsic motivation for me in order to win for a gold
medal. I was very nervous that time. When the gun was shot, I thrust myself with full speed
and energy ahead to be in the first position. I won the first place in the competition. I was
thankful for the motivation that she put on me. It is the motivation that makes me to
achieve what i want.
On the other hand, I am a freelance photographer. I work occasionally to earn some
allowance for my daily expenses. Usually, I like to capture down all the beautiful moments
during a field trip such as taking photos of breathtaking sceneries, capturing the natural
expressions of the people around, or working on selective theme photo shooting. When I
go out for photography work purpose, I’ll bring my girlfriend as my assistant to work with
me as well due to the heavy workload. Sometimes, I was stressed out as I need to keep a
good balance between my photography workload and my hectic school life. This is when
she makes a deal with me in order to keep me going with my life - she will treat me a meal
every time I accomplish my work. I realise that the photos that I took on top of her help

6. look more stunning. The clarity of the photos is clearly shown and the stories presented
behind the photo is heart warming. People would think that I am being unreasonable but
this the feeling that I have in my head and keeps me strive hard to achieve what I want. I
take every promises very seriously. I complete my work with sincerity and honest. I keep
her promise in mind, resulting in giving me an intrinsic motivation to allow me to boost my
performance to the maximum level as a photographer. I tend to be more joyful and exciting
while working because I know that I can get rewards after my hard work pays off. This
makes me to look forward to every photography appointment and I promise myself to work
hard no matter how and not to disappoint her. Feelings are true. When people whom we
loved, try so hard to encourage and motivate us just to ensure that we strike the best, no
matter how much struggles we need to overcome, we will just do it with positive mind and
energetic performance in order to achieve something that we want because we know that
they have high expectation on us. We want to make them proud of us. That is the intrinsic
motivation that keep me going.
Moreover, I used to promise my younger brother to buy him candies if he scores well in his
class test. This promise has formed an intrinsic motivation for him because he is a lazy kid.
He seldom finish his homework and get punished by his teacher in school. During the
exam, he scores badly. So I come up with an idea in order to boost his academic
performance by getting his sweet tooth fixed. Somehow when he grows older, this method
is no longer works for him. He starts getting lazier when he finds that my reward for him is
no longer attractive. Therefore, in order to keep up his motivation to study hard, I come up
with another deal with him such as bring him for travelling, buy toys for him, get him his
favourite shirts and etc. And so, this method works again. I realise that by giving a better
offer for him tends to get him motivated and kick off all his laziness. As the eldest son in
the family, I am responsible to guide him and lead him to a brighter future. From here, I
know that a person tends to perform better by getting the proper motivation.
Since young, my mother taught me to be a disciplined person. I am very ambitious and
always believe that if I work hard, I will get a better life. I always motivate myself and have
a goal in the future - own a house of cars by myself, such as Ferrari, Range Rover Sports
and a Rolls-Royce Ghost brand car. I list out all these 3 luxurious cars in my notebook so
that I am clearly known what I want in the future and always remind myself the reason I
work hard for. I believe in myself and my abilities that one day I will succeed. Not only
having a fleet of my dream cars, I have a goal to own a bungalow and a listed company.

7. As a university student, all I can do for now is to study hard and excel in my academic. It
has become an intrinsic motivation for me to go through all these obstacles before I reach
the top of the world in the future. There is a saying which is always embedded in my mind -
the sun always shine after the storms. I believe that I will succeed on the right path after
going through the struggles in different stages of my life. Besides, I learn how to save. I
learn to manage and control my personal expenses, in order to achieve my target in the
future. I plan well for my future. By saving, I learn to be responsible of my expenses and a
better financial guide for future. It is the intrinsic motivation that keeps reminding me of the
reason I strive hard for. Cars, life, motivation and goals…
( 1210 words )

8. 12th October 2015 5.15 p.m.
Stereotyping is meant by assuming all members of a group share some common feature.
It is very common for people to have the negative stereotype of people who take
cigarettes. They assume that smokers have bad attitude, act like a gangster, have tattoos
around the body, are weak in studies and etc. I do not understand why people judge
smokers based on what they see. Do you even know that behind the man who smokes
actually hold a doctorate degree? Do you even know that the story behind the girl who
smokes, who is actually running a successful business career? Sometimes i wonder why
is it being so difficult for people to let go of those schemas formed? Not only for smokers,
but stereotyping does happened in gender aspect too. People always think that male
should be the one who carry all the heavy stuff because male is believed to be physically
strong enough to do everything. They think that it is man’s responsibility to do that because
woman is weak. However, I personally think that this is not true because female should
help out to carry the stuffs, in order to divide the heavy loads, but not assigning all tasks to
one man. Studies also say that this occurrence is known as perseverance effect, which
explains that once a schema is formed, it is difficult to gain a change. In my opinion, being
a stereotype somehow may offend the people living around us. Because they do not even
make mistakes yet got labelled by the society based on their point of view.
When I am studying in my high school, I have different races of classmates. We interact
with each other so well and have a whale of time together in school. Not until I see my
friend, Ravin, who sit at one of the corner in the classroom, reading book by himself. I go
to talk to him. I am shocked when he tells me how bad he feels when he got isolated and
stereotyped from the others. He tells me that he is very innocent and frustrating when he
get labelled based of his race and origin. He struggles to live in the community as none of
the people seem to accept him to be part of the big family. For example, those people
comment that he looks dirty because he has dark skin, he looks like he has not shower for
few days because his hair is messy, he is lazy because he is fat etc. I feel so bad and
sorry for him when he tells me all about this. Issues like these are not common anymore in
this society. If I can’t judge you, you can’t judge me either. So what matters if he has
different race, skin colour or place where he comes from? It does not make you any
special if you are being judgemental. It does not make you stand out but only looking

9. dumb and irrational. Undeniably, stereotyping always involve in giving false statement to
the other party which results rumours and conflicts arise.
In the common family nowadays, my cousins especially females in gender, have a
stereotype that men should be the one who hold all the responsibilities to earn income and
be good providers for the family. They always talk about this issue when we are having
dinner together. My elder cousins believe that men have more capability in supporting a
family compared with women. They tend to be more flexible in accepting challenges,
tackle with difficulties and being rational enough when they face issues as well. This is not
100% true. In my opinion, we are living a competitive society, where women are improving
themselves and getting more successful in every aspects. Not only men can overcome
any difficulties, women nowadays tend to perform better in various circumstances. Women
are given more opportunities to perform on the same platform as men do. We cannot stick
to how the people think in the old days. We must learn to adapt and move on in our live.
Not only apart from that, they also have a stereotype that we, the teenagers, must study
hard to get good grades in order to find a good job with great income in the future. They
always evaluate grades with income. For instances, a person with good grades has higher
chances to engage with a good job in a big and successful company. If he does not
perform well in academic, he will not get hired by the big company by means he will have
little earnings in the future. That is what my cousins always tell me when they see me.
Personally, I think that they are partly right. I understand the importance of studying hard in
order to get good grades, so that we would not be eliminated by the society in the future.
But not about having great income. Because in my point of view, getting good grades does
not make sure that we will acquire good income in the future. Good income is always
depend personally on the individual, his ability, his skills and his attitude to work.
Most of the people I met in my life tell me that being a left-handed person will be good in
mathematics and art, because left-handed person tends to use the right brain more often
which stimulates the nerves signal to sense of art and mathematics. People have
stereotype that left-handlers are good in calculations. That is partly true because it does
not apply to me myself. I am totally opposite from what is being stereotyped, I am weak in
mathematics. Although I am a left-handler but I failed my advance mathematics subject
test in my high school life. I have to admit that I am slow in reading. I need days to
remember a formula in my head. On the other hand, my art sense is better. For example, I

10. can compose a very artistic picture by taking photographs on it. I know the condition for its
best composition of an object or a scenery. That is partly my skill in aspect of art. Hence,
there is nobody right nor wrong in this statement as it all depend on one’s skills. One thing
that I am sure about is, left handlers can be weak in mathematics too!
( 1060 words )

11. 28th October 2015 9.30 p.m.
Confirmation bias is where people actively seek out data that support their own beliefs.
They actively disregard the date to refute on their beliefs too. This psychology concept
happens in me all the time. For example, I am a guy who likes to tuck in my t-shirt all the
time into my jeans. That’s my personal outfit, which represents me very well, and it’s also
an art of manliness. But for other people, they think that I over do. They always comment
me that I’m an old-fashioned person. My style of outfit is out-dated and they strongly
suggest me to change my outfit. Their comment’s on me is like: You're so old-styled, you're
so outdated, please get a new outfit, please follow the trend etc. All of these mentioned
above are their beliefs on my outfit, the tuck-in outfit. By means, they confirmation bias that
the tuck-in outfit is old-fashioned, outdated and should be eliminated. Even if it isn’t, they
actively disregard data to refute their beliefs. The belief perseverance are able to describe
these persons, the biases, that they maintain their original beliefs, even in the face of
contradictory data.
I remember few years ago, I use to have confirmation bias on security guards, that they
are weak in studies which doesn't have the ability to compete with the current society as
they doesn't have the required skills and knowledge. Most of the security guards I met
before are from Nepal, Bangladesh and Philippines. They came to our country to be
security guards for the sake of pursuing a better life. No matter how smart they are I still
maintain my original beliefs, and that’s my bias belief on security guards. I was wrong. Yes
actually there’s right but somehow my bias on them about weak in studies is wrong. It’s
because there’s one day I was waiting for my mother to fetch me up from a security guard
house, I chatted with one of the guards about their lives. So one of the guard told me that
he’s from Bangladesh and studied at University Of Dhaka in engineering degree, but then
he didn’t graduate. The reason why he chose to be a security guard in my country is
because his family doesn't have the ability to support him for further education, and his
parents died on an accident when he is pursuing his studies. From his story, I felt bad that
I had confirmation bias on security guards that are weak in studies. Maybe there is,
maybe, but not all of them is and I told myself not to be confirmation bias on the security
guards again.

12. A lot of people bias belief that left-handed people are more creative than right-handed
people. I am a left-handed person, and I suppose myself that I’m creative. When those
people encounter a person that is both left-handed and creative, they place greater
important on this “evidence” in order to support their already existing belief. They might
even seek out “proof” that further backs up this belief, while discussing examples that do
not support this idea. I was once having interview with a group of people for an assistant
photography job slot. The employer ask us a question: “ Who in this room is left-handed? ”.
Eventually I raised up my hand and answered: “ I am”. There’s also another person who is
left-handed in the same room. Then the employer ask the existing interviewees to leave
the room. From that moment, I suppose that the employer must be looking for left-handed
people because they can provide more artistic and creative advices to the photographer,
when working as an assistant photographer. I also believes that the employer is
confirmation bias in “ left-handed people shows more creativity ” belief. From what I know,
that confirmation biases impact on how people gather information, and they also influence
how people interpret and recall information on others.
Back to my high school years, my class teacher will always evaluate the performance of
her students based on whether it confirmed, or aligned with the proposed traits of their
zodiac. She relied on the zodiac a lot in order to understand everyone’s personalities,
abilities and performance as well. For example, if a student took a little too long to solve a
mathematic question, and sure it happened to be a Virgo. Or if one of the students was a
little careless, it happened to be a Sagittarius. And other students used to believe in it too!
So she had a great feedback on loop going. I once told her that her belief was simply just
ridiculous, which she didn't like it. She is confirmation bias on zodiac which will partially
relates to a person’s character, because different zodiacs portray different characters. It
doesn’t seems to be fair to every of her students because students do perform poorly
sometimes and they need their teacher’s guideline in order to improve. And in my opinion,
my teacher should focus on one’s strength and help to guide them out from weaknesses,
but not just bias on their zodiac that will eventually doesn't allow them to perform better.
( 865 words )

13. 3rd November 2015 1.00 p.m.
Post-decision dissonance is when we have to reject one appealing choice in favour of
another, we will devalue the option not selected by far. After we have made a decision, we
will feel dissonance regarding the possibility of being wrong. By means, it is the basis of
the foot-in-the-door technique where people who are asked to make a small commitment
will later change their views to align with the action and consequently be more amenable
to a more significant request. It is also the basis of brainwashing. For example, my dad
went to Hap Seng Star and bought a Mercedes latest S Class model on last weekend. I
asked him why he cancelled his previous BMW 7 series order? He explained to me that he
found out the BMW have more technical problems and need to be send back to factory to
repair, by means the maintenance fee is high. But for Mercedes it’s not. It is because most
of his friend had explained to him that the Mercedes doesn't have to send back to the
factory so frequent. So he decided to change his choice from BMW to the Mercedes. I told
him that the BMW doesn't have much more technical issues anymore, comparing to the
previous models. But he still maintain his decision on the Mercedes, and eventually he will
find reasons and facts to depreciate the quality of a BMW. We will often change our
perceptions to reduce this dissonance and make the decision seem more attractive.
Moreover, this discomfort causes us to pinpoint all the positives of our chosen option and
all the negatives of the unchosen one. As university students we all probably went through
this when we were applying to a university. We had two campus that had amazing
qualities, with more things that we would love than hate, that pertained to our interests and
likes. However, we chose one, and probably denoted the other school, called out its flaws.
When I was about 8 years old my parents and I took a trip to Disney Land in Japan. We
spent about 2 weeks there. On the last day before we flew out my dad gave me the choice
between riding Space Mountain and a few other roller coasters that I liked a lot or going
back to the water park which was like a natural spring and had rope swings and all kinds of
super fun 8 year old stuff. This was a tough decision for me. I had loved both equally, but
for different reasons. Inevitably I chose the roller coasters, even though I wanted to do
both. At the same time, I can remember thinking, "Why would I go back to the water park,
when I can swim at home?" This is a perfect example of post-decision dissonance in
action. I devalued the water park because I had chosen the roller coasters. The "logical"

14. decision I had made was only logical in that I rid myself of the discomfort and enjoyed the
rest of my day at Disney Land.
During last year of high school, we are told to choose a class monitor from 2 of the best
students in the class. Eventually we will choose the male to be the class monitor as we
tend to think that he's a male and he should have the energy to control the class. But
suddenly, the female started to convince the class to choose her as the class monitor. She
started to provide relevant points and explain how much she can manage to handle the
class, in order to gain confidence from all of us. Sooner or later we started to be interested
in how she present to us. Her presentation on how persistent on obtaining the class
monitor position had gradually allow us to believe in her, and choose her instead of
choosing the male. Although we have 2 options, we have the choice to reject one in favour
of another when we receive positive confidence from it, then we will devalue the option not
selected automatically.
When I purchase a product, I will think about whether is it necessary to me, whether is it
useful to me and whether is it beneficial to me. It’s really hard for me to make the only
decision when I saw both of them are good. So I will have to think of all sorts of reasons, in
order to support my needs. When I come out with the reasons, I will start to devalue
another product which I will not likely to purchase. Some choices are very hard to make,
especially when the options we faced are nearly equivalent. Nevertheless, in the sense of
purchasing goods, we manage to make decisions every day and the buyers remorse
notwithstanding, we frequently feel satisfied with our choices that had been made. And
what about those previously attractive alternatives? Well, we tell ourselves, they were
somehow lacking in a way. But have we arrived at that conclusion through rational
consideration first of each alternative’s objective value, or do we subjectively, and
retroactively, adjust the value we place on rejected option in order to feel better about the
choice we made? Besides, not only do we enhance the value of our chosen options to feel
better about what we chose, we tend to downplay the value of rejected options to further
decrease any uncertainty or cognitive dissonance that might linger after the decision.
( 911 words )