This document discusses several concepts related to cognitive development and psychology: 1. It describes Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development and how a young boy modified his schemas and developed new ones through experiences at his grandfather's village and the zoo. 2. It discusses how first impressions can often be wrong and provides an example of judging a classmate negatively based on initial impressions but later realizing she was actually kind and fun. 3. It explains Fritz Heider's balance theory of feeling comfortable with those who share similar attitudes and an example of struggling to converse with someone of differing views.

1. NAME : NADHIRAH MOHD ZAIN
ID NO : 0321366
GROUP : MONDAY (4 - 6 PM)
COURSE : FNBE / SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
SUBMISSION DATE : 27 APRIL 2015

2. DATE : 14 MARCH 2015
TIME : 11 PM
CONCEPT : COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORY
According to the psychologist Jean Piaget, children progress through a series
of four key stages of cognitive development. He introduced five keys concept that
influence how children grow and learn - schema, assimilation, accommodation,
equilibrium and equilibration. From this five keys concept, I can relate it with the
growing process of my younger brother.
During school holiday, my family and I went to my dad’s hometown in Negeri
Sembilan. Most of the villagers are rearing chickens, cows, goats and ducks. For
the first time my brother saw a cow and he would developed a schema for a cow.
Now he know that a cow is large, has hair, has four legs and a tail. When my
parents brought us to the zoo, we stop to see horses. At that time, my brother
thought the horses as a cow. After all, the horse fit with his schema for the
characteristic of a cow; large, has four legs, has hair and a tail. My mother tried to
correct him. She told that this is a different animal called horse. Now, he would
modified her existing schema for a cow and created a new schema for a horses.
Suddenly, my brother made a woof sound even though we still at the stable.
This time, he encountered a miniature horse for the first time and mistakenly it as
a dog. My parents explained to him that the animal was actually a very small type
of horse. So, he must this time modify her existing schema for horse. He realized
that while some horses are very large animal, other can be very small. Through
his experience, his existing schemas were modified and new information was
learned. If not work, he would create a new schema.

3. DATE : 4 APRIL 2015
TIME : 9 AM
CONCEPT : FIRST IMPRESSION
People say that don’t judge a book by its cover, and especially regarding
people, it’s true. In this case, the “cover” is not necessarily meaning the
appearance, but the first impression of another person. Like the book cover, first
impressions are not always as appealing as what is really are. You will never
know until you start “reading”, or get to know someone. Then you realized that
what you see is not always what you thought will be. Different personality,
situations and presentation of a person make first impression often be misjudged.
A person’s personality has a big effect on the first impression that they emit.
During my high school year, i have a clique of friends. We started to be really
close when we were in form four. Majority of them are really friendly and nice,
even others know just by meet them for the first time except for one, shafiqah.
Shafiqah and I never talked to each other before as we never be in the same
class. At first when I saw her, she was really quiet with her strict face and she
even did not show her smile when we meet. She was so rough and have a tough
body for a girl as she was an athlete. In our batch, Shafiqah was known as ‘Bom’,
her nickname. As I heard her name, I was so confirmed that she was called as
Bom because of her personalities.
On the day of form four registration, I was told that we would be a roommate. At
first I was like “this will be the end of the world!”. That night, after preparation
class, I spent my time at my friend’s room. I only went to my room after ‘light off’.
The situation continued for quite sometimes. I don’t know when and how did we
become closer. What I know is, shafiqah was not like what I thought. She loves to
laugh and makes jokes. She is a trustworthy, outgoing and a very good friend.
Based on my first impression on her, I thought something that was far from the
truth. One who has a rough personality might in reality be a friendly, but

4. uncomfortable showing it at first, making the first impression of that person is a
mistaken one.
I believe that first impression is often wrong. I must confess that i judge people
by their first appearance, but I tell myself this is a subject to change and try to
keep my opinion with me. By communication, by actions and deeds, and by
attitude to others we could get to know person better.

5. DATE : 5 APRIL 2015
TIME : 10 PM
CONCEPT : FRITZ HEIDER’S BALANCE THEORY
We usually choose our friends unconsciously without knowing why. For me, I
tend to approach or talk more to people I feel comfortable to talk with. So, this is
what they mean about people desire “cognitive consistency”. According to Fritz
Heider’s Balance Theory, we feel comfortable with people who share same
attitude as our and vice versa.
During my first orientation day at Taylors, I sat next to a girl design student,
who I have nothing common with. I encourage myself to break the ice between
us. Throughout the day, I was struggling on finding topics to talk to her. From
where you from to what course you’re studying. Boring topics mostly that I paid
more attention to the speaker than trying to start a real conversation.This
situation can be define as unbalance state because we are not comfortable with
our company as we don’t share our attitude.
On the other hand, I have met these two girls whom we became best friends
soon on that same week after I met the girl. Surprisingly, it turns out we have
many thing in common. It kind of rare but nonetheless, I find my self comfortable
and calm, since my friends’ thought and belief will be similar to mine. So I am not
going into argument with my friend trying to pursued and make they agree with
my point of view. When we share my attitudes, we are in balanced state.

6. DATE : 8 APRIL 2015
TIME : 11 PM
CONCEPT : SELF-PERCEPTIONTHEORY
Do you ever take a long time to think when people ask you how you feel about
a certain thing? Have you ever feel confused about what you were feeling?
Actually, we used to be in this kind of situation without our awareness. When our
feelings and attitudes are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer this state by judging
whether our behaviors really reflect how we feel or whether it was the situation
that made us act that way. So, knowing ourselves by observing our own
behaviour is what we called self-perception theory.
SPM leavers usually spend their free time by working as part timer, so do I.
My aunt hired me and my cousin to work with her as she run a catering business.
Washing the dishes, set up the tent and the table for the guest and clean up
everything after the events were end - doing boring job. The thing I hate the most
was, I had to stand the heat as we work under the sunlight, only tent to protect
me- well, every girl hate it. When people asked us about our job, we tend to say
that this work was interesting and enjoyable. Why so? Because of the reward that
we got as our salary. Not only the money, we also had time to watch movie at the
cinema as we had to take care of my aunt’s eight years old daughter when she
had work to do.
In a nut shell, self perceptual theory is influence by the motivation that we
get. Whether we join the activity because we enjoy it (intrinsic motivation) or
because of external reason (extrinsic motivation). In my situation, it was because
of extrinsic

7. DATE : 27 APRIL 2015
TIME : 7 AM
CONCEPT : CONFIRMATION BIAS
I used to move from one school to another school as my dad had to move
because of his work. So, I always make a new friend there. I also meet friends
who were left-handed and I think they were unique as I am right-handed. From
my observation, I tend to belief that left-handed people are more creative than
right handed. Every time I encountered a person with both left-handed and
creative, it resulting me to place a greater importance of the evidence that
supporting my existing belief. Most of my left-handed friends took art class for
their SPM and it make me believed that my idea is right. Even though I have a
cousin who is left-handed but he is not a creative person. I keep telling myself
that my cousin is a male that why he is not creative ( I also believe that male is
less creative than female).
People usually have their own believe about something. Sometimes, they tend
to protect their believe even though there a situation that do not support their
idea. This is what we called confirmation bias.