1. The document summarizes entries from a student's journal on topics in social psychology. 2. One entry discusses how the student's sister's performance in track competitions improved due to social facilitation from audiences, though this effect does not always occur such as during oral presentations. 3. Another entry describes how the student's intrinsic motivation for drawing developed from initial extrinsic motivation to represent their class in an art competition. 4. Stereotyping is discussed as a cause of racism in Malaysia, with examples of teachers making assumptions about student abilities and athletic skills based on their race. 5. The concept of self-fulfilling prophecies is explained through the student reflecting on how their own thoughts and expectations affected their

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
NAME: CHONG JIA YI
STUDENT ID NO: 0320869
GROUP /SESSION: MONDAY9 AM
SUBJECT: PSY30203105704-MSocialPsychology
ASSIGNMENT 1: The Journal
LECTURER: MR.T. SHANKAR
SUBMISSIONDATE:APRIL 27TH
2015

2. The journal 01
Chapter 1: What Is Social Psychology?
Entry 1: Social Facilitation
Social facilitation can be defined as ‘an improvement of performance produce by the presence of
others’. However,this only work when you are performing easy task while your performance will be worse
when you presenting difficult task in front of the crowd. This is because the presence of others increases
physiological activation such that our bodies become more energized, but when we are excited, it is more
difficult to perform new or difficult tasks. The dominant response is that under arousal it is easier to do
things we can easily perform. The presence of others makes us suspect evaluation of other toward us.
Depending on how we predict that evaluation, we may look forward to either flattery or criticism.
My sister is an athlete who good at track and field. She participates in many interschool competitions
and sometimes she will been chosen as school representative to compete with other schools student. Training
and practice before competition are necessary for her to improve her performance. As her sister, my job is to
collect data such as her training result and final performance in competition. After analyzing the data, I found
that her performance somehow improve stupendously in competition compare to training. Moreover, she
always broke her own record during competition. I felt surprisingly because I previously thought that the
nervousness during competition may let down her result.
According to her explanation of her feeling during competition, she said that she feelstress when
many people watching her performance. She predict the response of others toward her based on her
performance,for instance, people may felt disappointed of her if her performance is bad. She also predicts that
people pay more attention toward her than actually it is. This is related to audience effect in social facilitation.

3. Furthermore, she also will look forward for praise and glorification from others, this behavior had motivated
her in competition.
However,sometimes, social facilitation does not work. For instance, my sister is a quiet person and
does not speak in front often. Every oral presentation, she practice very hard in house and make sure all of her
pronunciation and performance are perfect before her presentation. Nonetheless, she got low marks in her oral
test. This is because her nervousness and tension make her unable to perform well.
In conclusion, social facilitation does not work in every situation. It only works when the person was
confidence and proficient on what his/her was doing. If the person have no confidence on his/her performance,
the outcome will only get worse.

4. The Journal 2
Chapter 2: The Self: Who Am I and How Do Other Individuals See Me?
Entry 01: Motivation
Motivation is the process that triggers, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. Motivation is
what causes us to act,whether it is getting a bread to reduce hungriness or reading a book to gain knowledge.
Motivation is frequently used to describe the reason of a person’s action.
Different types of motivation are frequently described as being either extrinsic or intrinsic. Extrinsic
motivations are those that arise from outside of the individual and often involve rewards such as trophies,
money, social recognition or praise. Intrinsic motivations are those that arise from within the individual, such
as doing a complicated Olympic math question purely for the personal enjoyment. Below is the experience in
my life which could relate with this theory.
If you asking about what I usually do during my free time, I probably would tell you that the answer is
drawing. Drawing is my passion; however, I didn’t used to drawing in my childhood. I start indulged in
drawing since my secondary school time. I start drawing as I am chosen to represent class to participate n
school art competition. My teacher put a high expectation on me and she start training me in drawing. To
avoid been punish by teacher and fulfill my obligation as class representative, I put much effort to accomplish
this task. However,although my drawing skill improves, it is still unsatisfactory. My drawing ability boost
after that, while I developed interest on drawing during I working on the project. My interest and passion on
drawing help me gain a consolation prize in the contest. Although it is only a consolation prize, I obtain
confidence on drawing as my effort has been recognized by others. Therefore,my motivation on drawing
increased and persists until today.
In conclusion, my passion on art is based on extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. In the
beginning, the behavior (drawing) is activated by environmental factors (been chosen as class representative in

5. art competition). However, gradually, when the behavior triggers self-satisfaction and boost self-esteem,the
motivation to engage the behavior arises because of internal reward. Therefore,the motivation for me to
engage the behavior convert from extrinsic to intrinsic which lead to higher accomplishment in certain field.

6. The Journal 3
Chapter 3: Social Cognition: Thinking About the Social World
Entry 01: Stereotyping
Stereotypes are generalizations about groups that are often applied to individual group members.
Stereotypes can be positive, negative, or neutral. Stereotypes based on gender, ethnicity, or occupation are
common in many societies. When people encounter cases that contradict their stereotypes of a particular group,
they tend to assume that those instances are abnormal subtypes of the group. People’s perceptions are also
influenced by their expectations while they tend to ignore some details that disconfirm their stereotypes.
Stereotype serves important function in daily life. They allow people to process new cognition about
an event or person quickly. They help to organize people past experiences. Peoples assess differences between
individuals and groups by using stereotypes. Last but not least, they help people to make predictions about
other people’s behavior.
Although it serve important function to reduce burden of brain, it can be dangerous too. They cause
people to overstate differences among groups. They also lead people to focus selectively on information that
agrees with the stereotype and ignore information that disconfirm with it. Moreover, stereotype make people
percept other groups as overly homogenous, even though people can easily see that the groups they belong to
are heterogeneous.
In my opinion, the most contribute causes of racist in Malaysia is stereotyping. People tend to judge
other races people by stereotyping, for instance, people assume Malay as ardor people, Indian as athlete
people, and Chinese as business brained people. These happen in my secondary school as some of my teacher
made perception on their student ability based on their races. For instance, my additional math teacher
assumes that all Chinese student are good in math, therefore he expect all of our class Chinese student will get

7. A in this subject. Whoever didn’t get A in add math will be blame and punish. He also put much attention on
other races students as he think that they need more help.
Moreover, my sport teacher also made assumption on his students’ capability according their races.
He split our class in 3 groups based on races during his class. Furthermore, he chose class representative in
school sport competition based on races. For example, he was more likely to choose an Indian in track and
field competition, Malay in football competition and Chinese in badminton competition due to his stereotype.
However,the stereotype they made were not always correct because there are some Chinese couldn’t
pass their math exam and some other races student got A in their exam as well as there are other races student
perform better in the sport that are not stereotyped by teachers. Therefore,stereotypes aren’t work on every
individual. In conclusion, we should judge specific individuals rather than the groups of which they’re part.

8. The Journal 4
Chapter 4: Social Perception: How Do We Perceive Others?
Entry 01: The self fulfilling prophecy
The self-fulfilling prophecy is a statement that alters actions and therefore comes true. For example, a
person said that he probably will have a miserable day, might
change his actions so that his action fulfills his prophecy. On
the other hand, a person who adopts self-fulfilling prophecy in
a positive way who makes prediction to have a nice day might
act in ways that will actually make this prediction true. Our
expectation that we will see a particular outcome influences
our action, which shapes the way others see us. In turn, others
provide the feedback we have set ourselves up to get, which
serves to reinforce the original belief.(Diagram 4.1) Diagram 4.1
After studying social psychology, I found that sometimes our psychology state could affect our
behavior and the respond of environment or others. This is because when I flash back my secondary life, I
found that my thought at that time would affect my academic result. This is because when I thought that the
question would be very difficult and I have no confidence with my answer,I didn’t have good result and vice
versa.
It is because, when I thought the question is too challenging for me, I will have low confidence and
being unsure about my answer during exam. I also may be unprepared before exam because I gave up on the
exam. When I think that the question is easy, I would able to think clearly because I am not too nervous before
exam. When I am think sanely, even the question are not as easy as I thought, I would able to solve it.

9. This shows that our expectation toward a particular event may be come true because our behavior will
lead to our predictions. According to examples above, my expectation (I could get good results in the exam
because of the exam are too difficult), affect our behavior respond to my expectation which is being
unconfident, unprepared, giving up to that exam. Therefore our behaviors affect the outcome of our behaviors
which is getting bad result in exam.
In conclusion, I learned that I could implement self-fulfilling prophecy theory in my daily life. I
should think positively and make optimistic prediction because our belief will attract particular outcome so-
called “The law of attraction”.

10. The Journal 5
Chapter 05: Attitudes: Making Evaluations about the World
Entry 01: Balance theory
Balance Theory introduced by Fritz Heider to show how people develop their relationships with
other people and with things in their environment. In other words, if we feel we are 'out of balance', then we
are motivated to restore a position of balance. Fritz Heider insists that people will attempt to maintain a
psychological balance and form relationships that balance out their
likes and dislikes. For instance, if I dislike John, John likes his dogs,
so I possibly will dislike his dogs too.
These systems are sometimes referred to as P-O-Xtriads, in
which P = person (i.e., self), O = other person, and X = some stimulus
or event. (Diagram 5.1) Diagram 5.1
For example, Taylor Swift is my idol. I like her and I found that she endorsed in diet coke. In this
case,Taylor Swift represents O,I represent P, and diet coke is X. Before her endorsement of diet coke, I
didn’t like to drink diet coke and I prefer Pepsithan coke. Therefore,there is an unbalance state when I
realized the imbalance between these three elements. I feel that if I like Taylor, and she love diet coke, then
I shouldn’t hate diet coke. Heider’s balance theory predicts that I would change my attitude to restore the
imbalance. I may either change my attitude toward diet coke from dislike to adore or toward Taylor Swift
from like to unfavorable. Later, I realized that diet coke is tasty and healthier compare to pepsi.
The feeling become stronger when I know one direction endorsed in pepsi. I don’t like one direction
as I found that their music is boring and they are not talented as Taylor Swift. Previously I like to drink

11. pepsi, but because of I don’t like One direction, they endorsed in pepsi, I tends to redress the unbalanced
state by reduce my fondness toward pepsi. At the end, my preferences of drinks changed because of
celebrity advertising.
In short, balance theory can summary as : my friend’s friend is my friend, my friend’s enemy is my
enemy; my enemy’s friend is my enemy; my enemy’s enemy is my friend.

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http://www.simplypsychology.org/social-psychology.html
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