This document contains 5 journal entries by a student on topics in social psychology. The first entry discusses confirmation bias and gives an example of the student's grandfather who only accepts information that confirms his preexisting beliefs about other races. The second entry describes intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and how the student was intrinsically motivated to do well in exams by planning time for both studying and enjoyment. The third entry defines stereotyping and discusses how the student used to hold the stereotype that students at a particular university were all wealthy but now recognizes most are regular students. The fourth entry defines the halo effect and how it can influence judgments based on attractiveness. The fifth and final entry explains classical conditioning and how the student developed an emotional attachment to a pillow they

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND
DESIGN
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL, BUILT AND
ENVIRONMENT
AUGUST 2014/ SEMESTER 2
STUDENT NAME: LOONG BO LIN
STUDENT ID: 0321469
MODULE: SOCIAL PSYCOLOGY (PSYC 0103)
ASSIGNMENT TITLE: THE JOURNAL
SUBMISSION DATE: 27th APRIL 2015

2. JOURNAL 1 – SOCIAL PSYCOLOGY
ENTRY 1 – COMFORMATION BIAS
Where do your beliefs and opinions come from? People have beliefs and people are afraid of
changes. The reality is that all of us are susceptible to a tricky problem known as a confirmation
bias. A confirmation bias is a type of bias that involves information that confirms previously
existing beliefs or biases. For example, imagine that a person holds a belief that left-handed
people are more creative than right-handed people. Whenever this person encounters a person
that is both left-handed and creative, they place greater importance on this "evidence" supporting
their already existing belief.
My grandfather has a mindset that to support only what he wants to believe in and deter
everything else. A common topic of heated conversation would be the existence of other races
and their contribution to society, which is invariably on a low level. On a more serious note, he
clearly shows his displeasure at mixed marriages into the family by nagging and worrying
himself. Reading the newspaper and chats with the family fuel his ego when he comes across
common encounters and events. Despite numerous efforts to explain to my grandfather that other
races are people too, just like us. In fact, he denies it by connecting the dots only to his own
experiences. Not being able to accept the world and its whole truth, my grandfather draws the
boundaries of his own world in the late stages of his life. Conclusively, limiting oneself to the
possibilities that come with ideas we’d never think of is a result of confirmation bias.

3. JOURNAL 2 – THE SELF
ENTRY 1 – MOTIVATION
Based on psychology, motivation is divided into two types, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic
motivation. A person is intrinsically motivated if the desire for change comes from within the
individual. The person may want to learn something because he or she is interested. Another
person may want to accomplish a goal or task because it is something he or she feels capable at
and enjoys doing. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation comes from outside the person. They
are persuaded to do something or they earn a prize or reward. Fear of punishment is also
extrinsic motivators.
In my whole 12 years of schooling, from primary school to high school and foundation for now,
intrinsic motivation has been used for years. By having enjoyment, it will lead me to be more
fully engaged and pleasure. I will always start the enjoyment before study especially during the
SPM year. I used to binge-watch Korean drama most of the time, sometimes 5 to 8 hours straight.
I was also addicted to a point that didn’t do well in my examination. Time flies and SPM just
around the corner, I promise myself not to touch any electrical devices before I finish my
revisions. I would arrange my time properly for entertainment and study. As result, my well
planned time management made it works. It leads me to be motivated, as I bear in mind that do
all the revisions before enjoyment. Usually I will only spend 2 hours for dramas, others would be
doing revisions. I felt the pleasure after the “heaven” and it made me more focus in my studies.
As watching drama can help me to release stress and activated my brain after a long time of
studying. At the end of the day, I did quite well and reach my target in my SPM examination. I
was very satisfied with my results because I could motivate myself to study.

4. JOURNAL 3 – SOCIALCOGNITION
ENTRY 1 – STEREOTYPING
A stereotype assumes that all members of a group share some common feature. One advantage of
a stereotype is that it enables us to respond rapidly to situations because we may have had a
similar experience before. One disadvantage is that it makes us ignore differences between
individuals. Therefore, we think things about people that might not be true.
Based on this psychological concept, one of the stereotype that personally affects me is the
perception that Taylor’s Lakeside University Campus students are the rich people, big money
spender, squandering their parent’s money to get the enjoyment of university life. I used to hold
that opinion regarding the school’s image, but now say that percentage of student that make up is
low. Overall, most of it is usual types of students. The reason that originally leads to this
stereotype is actually the design of the beautiful campus that won many architectural awards,
thus people assume it as an expensive institution. In truth, Taylor’s Lakeside University Campus
is alike many other universities, what with the usual pre-U courses at reasonable prices. In
conclusion, stereotyping is prejudice at the next level, and nearly always for a bad reason.

5. JOURNAL 4 – SOCIAL PERCEPTION
ENTRY 1 – THE HALO EFFECT
The halo effect can be defined as the tendency to use global evaluations to make judgments
about specific traits. In other words, we use a global characteristic, such as attractive to
determine specific personality. We attribute personality qualities to people we have only seen,
even though we have never met them, and the qualities have nothing to do with their looks. This
phenomenon happens unconsciously, we are unaware of the bias we develop simply because of a
person's attractiveness.
A common example that displays the halo effect everywhere is advertising at its simplest, the
usage of celebrities as models to promote their fashion brand. Besides possessing celestial
physique and facial features, the customer base would make an inference about the personalities
of the celebrities before considering the value of the thing. They would relate and evaluate he or
her personal characteristics and images in their minds. In truth, we think that anyone who’s
image is primped to become some sort of higher person definitely also has similar qualities to his
or her looks. Being aware of the halo effect, however, does not make it easy to avoid its
influence on our perceptions and decisions.

6. JOURNAL 5 – ATTITUDES
ENTRY 1 – CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
Classical conditioning theory involves learning a new behavior via the process of association. In
simple terms two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response in a person or
animal.
I have many objects that have been exposed to me repeatedly. One of the objects that have been
exposed to me repeatedly most is my favorite pillow. I had the pillow with me since I was 4
years old. My parents bought it for me from a departmental store at that time. The reason why I
like using the pillow is because it had my own smell on it, not to be disgusting but it had my
saliva smell on it. When I was still small, I would bring it along everywhere I go, especially
going on holidays. I would cry if I ever forgotten to bring the pillow along. I would hug the
pillow and I would smell it till I fall asleep. My sisters would also always play a prank on me by
putting my pillow away and they would always lie to me that they throw the pillow away. Years
by years, I decided to throw it away despite it being too old. The colour of the pillow had already
faded off. I could say that the pillow had me emotionally attached to it as it had been with me for
so man years. That is my experience that applies the simple exposure effect.