Social psychology

Foundation in Natural and Built Environment

PSY30203 Social Psychology

Assignment 1: Journal

Student Name: Wong Yun Teng

Student ID: 0323454

Lecturer Name: Mr. Shankar Thiruchelvam

Word Count: 4655 words

Journal Entry 1 (21st November 2015, 21:10)

The false consensus effect is the assumption that everyone has the same opinion as

you which is caused by how people interpret information given to them. Different people

process situations and circumstances differently and can come to a very different conclusion

from you but if one does not think too deeply of how another would react to a given event,

one would typically assume that they think along the same lines with you. Common sense,

contradicting with its name, is not a uniform idea which everyone has and is subjective from

person to person. Which is why it surprises me when others have different opinions of a

subject I thought was common knowledge. There was this time when I mixed my KFC

mashed potato with the coleslaw like I always do and my friends looked at me strangely.

Wasn’t it normal? Didn’t everyone do this? Apparently not. There is a better example for this

matter though and it starts like this:

It was during business class where I was sitting in a corner just minding my own

business as usual. A few friends that I wasn’t close to were sitting near me chatting away.

The lecturer was trying to get our attention but no one was really giving her the attention she

asked for. Of course I was listening to her talk but I didn’t want to bring attention to myself

unless I had to. I noticed some people were even tapping away on their phones, playing Clash

of Clans and such. It’s not uncommon but on full volume is a bit much. Why couldn’t they

just turn off the volume anyway, it wasn’t as if it was a rhythm game and music mattered in

it. This is why doodling in class was better, you don’t cause a ruckus and the more you drew

the more practice you get so overall it was a win-win situation for me. After a long while and

somewhat giving up on trying to get us to focus on her talk, the lecturer soon transcended to

having a question and answer session. Oh boy, looks like there would be some action now. I

wonder what she’ll ask about.

She began asking what was “illegal but ethical” and “illegal and unethical” and what

not. Things like stealing things for the greater good or like breaking innocent bystanders out

of jail and what not. Illegal and unethical is kind of self explanatory I guess. Killing people in

cold blood, stealing for self gain things like that. Everything was normal until she brought up

“LEGAL but UNETHICAL” things. Sure most were like cigarettes, casinos and so on but I

haven’t answered once. These things were common sense were they not? I mean everyone

should know what is what at this age but then this girl nearby turned towards me suddenly

and said something along the lines of “Bro, I know what’s illegal and unethical.” with a

clearly straight and determined face. I didn’t talk to her much or anything so I was slightly

taken aback by this. I couldn’t be the one who doesn’t reply to responses though so I went

“And what is it?”. The other girl took in a deep breath looking kind of smug and continued,

“Condoms!” What. The. Heck. Don’t condoms prevent unwanted babies? Wasn’t that a good

thing? I don’t see how it was unethical at all. There better be a better reason behind this that

just “Oh just because.”

“Are you serious?” I am seriously questioning if she hit herself in the head or not.

Does she know what a condom is for? She looked dead into my eyes and said “Condoms

might be approved by the government but it promotes sex so it’s unethical!” That was not

what I expected at all. “Are you for real now?” I asked again hoping she was just pulling my

leg but she kept looking at me all serious. “I mean it.” She ended the conversation. I could

only keep quiet in the end. My initial thought about her statement was ‘She was going to get

pregnant first’ but then I thought about it. It’s true that with condoms now people do the thing

more often now but it doesn’t mean isn’t unethical, it’s was just human nature.

Thinking a little further I realized that girl wasn’t from a metropolitan area so her

thinking might have still been a little old fashioned especially about that topic but even then

no matter how I look at it, condoms do prevent unwanted pregnancy and in no way would it

promote sex since people will still make love regardless of what people do to prevent it so

you might as well find ways to prevent anything unwanted to happen than not have it. So I

guess that if you grow up in a rural area sometimes your so called common sense will not be

the same as if you were brought up in a city area. Like some people only do it when they

want to have a child but some people just want to do the thing but not bear the responsibilities

of carrying a child. Seems like common sense also depends on how your parents bring you up

and teach you about life and the birds and the bees.

As a conclusion to the story, the saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” really

strikes hard on this tale. Common sense is different from everyone and you can’t just assume

they think the same but really since we’re only human we tend to do it subconsciously and

can’t help it. Even things like how we think about a simple word like ‘dad’ or ‘mom’ or

‘pencil’ can be different. Like for me a pencil is equivalent to a drawing tool and is very

important to be but someone else will probably see it as a waste of trees since we can go

paperless now.


Downwards social comparison is the self-esteem boost we get from feeling like we

are better than others. Like when others have more deadlines that are coming up and you

have it easy so you feel better about your workload or maybe like when others get less pay

than you even though they do the same job as you. Maybe it sounds a bit harsh when put into

words but as humans we tend to do it subconsciously as a way to cope with social anxiety or

stress. Even in things like people’s love lives we sometimes think that way as well.

Comparing oneself with another has been with us since we started living in communities and

is not uncommon to think like this but it makes a difference if you voice or act it out or not.

There was a time in my life when I was gaming more than I should have, like

seriously hardcore gaming and I spent many nights over at my neighbours playing games.

This was in my high school days so we did have exams but I kept falling asleep in class

because of all the gaming I did. My mom wasn’t the type to pay attention to me so I had

complete freedom over my curfews and time management but because of this no one really

told me to suck it up and pay attention to my studies so this went on for awhile and it was

beginning to seriously affect me and my grades.

The day finally arrived when my history paper descended upon me and I did not

study. Not even one bit. When the first paper started, I tried reading through the paper and it’s

questions but everything just looked like ancient scribbles and blabbering to me. I did make

an effort to at least squeeze something out so that I can say I did try but not hard enough.

Paper two rolled on by and I felt my stomach hit rock bottom. I didn’t read anything. Check.

This paper relied heavily on essay markings. Double check. Put two and two together and

what do I get. A lot of regret. Sure it would’ve still have been okay if it were a normal exam

but heck, it was SPM Trials AND my school wasn’t an ordinary one either, it was Cluster

School which meant that I had to deliver quite a high mark to even pass or I’ll get it from the

teachers for sure. Oh and not to mention after these two papers we had one more. The

dreaded paper three. It was easier comparatively to its counterparts but what was the format?

I’m sure there was one...oh right, I didn’t study a thing and completely forgot how you’re

supposed to structure the damn thing. Part of me just wanted to give up being the top student

in class but I wouldn’t have myself become the worst one. Thank God though that the paper

wasn’t on the same day.

Yet I just was so freaking lazy. SO very lazy that I couldn’t even begin concentrating

on revising for the paper but I just couldn’t. That day I just took a super long nap and woke

up at 4AM, lights not even out yet. I picked up this comic version of the history textbook

syllabus which I got from my seniors. The book was all I had and going through it again I

saw all of the jokes and snide remarks my seniors had left for me. Those jokes caused me to

remember Nabi Muhammad’s qualities are F.A.T.S (which are Fartanah, Amanah, Tabliq,

Siddiq) and stuff like you have to be S.L.I.M (Sihat, Lelaki, Melayu, Islam) to be a Khalifah.

It made chuckle and surprisingly by 7AM, which was when the exams started, I was fully

awake and I had memorized everything. At this point even my friends thought I was going to

fail but I ended up getting a 92% and in the end scoring a 100% for my paper three. I don’t

know how because I was sure my friends all studied much harder than me but they all got less

than 70% in their papers and some even getting a sad little ‘C’ for their papers.

I felt sorry for my friends then but at the same time I actually felt really good for

myself and even better when I realized that I did better on the test even though I put in

substantially less effort than the others. Alright! I did it! Well, okay I shouldn’t celebrate the

fact that I didn’t study until the eleventh hour for this but it was better than beating myself up

over my guilt of not studying at all. From this event onward, it kind of gave me some

confidence that I can do what I want like drawing or making things with my hand and I can

still score well. Later on for my SPM, I actually put in a lot more effort than I did, learning

for my past mistake and still ended up getting 9A’s and a B in Chinese but I still felt really

satisfied with myself because I managed to get those results from my own efforts alone

compared to my other friends that went to tution almost everyday of the week and come

home late plus sometimes they don’t even have time to do what they wanted and in the end

only get 4A’s total for SPM.

Concluding this anecdote, I guess all I can say is to not to do things last minute and

also maybe sometimes comparing ourselves for a confidence or self-esteem boost isn’t so bad

sometimes. Humans can’t always just tell themselves how they have messed up for even beat

themselves up over things but sometimes they have to think a certain way to feel better about

yourself as a self-coping mechanism. We are only human after all so thinking this way isn’t

wrong unless you openly act upon it.


Stereotyping people has always been a common occurrence in the human community.

A stereotype is an assumption of a group of people who share the same qualities like how you

would think all goths are depressive and love poetry. These stereotypes aren’t always right

because since we are only human, we cannot conform to all the factors to a certain stereotype.

Assuming a stereotype upon a person just entirely based off a person’s appearance and first

impression. Although stereotypes are sometimes mistaken as discrimination but they are not

to be confused by each other. Stereotyping does not hurt anyone in the process but

discriminating is acting upon a stereotype and if acted upon others, it can affect another

person. Stereotyping can be linked to the perseverance effect, which is when people come to

a certain conclusion or schema and do not want to let it go. So you can say that stereotyping

has a certain degree of the perseverance effect in itself due to it being a subconscious

instinctual thought process that humans face and find it out to break out of.

Thinking back on past experiences, I have always had this presumption that all

restaurant workers, ESPECIALLY the waiters and waitresses, were not sincere about their

jobs. There were a lot of rumors about rude waiters and waitresses from people and even

videos on Youtube of people complaining and videoing these servers and their bad service

and attitude. Not to mention the times I had actually witnessed and experienced it for myself.

Unknowing to myself I started to stereotype these servers as dishonest and scheming people,

always faking their feelings and serving you half-heartedly. This changed of course when I

had forgotten my handphone in a restaurant in 1 Utama. It was quite careless of me to

accidentally leave my phone and wallet behind and only realize it once I got home. Actually

it took sometime even after I returned home to realize it was not in my possession. I had to

unconsciously try to reach into my pockets for my phone to check my Facebook and this was

a couple of hours after we got home. I remember the first thing that went on through my mind

was “Oh shit.”

Panicking, I hurried down to my house phone and dialed in my own number. I never

imagined I would be ironically calling myself one day but hell, I needed my phone. My mind

already already jumping to conclusions like how someone had stole it already and hacked

into all my accounts to steal my money and stuff but to my surprise the person who picked up

wasn’t some shady guy, it was a waitress from the restaurant. She informed me that she saw

my phone when she was cleaning up and put it in safekeeping until I could come and get it

back, she was glad that I actually called back. I came back the next day because it was

already too late when I last called my phone. When I got there, she gave me back my phone

and wallet with a smile and after I checked it, everything was still in it’s place and nothing

had been changed. Heck even the money did not decrease. I thanked her profusely but what I

didn’t expect was she even gave me and my little brother some treats before we left.

After my mother found out about my clumsy endeavour, she told me off for a whole

night. Telling me every few minutes that I should be more careful with my things and

constantly check for them since I had a tendency for this to happen. To quote her roughly I

was just “really careless and lucky”. While being lectured for the whole day I was thinking

back to the waitress from the restaurant. I can assure you that I will not try to pull of the same

stunt again since we need to learn from our mistakes, but the lady didn’t owe me anything or

anyone she serves actually. To help keep someone’s phone and wallet and completely not

touch them was a feat to me after hearing something about people stealing money from you

even if you had your wallet with you. I know some people that I know very well or even

relatives that would even try and take something out of my wallet if I trusted them with it so I

expected a stranger to do no less.

From then on, my views on waiters and waitresses have changed. Sure there are some

bad people out there but you should not group them all into one and assume they were all

bad. Maybe restaurant workers didn’t hate their jobs that much after all...well some of them

at least. Just like the lady from the restaurant that kept my phone for an entire day and a half,

some might really enjoy serving people and take their jobs seriously like how they should. I

should not judge them all just because of the few bad apples I had to experience. Even if it’s

one in a million, there is bound to be good in a lot.


The Halo Effect is a bias of some sort that affects your further impression on a person

or anything in fact. It is when one positive thing about a person or thing leads us to believe

and construct their perceived personality on our own, assuming the best from the person from

the initial impression. Can be considered a first impression thing that we, as humans, do

unconsciously. This effect stresses the importance of good first impressions. For example, if

you give your future bosses a good impression in the interview it would create a lasting

impression on them and help you out considerably on the long run. No matter what people

say about them actually being able to control their impression on you, they are just unaware

that the Halo Effect has already taken hold and they still subconsciously are affected by it.

I used be very lonely when I first started secondary school. I did have friends from my

primary school but none of them ended up in the same class as me so I was mostly alone. I

was then forced to sit beside a girl that had rounded glasses and hair tied back into a high

ponytail. Her pinafore was also considerably longer than others and appeared like those really

studious students that cared a lot about their grades and studies. True, her grades were good

and after opening up to her slightly, well let’s face it, I had to sooner or later since we had the

whole year or so of sitting beside each other, and discovered that she was really well

educated and fluent in English and not to mention really tidy as a person. That being such a

good first impression of her, I carelessly assumed that everything about her would be picture

perfect and no complications would come up.

NOPE! She was not perfect in the slightest. Perfect was the word furthest from her. It

only took me a while with her to find out that she was spoilt rotten and was the literal

definition of a daddy’s girl. Usually people asked for things politely or not but she would

demand from others to put it lightly. Given any situation she would always choose the most

costly and expensive course of action instead of a more affordable and sensible route for the

same outcome. Instead of escaping her presence after the first year, I had to deal with her for

my whole secondary life. She had moved to a condominium when we were in Form 2 and

invited me and our friends over just so she could flaunt her new home to us. She would take

anything and everything in her house and told us how much everything costed down to the

very cents. No one really wanted to cause any drama so we played along. I especially was

probably on the tipping point from her attitude with I decided against it, see that we had still a

number of years together. When it was my turn to move, we were in Form 4, it was just a two

storey terrance house that was close to school. It was not anything special or to shout about so

I saw no problems just informing my group of friends about it which did include the girl

(which I should refer to as the RICH girl from now). When I told them about the news my

other friends were happy for me but the Rich Girl however thought I was trying to compete

with her. “How many square feet is your house?” She blurted out, demanding to know.

“What? How would I know? And what did it matter?” I didn’t know what else to answer at

that point. Honestly, it wasn’t your house why should you care? She then told me about her

new house which would be a bungalow that would be much bigger than my house and shifted

the whole conversation about herself. Nothing she talked about was even relevant to what I

brought up earlier.

Later I found out that she was finally moving to her oh-so-much-bigger-bangalow

later that same year but closer to when we were going to Form 5. Even normal people could

see that she only stayed in her huge condominium for less than 3 years. There was not even a

problem with her old house and she wanted to move. There had been many incidents of her

going overseas to places like London and coming back just to show off what she did and got

in the said countries. After all this, I could not believe my past self to have thought of her as

the kind, cool and studious type of girl. If I could have a time machine I would go back to

that point in time to tell myself to never get associated with her in the first place. It would

save me at least 10 years of my life span not talking or meeting her.

I guess you can say we should not judge someone based on their initial appearance

alone. Sometimes someone with a pretty exterior does not bear a matching interior but then

again if I didn’t get to see that interior, you wouldn’t have know what horrors to stay away

from or learn what not to do to others.


Operant conditioning is the conditioning using reinforcement or punishment to

strengthen or weaken a certain behaviour. There are two outcomes from this conditioning are

positive or negative reinforcement and positive or negative punishment. The most

misunderstood outcome is negative reinforcement. An example of this is when a child is

spoilt by their parents getting whatever they ask for and allowing them to throw tantrums. My

story is one about negative reinforcement, it’s more of a self reflection since I realized how

my behaviour came to be.

When I was young, I really liked playing with toys, especially plush toys, sadly plush

toys are often really expensive in stores. My mom would always buy them for me whenever I

asked for them and it never occurred to me that she would stop. Who could blame me, she

had never said no to any of my requests and I was too young to understand the concept of

money and how hard someone has to work for the money. Till one time, I was around 7 to 8

years old, and the toy I wanted was really expensive, my mom refused to buy it for me as she

deemed it not worth. I, being the naive and stubborn child I was, kept insisting because I

could not see why she was so against it and she didn’t bother to explain. Giving up slightly,

she proposed that if I were to clean my room and wash the dishes, she would consider getting

it for me. When we went home, I did not do what she had asked. In fact I probably

procrastinated for the rest of the day. Not doing anything productive but no one checked up

on me to tell me off. A week later, we went out again and I asked for the toy again, and this

time, she gave in and bought it for me. From then on I was under the impression that I could

have anything I want without doing anything she asked for.

This escalated to me never doing any chores yet still manage to obtain all the games

and toys I wanted. My mom never really scolded me or said no directly. I never changed my

behaviour and I think I was spending more than what an average child my age would spend

in a month. Fast forward to a few years later, my mom asked me to run an important errand

which was sending out a document for her workplace, the me who has been so used to

neglecting the chores and work given to me, didn’t take her words seriously. I did not bother

to do as she asked from me out of habit. I am sure if I was slightly older, I might have

understood how important that file was and had done it but yeah, I was still a kid and I was

conditioned to think that there were no consequences to my actions. Little did I know that

was about to end. My mom was then reprimanded by her boss the next day and I was scolded

harshly. From then on, she learnt to say no to me more often and actually expects me to show

her my efforts before she rewards me with anything. It was not such a bad thing, I knew

somewhere deep down that what I was doing was slightly wrong and my will power was not

enough for me to change so I did not feel like changing until I was finally told off for my

actions.

I am glad my mom could give me another chance and taught me to change my

behaviour. I would have been spoilt and would spend way too much if it kept on escalating.

I’m really glad that I did not end up like a certain Rich Girl but sometimes you can’t blame

the person only. It sometimes might have been how they were brought up by their parents. So

people can only be inherently themselves as much as they were brought up. Nowadays I am

more toned down with my spending and I’ll make sure to have a reason and worked hard to

earn the things my mom gets for me.

In conclusion, I think parents who give in to their children instead of being stern and

strict are parents who don’t try hard enough. It is not easy to say no to your child but it is

necessary to do so. Being an enabler does not mean that your child will grow up to be happy,

they would just have very high expectations and be pampered. They would be so conditioned

to a good life that the real world and its society will break the child or make them sober up

and change, but that change would be hard. Some children are harder to change than some. I

am glad I managed to, at least a bit. Even though I still have and had lots of flaws, that one

reprimanding has changed me for the better and I am now able to realize that I was honestly

in the wrong and now I have became a better me.

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Social psychology