SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL AND BUILD ENVIRONMENTS
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (PSYC 0103)
ASSIGNMENT 1: JOURNAL
NAME: ADELE LU KHAI SYN
STUDENT ID: 0323151
TUTORIAL: 1 (8am-10am)
LECTURER NAME: MR.SHANKAR
SUBMISSION DATE: 30th NOVEMBER 2015
INTAKE: MARCH 2015
Journal 01: What Is Social Psychology?
Entry 01: Social Facilitation
People seem to act differently when other people are around. Is there a
reason for this? Psychologist, Robert Zajonc (1965, 1980) thinks so. He discovered
that "the presence of others increases arousal, which can affect performance in
different ways, depending on the task at hand" (249). This is termed the Social
facilitation theory, which relates with how the presence of other people affects our
behaviour. When we are have tasks which we find relatively easy, we find the
presence of other people a positive stimulus such that we perform even better.
However, when the tasks are difficult, we find the audience unnerving and we are
more likely to put in a worse performance. When the task being performed is
relatively easy, we are likely to do it more quickly. When the task is difficult, then we
are likely to take more time to ensure we get it right (it is more embarrassing to be
seen to be wrong than be seen to be slow). Social facilitation occurs when people
are performing in the presence of others yet their individual contributions can be
identified. Social facilitation can be defined as ‘an improvement in performance
produced by the mere presence of others’.
In high school when I was just a freshman, I tried out for the volleyball team. I
never really played a real volleyball game before besides in gym class, but to my
surprise I made varsity. Practices were vigorous and stressful, yet after a few weeks
I had the basics of the sport. More importantly, my coach thought my powerful serve
was going to help the team a lot that season. The first home game the stands were
packed. Most of my friends and my parents are all there sitting waiting anxiously to
see me at my new game. Well, as we were huddling before the game I saw my
name on the starting roster. I was like, "you have to be kidding me." Not to mention, I
was the first player to serve and I was really nervous.
In a volleyball game normally everyone knows exactly who made the mistake.
In some other sports it is easy to mask who was at fault, but with volleyball everyone
knows exactly who lost the point for the team. When out on the volleyball court, I get
in the game and I hear people cheering for me in the bleachers. Smiling, I turn to
them and I begin to sweat feeling a wave of intense energy come over me
(physiological arousal). Now, I grab the ball throw it in the air and smack it real hard
as what I had learn during practices. The ball was really fast making it hard for my
opponent to catch the ball, for that I get to score the first point for my team with my
first serve.
After having a good start for the team, my team was consistently winning few
straight points. We were leading for the first game to 10 points ahead of our
opponent. Contrastingly, when it comes to the second game, I was struggling with
my serve points, I was losing points for my team. It was really hard for me when I lost
my focus and performing a task that is hard to makeover and control because I was
blaming myself although the same presence of peers was with me, I negatively
impact the performance to a point where it will increasingly worsen my teammates
spirit. The peer pressure, personal frustration and stress are factors that influence
such behaviour of me. My team lost the game and feel as if they are not performing
well, the pressure of being observed and pushed to win has render them even more
weak and unable to catch up to their original skills.
As a conclusion, social facilitation gives different consequences to both the
group and individuals in the group. As can be seen with the above experience, social
facilitation causes severe performance degradation. Although it will still exist no
matter what we do, I suggest a way of thinking that will bring this phenomenon from
happening down to a minimum level. It seems that the extent of social facilitation or
inhibition depends upon the nature of the interaction between the task and the
performer. According to Cottrell (1968), it’s not the presence of other people that is
important for social facilitation to occur but the apprehension about being evaluated
by them. We know that approval and disapproval are often dependent on others’
evaluations and so the presence of others triggers an acquired arousal drive based
on evaluation anxiety. Social facilitation concerns the extent to which a given piece
of an individual's behaviour is affected by the real, imagined or implied presence of
others.
(800 words)
Journal 02: The Self: Who Am I and How Other Individuals See Me?
Entry 02: BIRGing
The theory BIRGing is an acronym for Basking in Reflected Glory. It is a self-
serving cognition where an individual feels good by identifying with others who are
successful. The individual is not really involved in the successful action but he/she
will associate him/herself with another successful individual such that another’s
success becomes their own to stimulate self-glory. An individual who engages in
BIRGing can improve self-esteem and self-evaluation even though they are not
personally involved in the successful action. It has both positive and negative effects
for people who are involved in BIRGing.
I remember when Adele’s 21 album first released on January 19, 2011, the
song “someone like you” gone wild, people all around the world was trending for it.
Radios, shops, cafes and also people will be covering her song. She then gained
worldwide attention and was nominated in numerous awards. That album 21 won the
2012 Grammy Award for Album of the Year and the Brit Award for British Album of
the Year. Winning the biggest selling musical released globally. She also sold 30
million copies worldwide for that album. So, for me, my name is Adele Lu so I have
literally the first same name as her, then I started to listen to her songs and
somehow was really obsessed with her music. I then began to get involved in
BIRGing and was really proud to be her fan.
I started to listen to all her songs and learnt to cover them with my guitar.
Before Adele’s album came out real hot, I actually knew her as an artist but she was
not that famous by that time. People started posting Adele’s music cover on their
Youtube channels and for the students in my high school, they started buying
expensive recording microphone or video camera to record their version of Adele’s
cover. Some even went overseas just to see Adele live singing and by signing on
their album with Adele’s own signature or merchandise. They sought to have the
success of their idols linked to themselves by owning the merchandise or signature
of Adele.
Apart from that, I was really proud of myself as I have the same name as her.
In times when I get to meet new people from somewhere else, they will definitely ask
what my name is and will exchange interest. So, when I said that my name is Adele,
they would start singing some part of her song to me. Then I would say “yaya” that is
my name. I was BIRGing and proud because sharing the same name as Adele was
special, coming with all those successful award and top hits that she had was really
amazing. Many of my friends was desperate to met Adele in person they would
rather spend money to buy tickets then I would tell them to come see me instead and
it’s free of charge why spend. As forBIRGing, I simply associated myself with the
success even though I was not personally involved in the successful action, I started
to bask in reflected glory. When Adele was named as the best album of the year to
win at the Grammy award, I shared this glory to my Facebook friends and Twitter
followers. I retweeted or shared the posts that were related to her just to let my
friends know that she has the same name as me and won numerous awards. I was
so proud of her as if I was the one who got the awards although I had nothing to do
with her victory.
People who are involved in BIRGing increased their self-esteem and
evaluation by the identification with their idols’ success. Although the victory of their
idols do not relate to them, they try to receive the glory to increase their image in
society. By getting involved in BIRGing, they think that society would accept them
more when they relate themselves with the successful individuals. When a person’s
public image is threatened, the tendency to be involved in BIRGing is heightened,
and BIRGing becomes an important impression management technique to counter
any threats to self-esteem. By basking in reflected glory, my self-esteem increased
as I felt like I was successful and proud too when my favourite singer had great
achievements.
As a conclusion, BIRGing has both positive and negative impacts on the
individuals. By engaging in BIRGing, my self-esteem had improved gradually as
compared to the past. However, we need to have proper impression management
techniques. We must be clear that we cannot be obsessed with BIRGing as we
might forget our true self and own achievements. Therefore, we must not bask in
reflected glory and associate ourselves in another individual’s achievements too
often. We must understand and know what our goals are so that we can know what
we need to achieve in our life.
(820 words)
Journal 03: Social Cognition: Thinking About the Social World
Entry 03: Counterfactual Thinking
Humans with counterfactual thinking will tend to imagine different outcomes
for an event that has already occurred. Counterfactual thinking is thinking about a
past that did not happen. This often happens in 'if only...' situations, where we wish
something had or had not happened. This can be so powerful we can change our
own memories, adjusting the facts and creating new memories. It can happen to
cover up trauma or may be just excuses to avoid facing uncomfortable truths. It
can also be to explain what is otherwise unexplainable.
I remembered when I was going for competition in Melaka representing my
state for a track and field competition, as for a Sabahan, an athlete far away from
home, I was really excited at the same time nervous too because I had trained so
hard for this competition. Right after my school’s exam, the competition will come
after that. I was struggling with my studies and my competition the same time. I will
go with my routine of training in the early morning then go for my normal lesson till
afternoon. At the afternoon I will train again till the sunsets. I was not really good in
my studies, since it’s my last year of high school so I decided to make the best out
of it to try my best to score in both sports and studies.
When each paper I took for exams are all over, I would imagined how the
outcome could have turned out differently, if I put more effort into some of those
subjects. I did not pay much attention to some of the topics and I skipped them.
Maybe if I had gone through those chapters I could answer those questions easily.
Somehow I had the chance of going through those topics but I was too tired after the
trainings. My mind turned blank and I was frustrated for not being able to get that
question. As a result, I maybe can get an A for my examination if I really paid
attention to those missing chapters. I started to accuse myself for my failure.
I started to think about what I could have done to change the situation so it
could have been better. For example ‘If I had studied that subject for a longer period
of time and put more effort into that subject rather than sleeping or watching some
TV series ’ , ‘ If I did not neglect that particular chapter, I could have answered that
question! ’ Or ‘ If I had started my revision earlier, I would have more time to focus on
that particular chapter. ’ These thoughts are categorized as Upward Counterfactual
Thinking as I was assuming different outcomes for the events that had already
happened to happen in a better way. My mood became really bad and I was
associated with negative thinking and I started to blame myself for my actions.
The day when my team and I were flying off for the competition after all the
exams, my heart was pounding I will start my event on first day of competition. My
coach was having high hopes on me for winning gold in my events. I competed in 3
events, long jump, triple jump and also 100m hurdles. For triple jump, I manage to
beg a gold and for long jump, I took a silver. It was really a close gap between me
and my opponent for those two events, I won just centimetre from her. I was really
confidence in the long jump and triple jump event, I was training hard for it. As for the
hurdle event I was not really confident in that because it wasn’t the event I was really
good at. I took the courage to do my best for, on the face of it I went into the finals.
Where all the top athletes were there to compete with me, I remember I was at the
last two line and beside me was the fasters runner in town. When the starter fired the
gun at the starting point, we will run as fast as we can to win. The athlete beside me
was so fast I wasn’t any near her, at the end I lost taking the last two placing in that
event.
I was devastated but at the same time I was okay with it because I knew that
my result could have been worse. At that time some thought came into my mind like
“I got 6th place in the event, at least it’s not at last place!”, “Some of my teammates
got no medal, but at least I got a gold and silver already.” And I lost in one event, but
at least it was a close game and not a blowout!” These thinking are actually
Downward Counterfactual Thinking as I focused how my event results could have
been worse. In this type of counterfactual thinking, I made myself feel better about
the outcomes as I realized the situation is not the worst it could be.
As a conclusion, counterfactual thinking has both negative and positive effects
that can worsen or improve our mood. Therefore, we should control our thinking and
try not to associate ourselves with negative thinking avoid the uncomfortable truth
and reality.
(893 words)
Journal 04: Social Perception: How Do We Perceive Others?
Entry 04: First Impression
First impression is the term applied to the initial impression we have of
another person when we meet them for the first time. It contains positive
and negative impressions and a sense of physical and psychological features. A first
impression is what a person thinks of you when they first meet you. It is the feeling
that they get or the initial evaluation that a person does of you when they first meet
you. It can be done during a glance, a conversation or even from a distance when
someone is looking at your body language. Eye contact or lack thereof can also have
an impact on a first impression. Have you ever heard the saying “It’s not what you
say but rather how you say it?” This statement alone speaks volumes and can make
or break a first impression. Sometimes the way in which a person delivers the
sentence or statements that they are saying is a complete deal breaker regarding the
first impression that they give. So you should definitely be mindful of how you deliver
your statements.
I remembered the first impression of one of my best friend was that she was
really pretty and very original. I was really attracted to her from the beginning. I
thought, "Wow, she's got quite cool style!" and someone that I admire. We meet in a
church special event, my church member was the one who bought her to that event
because she was classmate with her in high school. Like usually how new friends
meet they will exchange their names, hobbies, interests and also telephone number
maybe. Then she said that she plays the piano with a grade of 8 which is consider
the highest grade for me but there is actually higher grades. I was really impressed
when she said that because I always had been admiring those musicians who can
play really well piano since young.
After getting to know her, I had those thinking that we could be best friend in
such a short period of time, she gave me a really good impression of her as a whole
for the first time. When the event ended, we would call each other up for a catch up
session. In those session we would just talk about anything from our favourite food to
who do we admire the most in life. People say when best friends meet up, their
conversation will be as long as a scroll. Its true, we will meet not every day but when
we do our conversation will go from moon and back. Somehow it’s amazing for me to
have such a friend like her who got my back in everything I do. I never really had
someone that close to me except for my family. I somehow has trust issues in people
around because I don’t want people to get hurt or them hurting me.
For me a best friend has to first meet several qualifications and have many
outstanding characteristics to have the honour of holding such a prestigious title. To
me she is that best friend that you’ve just met, and similar to “love at first sight,” you
just click with. She is someone that knows me inside out and would go to the ends of
the earth for me. Through thick and thin, she has supported me and helped me
through tough times. She does not back away when I think I’ve lost it. Those are the
times that she is always there for me. She is also not afraid to tell me the truth, even
if it’s something that I don’t want to hear, because she knows that it’s best for me.
And the same I would do the same as for her. To be there for her no matter what. I’m
glad that I had met my best friend in such a unique way, although for now we went
separate ways in life but we still have our catch up session once in a while to just
see each other. I trust that we will be best friends until our hair grows white as snow.
My first impression of my best friend was not the typical bad impression of
someone. Some say the first impression is often misleading and superficial but I
don’t argue with that. First impression is something that you can take control of, for
example keep your body language open and smile to anyone you meet give them
the true and best side of you. Prepare a seven- to nine-second introduction about
yourself. Be nice to everyone you meet. Be kind to them for everyone is fighting a
harder battle compare to yours. For me almost everyone can make a good
impression of someone but only some will make a good lasting impression.
(812 words)
Journal 05: Attitudes: Making Evaluations About The World
Entry 05: Post Decision Dissonance
Post Decision Dissonance is a feeling of anxiety over whether the correct
decision was made. After we have made a decision, we will feel dissonance
regarding the possibility of it being wrong. We will often change our perceptions to
reduce this dissonance and make the decision seem more attractive. This is the
basis of the foot-in-the-door technique where people who are asked to make a
small commitment such as signing a petition 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. Basically this theory states that we feel some
discomfort when our actions do not represent our attitudes (Festinger 1957). After
we make a decision between two equal options, we get uncomfortable and start to
wonder if we made the right decision. This discomfort causes us to pinpoint all the
positives of our chosen option and all the negatives of the unchosen one. People
are most likely to experience post-decision dissonance if their decision is
irrevocable. That is, after you've made a decision, if you can't change your mind,
you are more likely to experience post-decision dissonance and, as a result, are
more likely to change your beliefs.
I remembered when I was about 12 years old my parents and the whole
family took a trip to Ocean Park in Hong Kong. It was my first time going overseas
apart from Malaysia. My brother, sister and I were really excited and we were
looking forward for it after my parents said that they would bring us overseas for
holiday after our school exams. They had been planning it for quite some time also
and had been keeping it a secret because they wanted me and my siblings to
concentrate in our school exam first before we go for holidays. It was my last year
in my secondary school, I’m graduating from secondary school. Apparently I missed
my graduation because my aunt bought the air tickets way too early before my
graduation even happen in time. She had mistaken the dates so we need to fly
even before the school holiday starts.
So we flew to Hong Kong and spent about a week there. On the first few
days of the trip, we were just shopping and eating around the shops, malls and also
on the stress. The last few days in Hong Kong we went to this theme park called
Ocean theme park where you can find just anything to play in the theme park from
indoor to outdoor and from water sports to roller coaster rides. Then 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 stuff for
kids like me to play with. It was so tough 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 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" decision I had made was only logical in that I rid myself of the discomfort
and enjoyed the rest of my day at the theme park.
Post decision dissonance is aroused after we make any important decision, it
is reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluing
the rejected alternative. Usually we can reduce post decision dissonance simply by
distorting our perceptions of likability of the chosen and non chosen alternatives.
Post decision dissonance is so called the “sour grapes”, it keeps you from
improving your life, so it’s important. Start with awareness, mainly knowing this
effect and when it happens. Then remember what you like or not and check if your
behaviour is consistent. When you recognize the conflict, take responsibility for
getting what you want. Figure out how to get the grapes. If you can’t get them, learn
to accept that you can’t. Find other things to enjoy. Your inability to reach the
grapes doesn’t make them sour. Calling them sour when you don’t know means if
something changes and you can get them, you won’t. Resolving a cognitive
dissonance by putting down others can make you feel better about not being better
yourself, but that feeling better comes at a major cost of hampering your ability to
improve yourself. The antidote is increasing awareness and taking responsibility for
your life.
(810 words)