Topic 1

Social Facilitation

In this topic of ‘Social Facilitation’, I have learned about the definition of the term, which is an

improvement in performance produced by the mere presence of others. This implies that whenever

people are being watched by others, they will do well on things that they are doing. A given piece of

an individual's behaviour is affected by the real, imagined or implied presence of others; this is the

studies on Social Facilitation concern. There are actually two types of social facilitation: co-action

effects and audience effect. After listening to what my lecturer explained about social facilitation, I

can imply the co-action effect as well as the audience effect on my past experience. First of all, co-

action effect is explained as a phenomenon whereby increased task performance comes about by

the mere presence of others doing the same task. When I was in primary school, I was an athlete

and joined 100meter race during sports day. As to win the race, of course I always go to the track to

train myself running with timer clock, my time for the 100meter run always maintains around

14seconds. During the race day ,competing with other runner was definitely more pressuring but I

manage to win a bronze medal, what surprise me most is my time for the race taken by the officials

is 13seconds, I am actually 1 second faster than my regular training time. This shows that co-action

effect implied on me as during the race day as I tend to run faster than I usually can when competing

with other runners rather than running alone for training. While on the othe r hand, the audience

effect happens when in the presence of a passive spectator or audience. I know that such thing

actually exist before I even come to university to learn about this term as this has happen to me all

the time even when I was in high school without knowing its actually one of the social facilitation ,

because obviously I did not learn social psychology during high school .while at that time, I was an

basketball player for my school, during the normal training days in school basketball court, my shots

are not constant to enter the bucket, I know that it’s just me not having a good shooting form and

needed to be improved even more as I am the shooter for my team and shooting is my plus point in

basketball that keeps me in the team. But, whenever there is people coming over to the court and

watch us training, I will naturally shoot with more accuracy and consistency because I am aware that

there are people watching me play, and I cannot make a fool out of myself in front of the crowd

therefore I must shoot better, mind is set and naturally I shoot even better when there is people

watching me. This shows the audience effect as my performance enhance when there is presence of

passive spectator. I must admit that I am very much experiencing social facilitation in my past

experience and it was great to know more about my personal behaviour relating to this topic.

SOCIAL LOAFING

In this topic of ‘Social Loafing’, social loafing refers to the concept that people are prone to exert less

effort on a task if they are in a group compared to when they work alone. The idea of working in

groups is typically seen as a way to improve the accomplishment of a task by pooling the skills and

talents of the individuals in that group. But, in some groups, there is a tendency on the part of

participants to contribute less to the group's goal than if they were doing the same task themselves.

The larger the group, the more likely it is that social loafing will occur. I have experienced many of

this ‘social loafing’ in my group while working for a group project for various subjects. For instance,

during the project for the culture and civilisation project, we have to group ourselves into 10 people

per group. For this project, we need to work together to act in front of the class based on the history

of the country given by the lecturer. As for my group, we have got to do the history of Japan. Among

all the history of Japan, we have chosen to act the ‘Samurai and Meiji’s War ‘ event , just by listening

to the name event we already know that we need to prepare a lot of props such as samurai amour,

police uniform and so on, that’s why for this group project a large quantity of members is nee ded.

But , social loafing have taken place in our group due to the quantity of the group as one of the

member in our group is always absent during group working for he props , only attend once in a blue

moon . This group member act as so most probably because he is lazy, as well as also because he

thinks that the group is big enough to cover up his work load so he can skip the job that he is

required to do . This is a form of social loafing because this one member has already exert less effort

on a task if they are in a group, this has already slow down our group progress as well as showing

how he is contributing less in the group that causes a slow progress for our group.

Topic 2

Motivation

In this topic, one of the components we learned about is ‘Motivation’. Motivation is defined as the

process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviours. Motivation is what causes us

to act, whether it is getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge. It

involves the biological, emotional, social, and cognitive forces that activate behaviour. There are two

types of motivation, Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Motivation. Both types of motivation actually

are in my everyday usage. First of all, intrinsic motivation is describe as taking a certain action

without any obvious external rewards. We simply enjoy an activity or see it as an opportunity to

explore, learn, and actualize our potentials. As this reflect back to my attraction towards basketball.

Since I was a kid, I always enjoy playing basketball the most, this hobby or attraction to this sports

has developed since before I even know how to play it. During secondary school, although knowing

that joining basketball training is very though as I always see the others suffer from running and

doing those drills. But, due to my strong will and love for this sports, I still signed up for the

basketball training, and of course I suffered running 50 laps of the basketball and non-stop drills

training, I still never give up and continue being in the training because I enjoy playing this sport and

want to excel very much in it. Therefore, although it is very tiring and suffering, I simply enjoy the

activity and see it as an opportunity to be a better player by learning more in the training. This is

intrinsic motivation has kept me driven to train harder in basketball to be a better player and

brought a little success as I manage to represent the school a few times from primary to secondary

school. As for extrinsic motivation, it is described as taking a certain action in response to external

pressure or obligation and might be done to avoid punishment or earn specific reward. This

motivation has reflected in me on my high school study life. As a typical high school student, I really

dislike the a lot of the subjects I have taken such as History, Additional Maths , Chemistry, Biology

and so on. But, for the sake of getting better grades in the major exam ‘SPM’, I am forced to attend

extra tuition classes for those few subjects that I dislike. Those certain subject is really boring to me

and I can’t seem to be able to study and improve it on my own. This shows extrinsic motivation as I

study only to get better grades in my major exams instead of gaining knowledge and let it benefit

myself in the future or know more about the world.

Social Comparison

The other component for this topic would be ‘Social Comparison’. It is defined as using others as the

standard by which we compare to ourselves. The social comparison process involves people coming

to know themselves by evaluating their own attitudes, abilities, and beliefs in comparison with

others. In most cases, we try to compare ourselves to those in our peer group or with whom we are

similar. There are two kinds of social comparison. Upward social comparison is when we compare

ourselves with those who we believe are better than us. Downward social comparison is when we

compare themselves to others who are worse off than ourselves. I always tend to compare more in

the upward social comparison as I always compare myself to the better, for instance the basketball

game again. No matter how well my friends say I can shoot the hoop or how good I am as a

basketball player, I will only reply with ‘No I Am Not’ because I have seen many better basketball

players than me and I always see myself as ‘just luck’ to be able to enter the school team, always

think I am the worse player in the team compared to the other 11 members. But to me this is not

just me being no confidence for towards myself, it is me always comparing myself to all the best

players in my team for example my high school team captain that scored 29 out of 44 points for my

school during the game, my another team mate who scored minimum 10 poi nts every match, and

last but not least few of my team mates who made it to the state basketball team, representing

Selangor to play against Malaysia. These are the players I am comparing to against myself, which is

an obvious upward comparison. As for downward comparison, I do compare in this manner

sometimes. During my high school times, my additional mathematics have been my worst subject

and I always got grade F (fail) for that subject. But, there is actually a few times where I actually got

40 out of 100 marks for that subject, it’s the minimum marks for passing the exam but still it’s a bad

result. Maybe due to me failing to much in that subject, although its bad to just passed the border

line for the exam and yet I am still happy, always compared myself to the others who failed the

exam. This made me enhanced my self-esteem by feeling that I am better than some other people

who failed their exam but I myself am not any better because it’s just a border line pass.

Topic 3

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

For this topic, I have learnt about ‘Self-Fulfilling prophecy’. It is when a person unknowingly causes a

prediction to come true, due to the simple fact that he or she expects it to come true. In other

words, an expectation about a subject, such as a person or event, can affect our behaviour towards

that subject, which causes the expectation to be realized. This is a very interesting topic because I

was in other’s Self Fulfilling Prophecy a lot and felt very frustrated, never knew there is a social

psychology term for it. Why do I say so? Again it happens in my basketball thing again. No matter in

primary school, high school or even now in university, basketball coaches tends to always think that

freshman to be less skilled, so most of the time coaches does not put them in to competition often

because coaches ill believe that only the seniors will secure the performance of the team, therefore

neglecting or doesn’t give opportunity to the freshman, and guess who’s among the freshman? Me.

But, when the seniors left the team and coach those put us freshman in to play, we are all rusty and

don’t do well due to lack of experience, thereby fulfilling the coaches expectations. The coach has

already made us become the stereotype that freshman are less skilled. Actually we can think of the

self-fulfilling prophecy as a circular pattern. Our actions toward others impact their beliefs about us,

which dictates their actions towards us, which then reinforces our beliefs about ourselves. This, in

turn, influences our actions towards others, which brings us back to the beginning of the cycle. This

pattern can be negative, like the freshmen volleyball players example, but it can also be positive.

Counterfactual Thinking

Other than Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, I have also learnt another component which is ‘Counterfactual

Thinking’. Counterfactual thinking is literally thinking counter to the facts. It's that 'if only' or 'what if'

reasoning that we engage in, sometimes rather frequently. It has a big impact on our emotional

response to an experience. It's not always thinking of ways things could have gone better, either. We

also imagine how things could have been worse. For the most part, we control our thoughts during

counterfactual thinking, so it is an example of high-effort thinking. At the same time, though,

counterfactual thinking is not always intentional; sometimes it just happens after we experience

something. It can be a relatively harmless process, but it can also make a bad experience, such as a

traumatic event, even worse by reliving it over and over again. There are actually two types of

counterfactual thinking; Upward counterfactual thinking which is thoughts that create a more

positive outcome while Downward counterfactual that create a more critical outcome. In the case

of upward counterfactual I have experienced it yet again in basketball competition. During the year

2012, my basketball team managed to win the silver medal. Based on the studies done by

psychologist, counterfactual thinking explains why bronze medallists are often more satisfied with

the outcome than silver medallists, which this is very true, my team is not as happy as we supposed

to be even we won the silver medal. This is because the counterfactual thoughts for silver medallists

tend to make us think that we could’ve done things differently, or push even harder in order to

achieve that gold medal because we were so close to break the school’s record of not winning gold

medal for 6 years straight already. But, this experience allows us to over think what we did wrong

rather than focus on the accomplishment, which will makes us improve and be more ready for the

next year’s competition to fight for the gold medal again. As for downward counterfactual thinking, I

always make this thinking in my academic results and use the word ‘at least’ very frequent. Why so?

It is because I always get border line passing grade for additional mathematics and say ‘at least I did

not fail’. This is a very negative response because definitely border line passing grade is never good

enough that just made it into a grade category tended to downward counterfactual think and were

more satisfied, thinking it could be worse.

Topic 4

Attribution Theory

In this topic we have learnt many theories, and one of the theories would be the Attribution Theory.

Attribution theory is concerned with how and why ordinary people explain events as they do. In

other words, it's how we explain the reasons for our own behaviours as well as the behaviours of

other people. There are two types of attribution, internal attribution and external attribution. For

internal attribution, it is concerned on where we believe that a person did something, because of a

reason that had to do with themselves. When we explain the behaviour of others we look for

enduring internal attributions, such as personality traits. For instance, when I was buying ticket in

the cinema, there is a really long queue, but all out of sudden there is a group of three people cut

my lane out of nowhere. Of course my first reaction will be very shocked, and before I approach

them to ask about anything, my mind automatically will think of the reason they cutting the line

would be they are selfish ,rude, inconsiderate, bad person or whatsoever ,all these are internal

attribution that I would thought first when they cut the lane. But after I approach to ask them why

they cut my lane, only I find out their external attribution, which they don’t mean to cut the lane

because they aren’t aware of the lane as I was standing a little apart from the person in front of me.

These are situational because they don’t mean like how I think their internal attribution or

personality are like, instead it is external attribution which don’t explain the behaviour based on

personality, they just do not know the situation that there is a queue there

The Halo Effect

In this chapter, we also learnt about the ‘Halo Effect’. The halo effect is a type of cognitive bias in

which our overall impression of a person influences how we feel and think about his or h er

character. Essentially, if our overall impression of a person is the he is a nice guy, it impacts our

evaluations of that person's specific traits which we will also think that he is smart. The Halo effect is

also known as the physical attractiveness stereotype and the "what is beautiful is good" principle, at

the most specific level, it also refers to the habitual tendency of people to rate attractive individuals

more favourably for their personality traits or characteristics than those who are less attractive. I

have to admit that I actually have this Halo effect on me. This is nonetheless my overall impression

of the celebrity that I really admire, which is Ariana Grande. She is an American singer-songwriter

and actress. She began her career singing on a cruise ship, at sporting events, and with various

orchestras in South Florida and know she is a singer at the top of the world winning award after

awards with her hit song recently. She has very strong and beautiful voice, and of course she is really

pretty which automatically caused me to make Halo effect in play on her that her personality should

be a very likeable, intelligent, kind, and funny, kind hearted, friendly and so on of these good traits.

But apparently, she is actually not that much of a friendly person she is through the media and fans

review. Among all the reviews, there is one that straight poke through me that my Halo effect are

really on play, which is when during an event where MTV arranged the winners along the fans to

have a backstage meeting with the star Ariana Grande herself. These two fans had wait for hours for

the arrival of Ariana Grande to the backstage to have the fan meeting, but when she is there at the

backstage, she never bothered to even ask anyone their name. She didn’t inquire as to who the

contest winners were, as opposed to their guests, or what they created to win the right to meet her.

All she does is just taking a couple of selfies with the fans and only spent about 15 seconds with

them. This just proves so much that her ‘Diva’ attitude which she is not as friendly as she appeared

to be just reminded me of The Halo effect I just learnt, sad but true.

Topic 5

Operant Conditioning

For this topic, we have learnt about the ‘Operant condition’. It is a method of learning that occurs

through rewards and punishments for behaviour. Through operant conditioning, an association is

made between behaviour and a consequence for that behaviour. Operant conditioning relies on a

fairly simple premise - actions that are followed by reinforcement will be strengthened and more

likely to occur again in the future, which is also named as reinforcement operant outcome. Positive

reinforces are favourable events or outcomes that are presented after the behaviour. In situations

that reflect positive reinforcement, a response or behaviour is strengthened by the addition of

something, such as praise or a direct reward. Negative reinforcement involves the removal of an

unfavourable events or outcomes after the display of behaviour. In these situations, a response is

strengthened by the removal of something considered unpleasant. Conversely, actions that result in

punishment or undesirable consequences will be weakened and less likely to occur again in the

future which is also named as punishment operant outcome. Positive punishment sometimes

referred to as punishment by application, involves the presentation of an unfavourable event or

outcome in order to weaken the response it follows. While negative punishment, also known as

punishment by removal, occurs when a favourable event or outcome is removed after behaviour

occurs. For me, I have experienced both types of reinforcement and punishment. When I was a kid,

my dad always reward me whenever I finish my homework or whenever I helped out doing chores,

therefore the behaviour have been conditioned that I will continue to constantly do my homework

as well as help to clean up the house in order to get the praise and rewards from my dad. As for

negative reinforcement, while I was driving, when the light goes green at a traffic light, the car in

front of me doesn’t move. I hates when this happens and from experience knows that blasting my

car horn gets cars that are in front of me out of my way. I dutifully blast the horn and the car moves

out of my way. Why is this negative reinforcement? Because the car stuck in front of me is aversive

to me and I wants it removed. I blast my horn at the car and it moves out of the way (it’s removed). I

know from experience that blasting my horn like this gets rid of these annoying cars and so

continues to do it, therefore negative reinforcement is occurring. On the other hand, the positive

punishment I experienced will be when I stroke my hometown house cat's fur in a manner that the

cat finds unpleasant; the cat attempted to bite me. Therefore, the presentation of the cat's bite will

act as a positive punisher and decrease the likelihood for me to stroke the cat in that same manner

in the future. As for negative punishment, when I was a kid I have to admit I am quite naughty. I

always tend to ‘talk back’ to my grandparents. My grandparents see the problem in me, therefore

they took action to remove the privilege of me watching my favourite cartoon programme if I ever

‘talk back’ again. Therefore, the loss of viewing privileges will act as a negative punisher and

decrease the likelihood me talking back in the future.