SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGNTHE DESIGN SCHOOL

NAME: Gan Jet Foong

STUDENT ID NO: 0315998

GROUP/SECTION: MONDAY, 1-4PM

SUBJECT: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY [PSYC0103]

COURSE: FOUNDATION IN NATURAL & BUILD ENVIRONMENT

SUBMISSION DATE: 12th MAY 2014

Date: 29th April 2014 (Tuesday)

Time: 10pm

Concept: Motivation

In the second lecture, I learned about two types of motivation which are intrinsic

motivation and extrinsic motivation. I got very interested in this part because motivation

was important to keep me work hard and not give up. I had never realised that there are

two different motivation, intrinsic which is for the sake of enjoyment and extrinsic is to

avoid punishment or earn a specific reward.

I think I'm more similar to extrinsic motivation. This is because my parents are very strict

and I'm afraid to do any mistake to make them punish me. When I was nine, my mom

wanted me to learned piano but I was not even interested that time, I was not talented and

lazy to practice the piano. Until one day my piano teacher got angry and kicked me out,

my mom was even more furious and throw all my books outside, my dad hit me with a

cane.

I felt disappointed to myself and do not want to experience this kind of punishment again.

So I practice hard and finish all my graded exam until diploma level without giving up.

This motivation made me work hard and also avoid any serious punishment.

Date: 30th April 2014 (Wednesday)

Time: 4pm

Concept: Counterfactual thinking

In lecture 3, I was attracted to one of the sources of bias which is counterfactual thinking.

It means that we imagining different outcomes for an event that has already occurred.

There are two types of counterfactual thinking, the upward counterfactuals which is

negative thinking and downward counterfactual that is positive thinking.

I remembered I had an upward counterfactuals when I got my SPM results last year., it

really brought me down because I had bad results and most of my friends got good

results. So I kept asking my if only I would study more then I could get a better results.

This upward counterfactual lead me to a more depressing mood because I can't do

anything to change the results.

I'm grateful that I learned from this lecture and my past experience, I should be more

careful to avoid any future counterfactual thinking.

Date: 3th May 2014 (Saturday)

Time: 4pm

Concept: Self-fulling Prophecy

In lecture 4, I studied self-fulling prophecy means we are the cause our own expectation

to come true by acting in ways that ecilit expected behavior from others. It happened to

me when I get bad results for my mathematics, I was afraid because I knew will get

punished for sure, so I hid the test paper under the sofa and hoped that my parents will

not find out.

During that day dinner time, I felt very guilty but they will going to find out sooner or

later. So I begun to tell them that the mathematics exam was really hard, I said that I had

never did those questions before and hoped that they can forgave me. In the end, I

showed the results to them, unfortunately they got really angry because added that I hid it

from them.

Through this lecture and experience, I learned that it is better to be honest so that the

results might be better.

Date: 3th May 2014 (Saturday)

Time: 5pm

Concept: Balance Theory

In lecture 5, I found that the balance theory was reflected to my attitudes toward my

friends. Balance theory stated that people desire 'cognitive consistency', it means that we

feel comfortable with others who share our attitudes but feel uncomfortable with others

who do not share our attitudes.

When I was in school, I was still quite and shy person so I often mixed around with

friends who are similar to me, it made me felt more comfortable because we understand

each other, we can even became talkative together. But it did not meant that I did not

made friends who were different from me, I felt uncomfortable with them because they

saw me as a different and weird person. However, I still tried my best to fit in with them

by sharing some similar interest that we had. It was not easy but I did improved a lot until

today.

This theory had differentiate the balance state and unbalance state between my friends

and I, I learned to balance the relationship between us.

Date: 4th May 2014 (Sunday)

Time: 2pm

Concept: Racism

In lecture 7, I studied the causes and consequences of stereotypes, prejudice, and

discrimination. One of concept of discrimination was racism, it its often found in

Malaysia because of multiple different racial groups in the country. Racism is

discrimination directed at a specific racial group in a negative way.

When i started in secondary school, it was a new experience to make friends with other

races because I was from a Chinese school. I learned that other races had different

cultures but I understand that difference and manage to make good friends with them.

However, the teacher was more racism towards the other races. I was surprised because I

thought they would be more matured about this behaviour. My class teacher had the

Chinese students stand up to educate us on the first day, she told us to behave like the

Malay students, she also said the Chinese were rude and did not respect the teacher even

thought we were innocent.

Through this experience, I dislike the discrimination like racism. Its is very rude and I

hope that the new generation of Malaysian would ignore the differences of racial groups.