SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT GROUP MEMBERS:

Darren Tan Quan Wen (0322662) Justin Chong (0322845) Wee Sue Wen (0322633) Yeap Phay Shian (0322243) Yang Jing Loo (0323066)

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (PSY 30203)

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: VIDEO & REPORT

LECTURER: MR. SHANKAR

SUBMISSION DATE: 7TH DECEMBER 2015

CONTENT PAGE

i. Acknowledgment

ii. Introduction iii. Method

a) Apparatus / Materials b) Procedure

iv. Discussion a) Concept & Definition b) Storyboard Design c) Application & Analysis d) Conclusion

v. References

vi. Appendix

ACKNOLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, we will like to express our gratitude to our Social Psychology lecture, Mr. Shankar for his guidance throughout the semester. Through Mr. Shankar guidance we were able to understand our objective and concepts in each chapters. On the other hand, this assignment would not be complete without the co-operation for our group members, Justin, Darren, Sue wen, Jing Loo and Ashley. We are grateful and satisfied that we managed to complete our Social Psychology within the time limit we had been given. Last but not least, Mr. Shankar, our lecture, we sincerely thank him for the guidance and time that gives us a good understanding for the concept and being able to apply them in our assignments.

INTRODUCTION

What is psychology? It is a study of mind and behavior being done scientifically. In this project, students are required to carry out a social psychology conceptual video clip and required to do a presentation in groups of 4 to 5 students. Students may use theories from a choice of topics taught and discussed in class. Students are required to complete three tasks, which include producing a video clip by using the concepts learned in class, written report of the video clip and presenting the clip to the class. This project will help students to learn and understand the connections between concepts and perspectives within psychology and with other disciplines. Hence, students will be able to engage in psychological inquiry and become self-regulated learners.

METHOD APPARATUS / MATERIALS

We wanted a realistic feel to the whole video, so we decided to go for a storyline that we all can relate too, a feeling that we were all familiar with. After some time discussing, we came up with an idea for the storyboard. Below are the lists of materials used: Filming Equipment:

- DSLR Canon 600D - Nikon D5300 - Tripod - IPhone to record the slow motion, Picture and voice over

Video Editing: Props:

- A stack of paper - File - Artwork - Laptop

PROCEDURE Setting:

To create a more engaging approach through our video, we filmed our video at Taylor’s Lakeside Campus. The Venues are:

- Block E Level 4 staircase - Classroom 4.10

Timing: We took the video in 1 day to save up time. Role Delegation: This assignment has some components that needed input for every member to be in this video. We discussed and settled the person who is in charge for each section. Everyone was required to put effort into this assignment. Below is our table delegation system:

Member Overall Context Video Context

Yeap Phay Shian Slides maker, report writing Student 1

Jing Loo Video making Student 2

Sue Wen Manpower, report writing Student 3

Justin Chong Main report writer Leader

Darren Tan Videographer, manpower and report writing

Student 4

DISCUSSION Concept and Definition

To start off, we had lots of brainstorming sessions to come out with an idea. After a long a hard thought, an idea was sparked. The Idea was about people you encounter during group project. Our main theme describes five concepts that are found in a group project. These five traits of human psychology that are portrayed and explained in the context of our video, and further backup by analysis and study through this report and presented through slides for further understanding. These concepts include the Confirmation bias, Counterfactual thinking (Upward & Downward), Self-efficacy (High & Low), Halo Effect and Aggression. Storyboard Design Starting off, our group discuss the concept and came out with a storyline, it is then written through pen and paper. The concept led to the idea of creating a storyline about, “types of group member you encounter”. Before proceeding to film the video:

We drew a visual storyboard that would guide us through the process of understanding the concepts

A rough script was also written to provide the foundation of the actors to work with

Divided the roles for each member to act as Application and Analysis

The style of our video consists of five scenes, showing a specific social psychology concept. Below is an in-depth analysis of each scene and how each concept applies respectively through screenshots of the video taken and relevant explanation. Scene One – Confirmation Bias

Scene description In this particular scene, it can be seen that one of the students, Jing Loo, has done a lot of research regarding a certain subject. As she was about to show her progress or work to her friend, Ashley, she instantly rejected Jong Loo’s research as she felt that her findings are correct. Even though Jing Loo’s research is much more thorough and detailed, Ashley still couldn’t accept the fact that her research was incorrect and still stubbornly rejects all of Jing Loo’s findings. Being angry at Jing Loo, Ashley throws all of Jing Loo’s stuff on to the floor, making Jing Loo angrily storm out of the classroom. Concept definition The tendency of a person to interpret new evidence, as confirmation of one exists beliefs or theories. The tendency to pay attention to info that supports one’s beliefs and disregard info that conflicts one’s beliefs. Explanation Confirmation bias is a phenomenon where decision makers have been shown to actively seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms their hypothesis, and ignore or under weigh evidence that could disconfirm their hypothesis. In short, confirmation bias is the case where a person believes that whatever he or she thinks is right, and if anyone else thinks differently, it will be automatically wrong. I have encountered a few situations that are related to this situation. Application Ashley has high confirmation bias, meaning she doesn’t like to listen to other people’s opinions as she feels that everything she does is always right. Even though Ashley’s work might be incorrect, she still couldn’t accept the fact that she lost and constantly argues with Jing Loo that her work is correct compared to anyone else. Scene Two – Self-efficacy

Scene description In this scene, the group leader, Justin, assigns work to both of his teammates whom he feels has the most talent in terms of drawing. One of the team mates, Darren, happily takes up the challenge and confidently tells his leader that he will try his best to do a good job and not let the team down. On the other hand, Sue Wen, the other teammate, was reluctant to take up the job as she doesn’t have confidence in herself and feels that she will do a bad job. When the time comes for both of them to submit their work to the leader, it can be seen that Darren’s work was really amazing where else Sue Wen’s work was below average. Concept definition A person’s beliefs about his or her capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave. Such beliefs produce these diverse effects through four major processes. They include cognitive, motivational, affective and selection processes. Explanation Self-efficacy is affected by a person’s endeavor and determination regarding their own willpower to affect situations. It also influences the decisions or choices a person has to make in a specific situation as well as his or her power to determine the outcome of a scenario. Application It can be seen that Darren has high self-efficacy, meaning that he has confidence in himself that he can do a great job, even if there are many obstacles in the way. By having high self-efficacy, he took up the challenge to produce great work and in the end, produced AMAZING work for hiss team. Vice versa, Sue Wen has low self-efficacy, meaning that she has low confidence in herself. By thinking so lowly of herself, Sue Wen produced poor work even though she had the talent to do greater things. Scene Three - The Halo Effect

Scene Description- The group leader decides to assign the most important part of the project to the hot girl in the group. He assumes and believes that she is able to handle and carry out the work well because she is pretty. The day before submission, she handed in her work to the leader and walks away. The leader was shocked and disappointed when he saw her work. He cannot believe that the hot girl couldn't do her things well and regrets assigning the most important work to her. Concept Definition A cognitive bias in which an observer's overall impression of a person that influences our feelings and thoughts about the character and properties of the others. Explanation The tendency to use global evaluations to make judgments about specific traits. This also means that a characteristic often used by everyone around the world, for example beautiful or gorgeous, is used to determine the specific personality traits of a specific person. We attribute personality qualities to people we have only seen and never interact with personally, even though we have never met them, and the qualities have nothing to do with their looks. This phenomenon constantly occurs unconsciously and we are usually unaware of the bias we develop simply because of a person's attractiveness or ugliness. Application

Vanessa gives off the impression that she is good at everything just because she is pretty. This causes Darren and Justin to think that she is very capable on doing many things. Therefore, they decided to assign the most important part of this project to her. But what they didn't know was that she was only good looking but not capable of doing anything else Her good looks gave them the false impression that she can do many things but in actual fact she can't. Scene Four – Aggression

Scene Description The leader did his assignment for few days straight without any sleep. When he walk to class to submit his work, he opened the door and another group member accidentally poured his drink over the leader's work when he was walking out of the classroom. The leader gets mad and thought of hitting the person who ruined his work but he didn't. When the student asked the leader if he is okay, he just walked away and screamed "IT'S OKAY!". The next day, the student found a note in his bag filled with a threat saying, "You mess with my work, I mess with your life". Concept Definition A range of behaviors that are intended to cause harm to others. Those behaviors often stem from anger, jealousy, fear or sadness. Explanation The expression of aggression can occur in a number of ways, including verbally, mentally, and physically. Psychologists distinguish between different forms of aggression, different purposes of aggression, and different types of aggression. A person tends to exert aggression to express anger or hostility towards another. This is to intimidate or threaten the other person in order to assert dominance or achieve a goal, which is to hurt the other person. Application Justin wanted to beat up Darren because he ruined his work that he had completed without sleep for few days in few seconds. Without hitting Darren because it was unethical and illegal, he wrote a note to Darren saying that he will mess with Darren's life to threaten him, forcing all of his anger and aggression through the note. Scene five - Counterfactual Thinking

Scene Description: Group members are seen chatting and chilling in the classroom. Later on, the leader of the group went to the classroom to inform them about their project results. The look on his face seemed unsatisfied. He told them that they only managed to score a ‘C-‘. All of them were indeed disappointed by that outcome. Concept: The human tendency to create likely scenarios for events has that already occurred. Application: As the group members receive the saddening news from their group leader. Two of the group members had a conversation that was associated with counterfactual thinking whereby one experienced upward counterfactual thinking and the other experienced downward counterfactual thinking. One of them stated that if only they had listen to their lecturer’s advise. What this group member said is known as upward counterfactual thinking. As for the other group member, she stated the fact that at least they did not fail the project. This is known as downward counterfactual thinking. Explanation: Counterfactual thinking refers to the act of imagining different outcomes of an event that has already happened. It is usually associated with negative events. Moreover, it can be used to improve or worsen your mood. To illustrate upward counterfactual thinking in the video, it’s about how the group member considered how their predicament could have turned out better. This is to say that if they had changed some actions, for instance taking into account of their lecturer’s advice, the results for their

project could have been more favourable. For downward counterfactual thinking, the other group member stated in a way that their result could have been more undesirable. This can help to improve one’s mood, as they would feel more fortunate in comparison.

References

1. Counterfactual Thinking. Psychlopedia. Retrieved from http://www.psych-it.com.au/Psychlopedia/article.asp?id=401

2. Kendra C. (2015, June 5). What is Aggression. About Health. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/aindex/g/aggression.htm

3. Kendra C. (2014, October 27). What is a Confirmation Bias? About Health. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/fl/What-Is-a-Confirmation-Bias.htm

4. (2013, April 1). Halo Effect, Why ‘Angels’ and “Devils’ Walk The Earth. Being Human. Retrieved from http://www.beinghuman.org/article/halo-effect 5. Kendra C. (2014, December 20). What is Self Efficacy? About Health. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/self_efficacy.ht

Appendix Scene 1 – The Ms Know It All

Scene 2 - The I Can Do This VS The No I Can’t!

Scene 3 – The Hot Girl

Scene 4 – Mr. Aggressive

Scene 5 – Look on the dark vs bright side