Name : Yee Algel

Student Id : 0315890

Group/ Session : Monday 1pm Session

Subject : Social Psychology [PSYC0103]

Course : Foundation of Natural Build Environment (FNBE) 2013

July Intake

Assignment 1 : Individual Journal

Lecturer : T. Shankar

Submission Date :

Journal 1- Motivation 5/4/2014

The greatest motivation (intrinsic motivation) of my life was from a Taiwanese

movie which named “You Are the Apple of My Eye”. This movie was about a teenage how he

spend his teenage life and it was a true story of the director of the movie. I watched this movie

when I was studying form 4 in my secondary school.

I was a passive person. This movie changed my view of life (social influence). It teach to

me to be passionate in your life and the theory of “you only live once”. I wanted to be like him

and do not want to waste my entire teenage life just by playing computer games. I started to

become active and being passionate in my life. I changed my lifestyle. My social cycle grew

bigger and my life became much more interested and meaningful than how it really was. In a nut

shell, this movie motivated myself to be passionate in life.

Journal 2- Counterfactual Thinking 11/4/2014

Counterfactual thinking means the thought that counter fact or thinking about

something that happened in past. There are 2 type of counterfactual thinking which are

upward counterfactual and downward counterfactual. My sister always have a downward

counterfactual thinking. She is not so good in academic. Whenever I asked her how the

exam result was, then she will tell me that she got a pass in the exam and most of her

classmate failed the exam.

Then, I advised her to always look upward and do not compare her result with

them who got a worse grade than her but compare to a person who got better grade in the

exam. I do believe in how thinking affect your action. Downward counterfactual

thinking could affect your behavior (self-fulfilling prophecy). As what you believe could

causes itself to be true.

Besides, I believe everyone has upward counterfactual thinking. For instance, if

only I had played well in the game. I always have an upward counterfactual thinking after

lost a game that originally was able to win. However, I did reviewed what mistake I made

in the game and tried to improve and prevent making these mistakes again.

Journal 3- Social Loafing 19/4/2014

I experienced social loafing while I was doing a group assignment last year.

Group work is meant to be done by a group of people. However, sometimes some

irresponsible person just bumps into your life and ruins the work and your grade. Social

loafing means people who only provide little or no contribution at all while doing the

group work. One of my group member always absent during the group meeting even

though we had inform him a few days ago and called him before the meeting. He said he

will come but eventually he did not.

One day we started to do the group work and he did presented. While we were

busy doing the assignment, he just staying there and watching us to do (bystander effect).

However, he still got the same grade as the rest of the member in the group who had

contributed a lot to the assignment. This was definitely unfair to the others who did paid

so much effort in the assignment. After that, we always try not to group with him in any

assignment (Egoistic model). Finally this year, school added the peer evaluation grading

system to prevent social loafing occurs.

Journal 4- Observational Learning 26/4/2014

Observational learning states that one could learns new attitude or behavior

through observing the behavior of others. I was influenced by my mother since I was

young. I always follow her to go to market or grocery shop.

She is a smart woman, she always spends money wisely and she will never waste

money on useless stuffs. She always checks and compares the price of an item before

buying it. When I was old enough to go to buy things by myself, I unconsciously did

compared the price between few shops then only decided to buy it. This explained the

theory of Albert Bandura, watching others (models) engage in behaviors and then

repeating those actions.

I always manage and control how much money I should spend. I think this habit

was influenced by my mother through the observational learning.

Journal 5- Persuasion 6/5/2014

In the middle year of 2013, I went to a “leadership campaign” invited by my

friend. I was told it was a business campaign and leadership. That day, my friend was

extremely welcome than usual. He came to fetch me to the location where the campaign

was organized. When I reached there, I saw a lot of young adults (most probably are

people with age 18-25) were there with tidy outfits. Then we went in to a hall and settle

down. A speaker came out and talked about the story how he success while doing direct

sales. Then only I realized that was a direct sales business campaign. I knew the

definition direct sales business and how it functions but I have no interest on it. They

used good sources when they were giving the speech. They keep on focus how important

money is and how could money help you achieves your dreams or success in your life.

They also keep emphasize on how much they earned through this business.

By joining the business, you can also be like them. Yes, they attracted most

audience with this topic. They used several persuasive tactics while giving the speech like

Cialdini’s Six Weapons of Influence. First, they act very friendly throughout the event

(liking). 70% or more of the audience have already joined the business and they always

give supports to the speaker. This makes the rests follow the crowd (The bandwagon

effect). I knew they keep persuade us to join them because they wanted to earn more

money through the downline. Some of the young adults who are invited by their friends

were influenced by them and started feeling like wanted to join the business. However, I

did not even have any ideas that wanted to join them as a “Forewarning” was appear in

my mind. According to the “Inoculation” social psychological theory, my mind had built

up a strong resistance to their persuasion.

After the campaign, my friend brought me to Paparich to further explain on their

business keep on inviting me to join them. His upline come to talk to me and explain the

benefits of joining their business. I think this experience could relate to the topic of The

Power of Persuasion. They were well trained in persuade others to join the business. They

use verbal messages and non-verbal messages through a Peripheral route to promote their

business. They will keep on emphasize on benefits of their business (giving a positive

valence) and then influence your mind.