This document contains 5 journal entries from a student about topics discussed in their Social Psychology class. The first entry discusses how the student used to see themselves negatively in secondary school but learned their friends saw them more positively. The second entry describes the student's experience when their siblings had H1N1 and how having a positive attitude helped the student avoid getting sick. The third entry discusses confirmation bias and how the student's beliefs impacted their behavior and outcomes in school. The fourth entry is about persuasion tactics and how understanding tactics like forewarning helped the student prepare for assignments. The fifth and final entry discusses factors that influence whether people help others, like beggars, and how the student has learned to identify those truly in need.
1. Name: Joel Ling Chyi jer
Student ID: 0320511
Group/ Session: Monday 4pm
Subject: Social Psychology
Submission Date: 27th
April 2015
2. 1st Entry: How do I look and how other look on me?
From the lecture class that I had learned, it reflects me the past of myself. When I was
listening to the 2nd lecture class with the topic of ‘Who Am I and how other individual see
me’, I started to think about my previous lifetime back when I was in secondary school.It
was started when I was at 16 years old and I was not confident to myself especially on
learning all the subjects and get through the exams. Also, I do see myself a useless guy
when I always face myself in front of a mirror, more like a human who had taken drugs
more than 3 years. I can’t do anything that I really wanted to become like due to my
limitation of knowledge and ability. At that time, I feel like I should not had existed in this
world or should had gone from this world. But then one day, there is one session of
class where everyone should give opinion about your friend and all of my friend written
me as a kind, funny and caring person. Although they know my limitation of knowledge
and ability, they still says that I’m the one who helped them most of the time and cheers
them up when their mood goes down. And from that moment, I looked at myself again
and discuss myself that maybe I wasn’t really that bad at all. Just maybe it’s my opinion
of how I look at myself but not that accurate at all. What I really wanted is how people
look at me.
3. 2nd entry: How we evaluate about the world.
From the topic that reminds me is attitude influence behavior. It reminds me back when
there was this new virus called H1N1, people around the world were suffering from the
disease and most of them were ending up taking vaccines or died. My brother and my
sister were the ones gotten this virus and I was shocked when I heard they get the virus
but then my parents treat them with antibiotics which turns out to be working. At that
time I was thinking of maybe the next victim could be me, but my parents said don’t
think such a negative thoughts. So I embrace myself and believing myself for not getting
H1N1. I also pray to God and seeking for protection against viruses that will harm my
life. At the end, I managed to fight through and didn’t get H1N1 until nowadays.
4. 3rd entry: How do we identify others?
The confirmation bias is that we seek data out to support our beliefs and we ignore data
that disprove our beliefs. Some people also preserve their belief even if they face
contradictory data, they still maintain their origin beliefs. There is also self-belief
prophecy where we can cause beliefs to occur to behaving in a manner consistent to
your desired beliefs. Talking about confirmation bias, back when I still back in primary
school, I was hoping that at least two subjects score A for it. So what I did was I’m
spending more time on studying and spend less time on gaming and it turns out that I
got what I really wanted which scoring 2 A’s for my subjects. For preservation beliefs,
back then my father really want to help people around him and he always helping out
people especially giving advice to our church members who had facing problems.
Although my father was an architect which means there were a lot of jobs that need to
be completed and meeting, he still managed to solve all the problems and able to help
people even in difficulty times. For self-belief prophecy, back to when I’m was 17 years
which was 2 years ago and we are facing exams which most of the time I did less study
case for it. So what I does is hoping myself to able to get through the exams with no
problems which turns out to be I successfully get through the test especially SPM with 1
A+ for my Mathematics while the rest got B.
5. 4th entry: The Power of Persuasion
Persuasion means attempting of influencing others’ attitudes and behaviors. This main
topic gives me some reflection back to when I’m still small after heard some of its sub
topics. Last but not least, there are three types of research that tells us about resisting
persuasion tactics which are forewarning, reactance and inoculation. From here, it tells
me about what I always did when there is assignment brief coming this week. So I must
prepare by doing a lot of research on how does the assignment looks like and what are
we going to conclude in there. At first I was very scared when first time I heard the word
assignment during my first semester in FNBE but then after complete it. I feel like it’s
quite easy if you prepared for it. For reactance, it’s more like when you were very sleepy
and then suddenly your parents tells you to do that work. Inoculation were more
incoming influence that coming to your way and you might either to defend from it or
attracted to it. I know that most of the children in the older times when they saw an ice
cream truck cross by, they will dragged to it and force their parents to buy for them. Well
even I also will do that when I was small.
6. 5th entry: Why we help and why we don’t?
From this chapter, it reminds me of everything when we saw a beggar or homeless
children walking in front of you and ask you to donate some money. Well actually from
my thought even my parents, it’s actually a good way to help them is to donate money
for items for them. But as there were many people around that time and none of them
donate money for them, then ourselves will automatically reject them. I feel very sorry
for them for not donating any money of item but due to influence by people surrounding
me. I will feel it’s a shameful action if I did that way. But then nowadays, I had learned
on how to identify a true beggar characteristic, so I was able to help those who in need.