FULL NAME : LIM WEI HENG

STUDENT ID : 0320148

GROUP/ SESSION : MONDAY 9AM TO 10 AM

SUBJECT : PSYC0103/ SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

SUBMISSION DATE : 27 APRIL 2015

Human tend to formed impression based on available information like physical appearance

or one person behaviour. As it’s natural for human to do so. For example, usually when

lecturer enter a class and conduct class, the front row student will get more attention from

the lecture as those student who sit at the front row show more enthusiasm to listen to the

lecturer compare to those student who sit at the back. So this cause the lecture to focus

more on the student who are willing to learn which form social perception. Lecture also tend

to ask question during a lecture to make sure the student are catching up with her phase

which also form social interaction among students and lecturers as front row student will

tend to answer the question or being call by lecturer to answer the question as they are

more visible compare to those student at the back. Connection among lecturer and student

has cause the lecture to have specific impression among students. And usually in every

lecture, students will tend to sit among their group as they tend to find friends who share

the similar thoughts with them as this help them to get along with each other. And this had

form social influence among the course mates. As you can see from above, social psychology

theories could apply in our daily life if we observe closely and they tend to relate with each

other.

Social facilitation and social loafing also could be identified during a tutorial class. As student

were separate into different tutorial season which conduct by different lecturers. For

example, during an art classes, student who show great skills in class will have better

performance as their contribution has been identified by the lecturer which had support the

social facilitation theories. And student who show less contribution will not be identified by

other students and lecturers which cause their performance to get worse due to less effort

contribute in a group as others appearance may affect their performance. This had

supported the social loafing theories. This example had concluded the social facilitation by

Norman Triplett and social loafing by Max Ringelmann. Furthermore, Social psychology also

had different perspective such as sociocultural perspective, Evolutionary perspective, Social

Cognitive perspective and social learning perspective. This theories also could be relate to

our daily bases such as students nowadays still attempt plagiarism. As through sociocultural

perspective student plagiarise because our culture appreciate higher grade than a student’s

efforts. As for evolutionary perspective, student plagiarise because it help them to gain

better grade as it help a student to survive in one particular subject so that they won’t have

to fail one subject. Student still conduct plagiarism because he learned through example that

this act is still an acceptable behaviour which had help support in social learning perspective.

And lastly for social cognitive perspective, student still continue this act because they simple

doesn’t believe it is wrong.

Self-Serving Biases is the tendency of people to contribute success to themselves and failure

to outside factors. It’s a common type of cognitive biases. In another word, we take credit

for success and blaming outside resource for our failure. Essentially, we tend to believe that

our successes are due to internal traits and talents, while our failures are caused by variables

outside of our control. Self-serving bias occur so that this cognitive bias allows people to

protect their self-esteem by attribute positive events to personal characteristic, as people

tend to get a boost in confidence. It could happen in many situation in our daily life such as

at school, at work place, relationship, sports and many more. For example in my high school,

when I got good grade for my mathematic test, I will said that I study hard and do a lots of

exercises to get a good grade. But if I got low grade for my other subject, I will said that the

exam question is too hard and was not in the syllabus or I would blame the examiner for

being too strict while marking my papers. By blaming outside factors for failures, people

tend to protect their self-esteem and absolve themselves from personal responsibility.

Social comparison show both self-evaluation and increase expectation of success among

people with low self-esteem. Instead upward and downward comparison, similarity between

two individual enhance self-esteem. But both of this form connected to negative and

positive affect. So motivation and self-efficacy was increased or decreased through social

comparison. For example, I used to think that I’m very good in my drawings and most of my

friends in my high school are not as good as me. This make me feel that I’m the best. But

once I continue my studies in a higher institution, I realised that there are more of my course

mate who can draw better than me which had motivated me to practice more to reach up to

that standard.

Learning is a long-term change in behaviour that’s based on experiment. And there are two

main types of learning which is classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical

conditioning is a process of behaviour modification by which a subject comes to respond in a

desired manner to a stimulus that is repeatedly presented with an unconditioned stimulus.

For example, I remember the first time I got an injection, the nurse told me that I won’t hurt

much before she gave me the injection but once she did, I was shock as the injection is really

painful. And later on, I went to a dentist for a check-up. When the doctor examine my teeth,

he pick up a metal object with a pointy edge and put into my mouth and he said that it won’t

hurt much. Well even though I know it wasn’t a syringe but i started to cry. As I got the shot

from the nurse the word it won’t hurt much had become a conditioning stimulus when they

paired with the pain of the shot, the unconditioned stimulus which was followed by my

conditioned response of starting to cry. This mean that classical conditioning in action.

Operant conditioning are using reinforcement or punishment to strengthen or weaken a

particular behaviour. In another word, consequences lead to changes in voluntary

behaviour. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behaviour and a

consequence for that behaviour. This conditioning contain two component which is

reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement is any event that strengthens or increases

the behaviour it follows. There are two kinds of reinforces which is positive reinforces are

favourable events or outcomes that are presented after the behaviour and negative

reinforces which involves the removal of an unfavourable events or outcomes after the

display of a behaviour. Make it more likely that you would repeat the action again while

punishment make it less likely. Both of these cases of reinforcement, the behaviour

decreases. For punishment is the presentation of an adverse event or outcome which will

cause decrease in the behaviour. As both of punishment can be positive and negative which

cause decrease in behaviour. Positive mean adding a stimulus like getting a kiss from ur

mother after you done your homework and the negative define removal of a stimulus like

don’t need to do homework because did well in a test. When you get a kiss from your mum

after you done your homework, this give a positive reinforcement to repeat the operant

response which is to getting your homework done. Operant conditioning happen every day

in our daily life, sometime even without us noticing.

Human always think that our initial opinion is always correct and the fact is we tend to pick

the one that suit our assumption the best and this is called confirmation Bias. Which is the

tendency of favour information that confirm one own assumption into preconception

weather conclude they are true or not. For example, I had consider to buy a new android

and I heard of HTC brands android. And when I ask my friends about it, they told me not to

buy that android and called me to check online to see the amount of complain they receive.

And I did search for the complaint and it was there. Then I concluded that HTC brands

android wasn’t that good that I assume. This is the example of confirmation bias as set out

to get information that will support my hypothesis and shown out I found the information

that I’m looking for to support my hypothesis. The confirmation bias is a cognitive bias that

apply in how we seek, interpret and remember information as in the example when we seek

for the information we looking for, and we will find it no matter what to support our

information.

Counterfactual thinking is a concept in psychology which define as the tendency of imagining

different outcomes or to create possible alternative for an event that has already occurred.

As people may thought of why have to think of the past, instead of moving forward but

actually counterfactual thinking can bring benefits like changes memories, adjusting the

facts and create a new memorises and it can also help to cover up trauma. Counterfactual

thinking is usually associated with bad or negative events and can also be used to improve or

worsen one person mood. In an easier way, known as what might have been. So any time

you consider the past, think about how the past actually unfold but rather how it might

unfold it. Counterfactual thinking are actually very functional in term of helping people

understanding relationship and to make sense of course and effect. Counterfactual thinking

also were spread into two group which is upward counterfactuals and downward

counterfactual. For example, I could have achieve a better CGPA during my semester one if

only I had put a little more effort on my studies. This is an example for upward

counterfactuals and for downward counterfactual example like show appreciation to what

they have earn and deserve. For example, I got a B+ for my last business presentation, at

least It’s not a C! . Counterfactual thinking often happen around the situations of perceived

‘luck’.