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!NAME: CHONG YI QI

STUDENT ID: 0304898

GROUP/ SESSION:

SUBJECT AND COURSE: SOCIAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY [PSC0103]

SUBMISSION DATE: 10 NOVEMBER 2014

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Chapter 1: Modern Social Perspective on Why People Steal

Entry 1

Have you ever curious about why do people steal? In social psychology, it does

have many perspectives explain why do people steal. Do you ever have the idea of

stealing or the impulsive feeling to steal something once in your lifetime. I did.

Especially when the time came to junk food but short of pocket money in primary school.

Luckily due to I was really little and moral person, I did not steal any sin food from the

canteen. Anyways, not just the feeling but I did have the behavior of stealing few years

ago. Still remembered this was happened during a holiday my friend and I went to. There

was a night during my vacation, after our whole day activities and massage, we decided

to hang around the city. Then I spotted there was a poster pasted on the glass of the KFC,

it was an advertisement about a good looking guy (artist of Korea) was having some

crispy fried chicken. I was totally addicted of the poster. We just kept making joke and

having fun nearby. I spotted no one around, so I have done one of the most craziest things

in my life. I stole the poster to make it became my own belonging. Indeed, everyone was

startled for my behavior and acknowledged me was crazy and I was brave to against the

law. Morally, I was wrong and to be honest, I knew what exactly what I have done wrong.

But I just could not control my behavior and I was thinking this was not a big deal, I was

just making fun. I did feel guilty once and I realized that I was started made up some

excuses to defend my behavior after I stole the poster. Luckily, I did not fall into any

criminal charges. People would think it might just a poster for KFC, but have you thought

about the consequences behind the behavior. From my friend’s behavior, they might lead

me to the stealing path as they did not produce me the right information in the future. It

totally made me have no shame of what I have done after my friend’s compliment.

Besides, what if I got caught from the staff of KFC, what people normally did was gave

money to KFC to cover up. I admitted I would have the same behavior as well. This is

what our social and media taught us. Money can do anything. This is also one of the

reason how the social made people became shoplifter to fulfill their materialistic desire as

they can use money to get rid of law sue. The social and my friend’s behavior not only

made me not identified stealing as a wrong idea but also made me perceived stealing as a

acceptable behavior.

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Entry 2

For the topic on ‘Why people steal?’, the person come first on my mind is

Lindsay Lohan. When the press released Lindsay Lohan was allegedly stole a very

expensive necklace from a Los Angeles jewelry store. I believed everyone was startled

and interrogated that why did Lindsay Lohan steal? She does not need to steal. She could

have afforded the necklace but even if she could not have, she certainly did not need the

necklace for survive. We did not know anything about Lohan, except her artist image

which form by the media and her company. Have any of us thought about what was the

real reason behind Lohan stole? In fact, she did have the drug problem. It might be any

chance of her drug hallucination made her stole or it was just her wanted to steal

personally or she had no idea what she have done? In social psychology, there are various

modern social perspectives do explain why do people steal, such as influence of

materialistic culture; for surviving; no identify stealing as wrong; perceive stealing as an

acceptable behavior and have little regard for other people or law. Lohan did make a bad

influence for teenager as she is a popular teen idol. Teenager might perceive her behavior

as an acceptable behavior to steal when they acknowledged someone who is so wealthy

and well-known were stealing.

Many people steal are mostly law-abiding citizen which they have no idea why they do it.

There is a story that happened from my friend. Her whole family like stealing even

though they are good citizen and massively wealthy. From her family background, they

definitely can afford anything. Yet they love to steal those tiny stuff instead of expensive

branded stuff, for instances, they liked to steal the sauce from those fast-food chains;

duvet, cutlery or anything from the plane. They just could not help it. If you have realized

all those things they stole were not selling on the market. They even displaying or

showing to people what they have stolen. They were so proud of the things they have

stolen because what they stole were exclusive and priceless. They did feel great for their

behavior which made they felt unique in term of they are owning what others did not

have. Nevertheless, they would be really ill when they kept continuing stealing without

get caught. We did know it was morally wrong but we still would not identify they were

wrong due to we were lacked of the knowledge for accusing they were sick or they were

having some kind of psychological problems. What we usually did were just showing

thrilling expressions and laughing on it.

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Chapter 2: The Self – Who Am I and How Do Other Individuals See Me?

Entry 1

There is a tendency for people to assume that their own opinions, beliefs,

preferences, values, habits, behaviors and attitudes are normal and others also think the

same way that they do. We tend to overestimates others will act or think as we do. This is

known as false consensus in social psychology. Sometimes we expect and assume our

family or friends will think the same way as we do but in fact they don't. I always think

that saving the environment is our responsibility and I believe others will think it as the

same way. Humans are polluted the earth and I believe we should have some actions to

prevent the pollution getting worst. Therefore I strongly agree that we should not litter

and we should use recycle bags instead of plastic bags. I thought that all of my friends

would think the same way because we all have been educated in the same way but the

truth is they don’t. Few months ago, I went to a marathon with my friends, the event had

provided drinks and packaging snack to every participants in the end of the marathon.

After finished the marathon, my friends and I have took some drinks and snacks for our

hunger. Then I was looking for the rubbish bin after we finished our foods and drink,

unfortunately I could not finds any of them around us so I was holding the trash on my

hand. In the other side, my friends just threw the rubbish on the floor directly and I stared

at them and told them they should throw the rubbish in the bin instead of throw on the

floor. Yet my friends just asked me to throw it on the floor because even they did not

throw the rubbish on the floor others will do so and the environment would not be clean

as well if they did not throw. In my point of view, as a responsible citizen, we should be a

role model for others to examine their behavior. In honest, I was a bit disappointed about

my friend’s behavior because they did agree that our environment is polluted but their

action was not consistence with their thought.

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Entry 2

As a civilization country, we have been educated moral in moral class since

primary school. In such circumstances, we suppose to be a civil citizen in our real life but

this civil behavior seems like is not applying on everyone in reality. Since I have

educated to have moral in my life, therefore I always think that every individual suppose

to act and think in the same way as everyone is having the same education, culture and

ethic; in fact this is not true and everyone’s behavior is different. In the bottom line, we

should be given some basic respect and manner to others, but some people have lost their

moral and manner while they grow older. One of the classic example is lining up in the

toilet. As we know queue up in the front of the toilet instead of the cubicle is the basic

manner. Yet what I realize parts of the Malaysian are still not used to this fundamental

manner in Malaysia. Most of the Malaysian will directly jump the queue for their turn.

This happened several time when I was in toilet. Normally if all cubicles were engaged

when I was in washroom, I will queue patiently at the beginning of the toilet for my turn.

But what really happened was most people who came after me just ignored me and

passed by me to queue in front of the cubicle and the worst part was they directly entered

the cubicle with my notice. Indeed, I was queueing for my turns but some individuals

could just be so cheeky and shameless to ignore me. I was thrill and felt ridiculous about

this situation would be happened in my country. I really could not believe and understand

how could people behave like uneducated even though we are living in the civilization

country. I could not blame the failure of our moral education in Malaysia, as this is the

behavior as every individual perceived differently. Besides, education suppose to improve

our culture level and I assume that every Malaysian should have the responsibility to

enhance it.

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Chapter 3: Social Cognition – Thinking About the Social World

Entry 1

Will mood affect on cognition? How does the mood affect on cognition? What is

the effect of mood on cognition? It is an interesting question in a social world. Many

researchers have studied the effects of cognition on emotion. As there are almost constant

interactions between cognition and emotion in everyday life, any attempt to provide an

adequate theory of cognition that ignores emotion is likely to prove inadequate. For

example, the mood-congruence effects, which is our positive and negative reaction in

different emotions. I still remembered my brother brought me to a night market, which

near my house without any adults beside us when I was around 7 years old. We both were

in the naughty and playful kids stage and we love to adventure everything that adults did

not allow us to do. During that day, my parents were not at home and my brother wanted

to go to the night market and he needed a company so he grabbed me to the night market

together. When we both reached home at evening, my mom already backed to home and

she looked really irritated. She kept questioning us where have we been and we just told

her the truth that we went to the night market. The worst part was my mum started to

accuse my ignorance behavior (goes out alone without any adult accompany) instead of

my brother. In that moment, I felt so unfair and pissed that why me not my brother as this

entire outing was my brother’s idea. So I cried and screamed on my mum as this was my

brother’s fault. My mum was totally pissed off and she slapped me in return due to my

rudeness attitude. She slapped me. I was totally shock and this was definitely her first and

last time slapping me. After the slapped, I really hate her in that moment and I did not

even talk to her in few days. All I got from this incident was my mom slapped me and it

was really my bad childhood memories. In fact, my mom was over reacted because she

was too worried about our safety and frustrated about my manner.

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Entry 2

The effect of mood-cogngruence is we remember negative details of an event if

we were in a bad mood. The other experience I am going to share is an incident which

happened in a trip I went with my friends. During the semester break, my friends and I

have decided went to Singapore together. During the first few days, we went to some

places we have never been before and we did have a lot of funs and laughs. Basically the

trip was perfect but something bad happened on the last day in Singapore. As was the last

day in Singapore and I did not want to miss the chance to meet my friend who worked in

Singapore before I left, we decided to separate into few groups so we could have our own

activities. After caught up with my friends, I went back to the hostel around 11pm and I

found out the others still have not backed yet. When I was about to go to sleep, one of my

friend’s (let’s called her S) father called me and asked me where his daughter was due to

he couldn't reach his girl and he was so worried about her. I told him that his daughter

was not with me and they might still at outside hanging out and I will ask his daughter to

return the call when she reached the hostel. I kept calling every of my friend where she

was, either no one knew where she was or no one picked up my call. Then I got the bad

news that S’s phone has dropped into the toilet bowl so that why her phone was not

working. In the other side, S’s father kept calling and asking me regards his daughter

location and he still waiting for her call. I could not do anything instead but only can

promise to ask her return her call when she reached hostel. I started to get frustrated

because I am the elder who was in responsibility to take care of them in this trip and I

sincerely did not want anything bad happened during this trip. So when I finally reached

S, I told her to give her father a call immediately and their location and time they would

like to come back in a bad tone. When they reached hostel around 2am, we had a small

quarrel about her irresponsibility behavior. I was mad at their irresponsibility because

they did not inform the other members where they were going and what time they were

coming back to the hostel. After the bad incident in the last day, the awesome feeling

about this trip was not longer existed. The feeling I had for this trip was different in the

first place; most of the thing I could remember about this trip was the incident happened

in the last day. So when people asking me what am I feel about this trip? It will be all

negative as this incident did affect my impression of them and Singapore a lot.

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Chapter 4: Social Perception — How Do We Perceive Others?

Entry 1

We actively seek out data that support our beliefs and disregard data that refute

our beliefs. We maintain our original beliefs, even in the face of contradictory data. This

is known as the confirmation bias in social psychology. We can actually cause beliefs

about ourselves to become true by behaving in a manner consistent with those beliefs.

When I was 14 years old, I received several emails from my friend was regarded the

bizarre thing which happened in a China village. The people from the village caught

some females outside of their village, locked and fed them until the Chinese New Year

was around the corner then they would kill those females and cook them for celebrating

their Chinese New Year. Later, I have seen a news reported that a lot of kids and girls

were mysteriously disappeared and found that some have been killed for taking their

organs and sold it, cropped some parts of their body and make them either be a beggar on

the street or become an extraordinary person who performs in the ‘believe or not’

museum in China. After reading those negative news and emails that happened in China,

I started having a bad impression of China and I resisted to travel and visit China

although people were saying how beautiful China it was. Years later, there were food

safety incidents happened in China, for instances like baby milk powder that contained

some illegal chemical that will caused baby dead; the cooking oil from the drain; spoiled

meat sell in public; fake eggs and fruits and so on which made me felt that Chinese

people were so selfish and ugly. They did not care about what negative effects will

happen on the people who ate those poison foods, they only care about how many profits

they can earn from that. In the meantime, there were so many rumors about Chinese girls

got involved on breaking people family and caused a lot of family divorced. Besides,

Chinese tourist also have the bad reputation about their rude, hygiene and impolite

behavior while traveling to other country. So when I traveled to other country, the least

person that I wanted to meet was Chinese. Is always easy to differentiate Chinese from

the crowd especially when they speak very loud in public or in those noble places, they

like to cut queue, they spit and they have a very arrogant attitude to the staffs like they are

the only wealthy person in the world. Although we should not judge a book by it’s cover

and racist but I still avoid to meet and know any Chinese people. Until now, most of the

feeling I have for Chinese people was those negative feelings such as greedy, selfish,

violence and impolite. It really hard to persuade me that any good things will happen in

China even though there does have something great happen in China.

!!!Entry 2

Confirmation bias is a fascinating dynamic. What we see may not be what we

judge it to be. What we think we are seeing may just be what we expect it to be when

what we expect it to be. In another confirmation bias cases that happened in my life were

I always thought people who with a lot of tattoos were bad people when I was little. So

what comes to your mind when you think of tattoo? Body Art? Trend? Memory? Sin? For

me, tattoo is just representing bad, gangster, criminal, drugs or any negative feeling.

When I was little, I always saw the bad character in the movie or drama have a big area

tattoos everywhere of their body. So when I walked in the street and saw guys with

tattoos standing along the street, I will feel scared and started walk faster to pass over

them. As I always perceived the character with tattoos always own a dangerous weapon

and criminal background, so I consciously assume that guys with tattoos should have gun

with them or they are mostly having crimes such as kidnapping, raping, robbery, taking

drug or doing some illegal deals. Due to the movies have brought me a lot of bad

impression of people with tattoos, so I only concerned about those bad news and negative

article about tattoo. The irony was I tried to avoid knowing people with tattoos, but

somehow some of my friends have tattoos on their body and even my elder sister has

tattoos too. In fact it doesn't turn them into a bad person. After I grew up and become

more knowledgable, I have become more understanding and generous for people with

tattoos. Tattoo should not only be the symbol for the gangster, it also can represent a

sentimental memory for somebody or even some people perceived tattoo as a kind of art.

!!!!!!Chapter 5: Attitudes — Making Evaluations About The World

Entry 1

Attitudes can positively or negatively affect a person’s behavior. A person may

not always be aware of his or her attitude and the real effect of behavior. Person with

positive attitude is often see things in a positive way. On the other hand, person with

negative attitude that attitude will be reflected through behavior. Every attitude has three

components, which are ABC model of attitudes: A for affective (how one feels), B for

behavioral (what one does) and C for cognitive (what one knows). I have bitten by a

spider when I was in primary school. Although I did not admitted to the hospital or any

negative consequences happened to me, from that time onwards, I have a phobia of spider

and I am really scared of spider. Even seeing the close up image of spider would make

me feel disgusting. Still remembered I was with my friends in a car once and suddenly I

saw a spider was on my top then I started screamed out loud and wanted to swap the seat

with my friends because I felt anxiety, fear and insecure that I was in the same space and

so near with it. I kept screaming inside the car and almost cried out loud because I was so

afraid that the spiders will bite me again and I would get poisoned or dead even though

the spider was very small. My friends refused to swap the seat with me because they love

looking at the thrill expression on my face and it was such a huge fun that any possibility

the spider would drop on me and bite me (the spider is real small even it can be dead with

my index finger, so it would be very small possibility that the spider has the ability to

cause me dead or poisoned). After the bad young experiences, I have looked up every

single information regarded spider from Internet, it alleges that most of the spiders are

poisonous and would hurt and kill people in minutes with their venom toxicity. Based on

the knowledge and the experience I got via internet or myself, I do believe that spiders

are venomous, dangerous and can cause people dead in just a minute.

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Entry 2

In year 2013, Malaysia held the 13th Malaysian general election on 5th of May,

which it was also known as the darkest day in Malaysia. The election was almost won by

the Pakatan Rakyat leader by Anwar Ibrahim but near the end of counting the votes, the

electricity suddenly broke down and after the electricity came back, the Barisan National

suddenly got one extra box of votes and it won the election in the end. I was studying in

Taiwan in that period of time so when I got the news from Internet that the Barisan

National did those tricks to won the election, I was really frustrated and disappointed

about my government and country’s corruption. Corruption and the filthy tricks to won

the election in Malaysia was spreading all around the world. I felt so embarrassing about

what Malaysia government has done, it was really nothing to be proud of as our country

became famous because of the cheated election. For that moment, I seriously did not

want to admit myself as Malaysian. It really shame being Malaysian when the country

was gaining the bad reputation instead of the great one. On 8th of May, many people were

wearing black gathered at Petaling Jaya Stadium to attend the rally which organized by

Anwar to protest against the election results and demand an open and rational election.

Even I couldn't attend the rally was held in Malaysia but I still attended the rally held in

Taiwan to against the unfair result of the election. I have read the news from the Internet

and newspapers that our government have brought the people from Bangladesh to

Malaysia and provided them a fake Malaysia identity card to create the fake votes and

even let them voted twice. From the news I got and perceived, I believed that our

government had done those unfair and dirty tricks to win the election and the political

corruption has made our economy became worst.