k

1. Entry 1
Date: 2/11/2015
Time: 9:30 pm
Concept: Social facilitation
Social facilitation is the tendency for people to do better on simple tasks when in
the presence of other people. In another way, a well learnt performance of an
individual is enhanced in the presence of others. This concept is counted as the
root of social psychology because social facilitation is indirectly caused by social
interaction and social influence. This is also an explanation of why people will do
better when there is a competitor and why a one will do better than usual in a
competition. After studying this concept I actually have a new perspective in
understanding motivation. Before knowing this concept, I thought that the
achievements that I got are fully based on the hardship that I had given and my
own abilities. However, after learning this concept, I am aware that our
achievement can actually motivated by how good we perceive ourselves to be at
the task and whether we are being evaluated by others.
As for me, I think I also gone through this situation a several times in my life. The
first example happened when I am still a children, I went to ballet dancing class
since I was 7 years old and I loved dancing very much. I remembered that there
was an annual dancing concert organised by my ballet teaching centre in order to
let all girls there had their chances to dance on a stage. I was so happy and
excited as I always dreamt to dance on stage. However, I found myself not good in
memorising all the steps and I tend to forget my steps and my position every time I
practise. Miracle happened when it comes to the actual performing day, I
successfully performed all my moves with 0 errors and everything went perfectly
smooth. I do not understand what happened during that time but I think I
understand now and it is all because of social facilitation. At that point of time I am
actually motivated by the crowd who are ‘evaluating’ me which makes me lifted my
level and potential up and in the end, perform my steps well.

2. Another example happened when I was in primary and secondary school. During
my schooling time, I am the top students in my class as I always score A for my
examination results. In fact, I actually always did not do well in various type of
small tests and quiz that teacher gave us in class. I seldom got A and sometimes
even and F! However, when it got to the actual examination, I am able to achieve
a higher education results and even better than those who always got A in their
small tests in class. Hence, this incident had clearly portrait on how social
facilitation can actually motivate us. Higher and more efficient performance can be
achieved if there is a competition. As reflected back to the incident, I did not feel
the competition during the small class test and because of this I did not do my best
which eventually caused me to get lower marks in those tests.
Moreover, social facilitation can also be seen between groups of people. For
instance, I found that the quality of food in Secret Recipe in Taylor’s University is
far worst the same store outside the university. Secret Recipe can be said is a
famous chained store in Malaysia as this store can be found in various shopping
centre in Selangor area. The food in Secret Recipe is actually high standard and
quality and one of their dishes “Tom Yam Kung” which is a seafood tom yam had
actually won an international competition before! I am one of Secret Recipe’s “Tom
Yam Kung” lovers and I could say that every “Tom Yam Kung” I had tried before I
came to Taylor’s University is superb. However, the “Tom Yam Kung” in Taylor’s
University had disappointed me as it tasted far worse than the other “Tom Yam
Kung” outside the university. Hence, in my opinion, this is also due to social
facilitation. The reason why the food in Secret Recipe outside Taylor’s University is
nicer that inside Taylor’s University is because there is a competition as there are
many other restaurant which also offered the same seafood tom yam dish and
maybe with a more lower price or nicer taste, so Secret Recipe outside Taylor’s
University has to consistently maintain their quality in order to compete with the
other shop. However, in Taylor’s University there is only one shop which offered
seafood tom yam which means there is no competitor in Taylor’s University to
compete with Secret Recipe, hence their quality decreased.
In a nutshell, social facilitation is actually important and crucial to consider in
social situations, because it reflects that people's performance does not wholly rely

3. on their abilities, but is also impacted by the internal awareness of being evaluated
and the competition happening around them.

4. Entry 2
Date: 4/11/2015
Time: 7:30 pm
Concept: False Consensus Effect
False consensus effect can be said is a cognitive bias whereby one tends to
overestimate the extent to which their beliefs are shared together by the others.
This is a sociological concept where people tends to assume that their own
opinions, beliefs, preferences, values, and habits are normal and that others also
think the same way that they do. This cognitive bias will indirectly to lead to
the perception of a consensus that does not exist which we named as “false
consensus". However, this false consensus is important because it
increases one’s self-esteem, as the need to be normal and fit in with other people
in a social environment is crucial towards a person.
Through my research I found out that there are several causes which lead to
false consensus effect and one of the possible factors is known as the availability
heuristic. This is due to that when we are trying to estimate how common or likely
something is, we tend to look at the examples that come to mind most readily
which indeed related to our memory. Next factor is causes by our family and
friends who are more likely to share same beliefs and values with us. Moreover,
they are also our primary interaction in our life. Hence, we tend to overestimate
how much other people also behave in the same way. Next, is the belief that other
people think and act the same way we do increases our self-esteem. We are
actually motivated to think that other people are just like us in order to fit into the
society and be confidant. Third, we are the most familiar with our own attitudes
and beliefs and due to cognitive bias, we tend to only notice the similarity of others
with us but ignore the differences.
After all this researches, I actually found out that I also gone through false
consensus effect in my life before. First example happened when I was in primary
school. During that period, we got to celebrate children’s day annually in the mid of

5. October, and there is a culture in among friends where we can prepare some gifts
and exchange with the other friends in class. At that point of time, I am a fans of
Powerpuff Girls (a cartoon about 3 young girl who are superhero and always save
the world from evil plans). Hence, without much hesitation and investigation, I
immediately assumed that all my friends will like Powerpuff Girls, so I bought all
kinds of stationary with the image of Powerpuff Girls on it thinking that all of my
friends will want to exchange their gift with my ‘cool’ gifts. However, the reality is
that none of my friends wanted to exchange their gift with mine because none of
them loves Powerpuff Girls at all, some of them do not even know who is
Powerpuff Girls and how does they look like. I was only assuming that everyone
shares the same preferences with me which in the end leads to the happening of
false consensus effect.
Another example happened during my days secondary school where me and
some of my friends were planning for our graduation trip. My favourite place in
Malaysia is Melaka so I immediately planned a trip to Melaka without asking any of
my friends’ opinion and shared it to my fellow friends. I assumed that all of them
will agree with me that Melaka is a heaven of food and has a good environment.
However, I was wrong because the results are out of 12 friends only 3 friends
agreed with me. The rest thought that Melaka is boring and hot and the food there
is not hygienic at all. They preferred to go to places like Penang or Langkawi or
even oversea countries. When I flashback to this incident I immediately linked it to
false consensus effect where I as an individual assumed that everyone has the
same opinion as mine towards Melaka but the reality is the opposite in what I
assumed.
Last but not least, this is another incident happened around me that I think is also
caused by false consensus effect. My uncle was a regular customer for Nu Skin
product (an American multilevel marketing company which develops and sells
personal care products and dietary supplements). He believed deeply that Nu Skin
product is valuable and useful, so he decided to quit his original job and became a
direct seller for Nu Skin product. He did this because he thought that everyone
shared the same opinion with him. However, when he introduced these products in
our family gathering, none of us had any interest to buy from him. In reality, what

6. we think of Nu Skin product is actually the opposite of what my uncle thinks, we
think that Nu Skin product is too expensive and not effective at all. So, in the end,
my uncle failed in his intention to earn a living by selling Nu Skin product.
In a nutshell, false consensus effect can be said is a phenomena that everyone
will gone through in their life as this effect is caused by various factor which
included, cognition bias, influence of family and friends and also heuristics.

7. Entry 3
Date: 5/11/2015
Time: 10:00 pm
Concept: Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy is the extent or strength of one's belief in one's own ability to
complete tasks and reach goals. This is actually a psychological concept which
interactions between self-efficacy, self-concept and habits of attribution that lead to,
or detract from, self-efficacy. Moreover, Self-efficacy is actually being built through
various ways in our daily life which included social cognitive theory, social learning
theory, self-concept theory and last but not least attribution theory. All these
aspects will indirectly lead to the formation of one’s self-efficacy. Self-efficacy can
be seen as one’s ability to persist and to succeed with a task. It is beyond the
shadow of doubt that, people with high self-efficacy will threat task as a challenge
and face it with courage. However, people with low self-efficacy will threat a given
task as a difficulty and try to avoid it. Self-efficacy can also effects one’s image as
one’s self-efficacy is high, one’s image will definitely be optimistic, brave and full of
strength ; oppositely , if one’s self-efficacy is low, one will portrait weak, depressed
and irresponsible.
Through my research, I found out that there is actually a several type of factor
that will affect the high and low of our self-efficacy. The first factor is mastery
experiences where our self-efficacy is increased when we successfully go through
challenges and decreased when we failed to perform in a task. For example, we I
was in primary school, I always joined competitions organised by the school such
as singing competition, storytelling competition, and speech giving competition.
During that period, I won a lot of prizes in all those competition, these successes
had increased my self-efficacy and I threat all this competition as fun challenges.
However, when I came to secondary school, I failed in all the competition that I
had taken part. I lost my confident and my self-efficacy decreased due to my
failure. Eventually, I started to avoid taking part in competitions organized by the

8. school. Hence, this life experience of mine has successfully proved that the level
of self-efficacy can actually be determined by mastery experiences.
Secondly, the other core factor which also contributes in the changes of self-
efficacy is social modelling. Self-efficacy can actually be enhanced by witnessing
other people completing a certain task which is similar to ours. We will tend to
assumed that we also possess the same capabilities as the others who had
succeeded in this task. For instance, during my school annual sports day in
secondary school, all of the students are required to take part in high jump and
long jump. If we pass the minimum requirement of height and length, we will win a
point for our respective sport houses. I was not good in sport, in fact, I hate sports,
and hence, I was extremely unconfident in participating in these 2 types of sports.
In fact, most of the female students in my sport house are not good in these 2
kinds of sports. The low self-efficacy that we had had actually lower down the
success rate for us to pass the requirement and a lot of female students were
actually trying to avoid being forced to participate in this competition. However,
situation changes when our teacher inserted those students who are good in long
jump and high jump in between those who are weak in these sports. Students
began to participate in the activities and felt more confidants after they saw the
person in front them succeeded. The point received was also higher than before
the self-efficacy of most of the participant increased and their results also
increased. In conclusion, this situation has clearly shown that social modelling can
actually influence one self-efficacy.
Last but not least, psychological response which refers to our own responses and
emotional reactions to situations is also a factor that can cause the changes of our
self-efficacy. Psychological response also included our mood, emotional state,
physical reaction, and stress level. All these can actually impact on how a person
feels about their personal abilities in a particular situation and indirectly caused a
person to lose and gain his or her self-efficacy. However, this problem can be
overcome by learning how to minimize stress and elevate mood when facing
difficulties, this can also improve their sense of self-efficacy. For instance, I
sometimes will have a bad performance during presentation. I think this is related
to this factor as when I do not have enough preparation for my presentation, I will

9. stress out and have a bad mood. With this, my self-efficacy will lower down and
thus, cause me to perform badly in my presentation. Oppositely, if I have enough
time to prepare my presentation well, will become more relax happy and confident
during my presentation, and indeed I will get good result for my presentation.
In a nutshell, self-efficacy can be higher or lower down through various factors
and all this factors can actually occurs frequently in our daily life. Hence, we shall
handle this properly as self-efficacy can affect our success or failure in various
situations.

10. Entry 4
Date: 7/11/2015
Time: 6:45 pm
Concept: Motivation
What is motivation? Form my perception; motivation is a kind strength that keep
me work hard in order to achieve my goals. After, my research, I found that
motivation is actually defined as the process that initiates, guides, and maintains
goal-oriented behaviours which acts as the ‘strength’ in order for us to reach our
goals. There are actually 3 major components of motivation: Activation, which
involves the decision to initiate certain behaviour, persistence, which is the
continuation effort towards a goal even though there is a circumstance, lastly,
Intensity, which refers to concentration and that goes into pursuing a goal.
Moreover, motivation can actually be divided into 2 types, intrinsic motivation and
extrinsic motivation. After all the research and explanations from my lecturer, I
found out that there are quite a lot of situations in my life that have encounter this
psychological concept.
Intrinsic motivation is also known as a motivation that drives us to take certain
action for the sake of enjoyment. This is the motivation which driven by the
enjoyment in the task itself, and exists within the individual rather than relying on
external pressures or a desire for reward. For example, the best thing I love to do
is drawing and this is my hobby too! I will draw any time when I am free and for
now, every time there is a school project that requires us to draw I will be very
excited. I can do this project until late night without feeling tired, also, I wanted to
make sure that I did this project to perfection. What drive me to do this project to
perfection is not because I wanted to get an A, is actually because that I love
drawing so much and is the love of drawing which is categorised as intrinsic
motivation that motivate me to complete this project perfectly. Another incident that
happened in my life that involved intrinsic motivation is the time when I become
one of the leaders in my sports house decorating team. I join this team is not
because I wanted to boost up my reputation or get more teacher to notice me but

11. is purely because I like to design. Hence, I am always able to work with my highest
concentration and efficiency. There is an intrinsic motivation which generated from
my love towards design supporting me in order for me to complete this task and I
will not feel tired or frustrated but full of hope and excitement. Another example
happened just a couple months ago. I love to post my drawings to Facebook every
time I had done one and one day, my English subject tuition teacher saw my
artwork and wanted to buy one of my artwork for me for Rm 100. After this, about
6 of my artwork have been sold. However, I did not increase the production of my
artwork because it can help me to earn money. In another word, I did not
motivated by money to produce more drawing. I still draw whenever really I
wanted to. This has shown the motivation that keeps me continue drawing is due
to intrinsic motivation which generated from my inner self but not the external
element. In conclusion, intrinsic motivation focuses more on the subject rather
than rewards or punishments.
On the other hand, extrinsic motivation is totally opposite to intrinsic motivation as
extrinsic motivation is refer to the motivation that cause us to take action in
response to external pressure or circumstances. This motivation is influenced by
elements outside us. Some of the examples of the elements are all kind of rewards,
or punishments. One of the examples that happened in my life which can be
related to extrinsic motivation is during my secondary school schooling period. I
am not a high achiever during that time as I always got B for my result. Hence, my
parents motivate me to study harder by promising to give me Rm 20 for every
subject that I got A in the exam. This is actually a type of extrinsic motivation as I
started to motivate myself to study but this was not because that I love the
subjects but was due to the Rm 20 reward. Another example happened during my
physical education (PE) lesson in the school field. Our PE teacher asked us to run
the school field for 3 rounds within 5 minutes and whoever did not meet the
requirement will be punished to clean the field after class ended. All of us used all
our strength to finish the run as we wanted to avoid the punishment. This incident
has clearly shown that extrinsic motivation is driving us to finish our run at that
time as we run to avoid the punishment. Third example happened about 3 years
ago. Me and one of my friends teamed up and participate in a duet piano

12. competition. During that time, I practised my part as secondo hardly every day
after schooling time. Moreover, I and my friend also meet up 4 times a week to
train ourselves. I also made appointment with my piano instructor to improve my
techniques and skills. However, I did all these is because I wanted to win the
competition but not because I really like to play piano or the songs we were
practising. Hence, I can conclude that, I was motivated my extrinsic motivation
where the external element that kept me going was the urge to win the competition.
To wrap it up, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have their own advantages
and disadvantages. As for intrinsic motivation, it is good in the way that intrinsic
motivation can be long-lasting and self-sustaining as it motivates us from our inner
self. Oppositely, efforts in developing intrinsic motivation can be slow and require
special and lengthy preparation. Hence, intrinsic motivation is more suitable in
fostering hobbies rather than studies. As for extrinsic motivation, it implements a
faster result, greater impact, and can influence more individuals. However, the
weak part of this type of motivation is that this motivation can easily be removed
as it only comes from external elements but not from our real inner self. Hence, we
should know the motivations and handle them wisely so that we can use these
motivations and help us to achieve our life goals.

13. Entry 5
Date: 10/11/2015
Time: 8:20 pm
Concept: Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning can also be known as instrumental conditioning as this is a
method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behaviour.
Through operant conditioning, an association is made between behaviour and a
consequence for that behaviour. There are 2 main branches in operant
conditioning: reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement is actually a way to
increase one’s behaviour while reinforcement can also be separated into positive
reinforcement and negative reinforcement. An example for positive reinforcement
is giving RM 10 to a student if he or she scored 100 marks. On the other hand,
negative reinforcement happens as the student has to pay Rm 10 as he or she get
lesser than 100 marks. Apart from that, another branch of operant conditioning is
punishment which results to the weakening of a particular behaviour. This branch
of conditioning can also be separated into two smaller branches which are positive
punishment and negative punishment. Positive punishment occurs when stimuli is
presence, for example, caning. Negative punishment occurs when stimuli is
absence, for instance, grounding.
It is beyond shadow of a doubt that, I actually used operant conditioning to
strengthen or weaken my behaviour before in my life. The first incident happens
when I was still in preschool. I remembered that our teacher actually used a lot of
concepts in operant conditioning to mould our behaviour no matter is
reinforcement or punishment. As for reinforcement, our teacher will give us sweets
or biscuits as reward every time we answered a question correctly or we eat our
lunch without dirtying out table. Nevertheless, our teachers will always give us
compliment such as: “Good boy!”, “Well done!”, and “Good job!” whenever we did
something right or obey the rules well. This is undoubtedly true that, the way the
teachers are using is considered as positive reinforcement operant conditioning as
we are consistently praised for our particular behaviour which will in turn make us
to increase our behaviour. However, whenever we quarrel or fight with our friends

14. or did not finish our homework, we will be punished by standing in a white circle as
the corner of the class for 15-30 mins. Although the rewards and punishments are
not significant, but it did give a great impact in moulding our personal
characteristics as we will keep on doing the things that we could get rewards but
avoid doing things in order not to be punished.
Another example can also be seen when I was in primary and secondary school.
As we grow older and older, the punishments and reinforcements used will also
become greater and harder to get. I remembered that I have to obey tons of
school rules every day, for instance do not come late for school, always keep my
uniform clean, pay attention in class and respect my teachers. If I did not obey one
of the school rules, I will be punished in various ways depending on the
seriousness of my fault. I will be canned in class if I got my exam marks lower than
70. Sometimes, I will be punished to clean the classrooms if I forgot to do my
homework. These are example of negative operant conditioning as will not want to
repeat the same mistake (behaviour) again to avoid punishments. Oppositely, I
also remembered that when I scored full A in UPSR, PMR and SPM examination, I
was rewarded my cash vouchers and I am able to go onto the stage and receive
trophies from my school principals! This is definitely a type of positive operant
conditioning as I will be motivated and my will to study harder (behaviour) will also
be reinforced.
Apart from school, my parents are actually using operant conditioning to educate
us at home. In order to motivate us to study hard, my parents will reward us Rm 20
to every subject that we scored 80 marks and above. This can be counted as a
type of positive reinforcement operant conditioning as the reward will keep me
going and strengthen my will to continue study hard. Other than that, my parents
always spank my baby brother’s hand every time he tries to open the fridge and
wanted to eat chocolate secretly. This is actually positive punishment operant
conditioning as it is used to decrease a behaviour and is presenting something
unpleasant after the behaviour. However, if I did not obey my parents instruction or
did not do my house chores, I will be punished by grounded or worst still, my
parents will forbidden me to play computer games for a day. This is a typical type

15. of punishment operant conditioning as I will change my behaviour to avoid the
punishment.
In a nutshell, using the psychological concept of operant conditioning in our life is
actually good as it can help us to strengthen our positive behaviour and weaken or
change our negative behaviour and make us a better person.