This document summarizes five journal entries by a student about cognitive biases: 1) The first entry discusses self-serving bias and how the student tends to take credit for successes but blame failures on external factors. 2) The second entry explains availability heuristic and how the student's parents worried about flying after the MH370 incident. 3) The third entry is about how mood affects cognition, as the student reacted angrily after being bumped on a bad day but not on a good day. 4) The fourth entry describes halo effect, as the student formed a good impression of a classmate based on his appearance and manners. 5) The last entry explains confirmation bias, noticing that people seeking opinions on phones

1.
SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT
(FNBE) AUGUST 2014 INTAKE
NAME: BRIDGET HSU
STUDENT ID NO: 0320218
Group/Session: MONDAY 4PM – 6PM
Subject and Course: Social Psychology (PSYC0103)
Assignment 1 – Individual Journal
SUBMISSION DATE: 27/4/ 2015

2. ENTRY 1 : SELF SERVING BIASES
The self-serving bias refers to our tendency to take personal credit for
success while blaming outside sources for our failures. 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 always happen on me after exam. Back in my school life ,
every time when teacher release exams result , if my result is good I always
tell my parents that is all my hard work never reward others for such outcome
. On the other hand if my result was not good I always blame teacher did not
teach us well , I guess this is what all human being will do , I have came
across many incident that my friends are practicing the self serving bias , well
, self serving bias not always a good thing to be practice .

3. ENTRY 2 : THE AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC
An availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate
examples that come to mind. When you are trying to make a decision, a
number of related events or situations might immediately spring to the
forefront of your thoughts. As a result, you might judge that those events are
more frequent and possible than others. You give greater credence to this
information and tend to overestimate the probability and likelihood of similar
things happening in the future.
During my last mid- semester break , all my friends are planning to go
back to their hometown , so am I , I called my mom telling her how much I
miss home , and asking her to buy me flight ticket . My mom did not reject me
or agreed with me in the conversation. A few hours later my phone rang , dad
called and said “Dear , your holiday is just one week , you don’t need to came
home ” Daddy explain : “I’m worry because of the MH370 incident ” . This is
where the this theory occur , every time I say about going home by plane a lot
of incident came across my parents mind which leads to make them worry
and judge those event .

4. ENTRY 3 : THE EFFECT OF MOOD COGNITION
In this chapter we will cover the study of emotion from the cognitive
perspective. It could be argued that what the previous chapters miss is how
cognitive processing can be color by emotion.
I still remember on a rainy day in campus, my mood was quite down on
that day due to some problem that I face in my assignment, on my way to
have my lunch, a guy came from no way suddenly bang into me, I almost fall I
was very angry I tell my self that I wont forgive him for his action. I don’t react
like this usually, I guess maybe is due to my mood on that particular day was
not good. I realize same thing happen to me , but on that day my mood was
quite good I score high marks for my assignment , on the day when a girl she
bang into me I fall down but surprisingly I did not get angry , I forgive her with
all my heart and go with smile . I guess this is the theory of the effect of mood
cognitive .

5. ENTRY 4 : THE HALO EFFECT
The halo effect is a type of cognitive bias in which our overall
impression of a person influences how we feel and think about his or her
character. Essentially, your overall impression of a person He is nice impacts
your evaluations of that person's specific traits He is also smart .
When I first came to my university life I when to orientation party , I met
this guy who are good looking , polite and very quite . I did not talk to him on
the day , his first impression to me was he must be very shy and must be a
good man , time goes by I realize that he was taking same course as me , we
did no talk or interact with each other until one day , lecture assign us to find a
group I decide to ask him to join my group I invited him to my group . The halo
effect really work in life , he has given me a good first impression leads me to
judge him in a good way and willing to have him as a friend in my life.

6. ENTRY 5 : CONFIRMATION BIAS
Confirmation biases impact how people gather information, but they
also influence how people interpret and recall information. For example,
people who support or oppose a particular issue will not only seek
I realize that this theory actually happen in my life without noticing it
until one day I was sitting in the coffee shop with my friend we were
discussing about phones , one of my friend wanted to buy a new phone ,
some of my friend are using Samsung and most of us are using Iphone. I am
trying to convince her for buying an Iphone , in this incident I see people
practice confirmation bias , people with Samsung with work together with
people who use Samsung , people who using iphone will work together
people who use iphone people will work together with people who share the
same belief as they do to support their belief .