Social Psychology - Assignment 1 (Journal)

This was the first ever project assigned by our lecturer, Mr. Shankar.
For this assignment, we were required to write a journal of 5 entries with the psychology concepts applied to each. The objective of this assignment is to help gain awareness and sharpened our sensitivity to human behaviors and surroundings and help us to be able to apply the concepts we learned during lecture into our daily life.

Entry 1 
The first entry of my journal which I had chosen ambivalent this concept as the topic. Ambivalence is the state of having two contradicting thoughts at the same time, which in another form means mixed feelings. It can be both positive and negative thought happening on the same spot. In this journal which I wrote about the ambivalence state I was forced in for my studies as my future career was decided by my parents instead of letting me to choose what I really wanted.

Entry 2
The second entry of my journal, I had chosen personal influences which include introspection and affective forecasting. Introspection is an examination on your own feelings, thoughts and actions while affective forecasting is the prediction of one's affect in the future. For this entry, I wrote about the recent incident I encountered in friendship. Where I talked about the problems and obstacles faced by one of my friend in communicating with others and how I viewed everything from my own perspective.

Entry 3
For the third entry which I wrote about self-serving attribution, it's a cognitive or perceptual process that's distorted by the need to maintain and enhance our own self esteem at which we tend to focus on our own strengths and abilities only but overlook our own problems and weaknesses and blame our failures on other external factors. I talked about this bias I used to have in myself sometime ago.

Entry 4
The fourth entry which I wrote about The Halo effect, a cognitive bias in which an observer's overall impression of a person influences the observer's feelings and thoughts about that person's character. For this entry, I wrote about a friend I met few years back where she helped me out when I was at my worst and she is really nice in all ways which make me created an halo effect onto her.

Entry 5 
The last entry for my journal I talked about persuasion, an attempt to influence others attitudes and behaviors. It was about the day when I went to buy a camera for myself, of how the salesman promoted and persuaded me to get the camera that he suggested. He had use both central and peripheral route in order to attract my attention and persuade me to buy the camera. And in the end, he succeeded in his persuasion and I bought the camera back.

After completing this assignment, I understand more deeply about the concepts we learnt during the psychology classes. Which I have also learnt on how to apply all these concepts in my life. It somehow acts as a guidance when I encounter something in my daily life. Besides, this assignments help me in the way of interaction with myself and also the interaction with people around me.