SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT

Name : MUHAMMAD HASIF BIN ALIAS

Student ID : 0316413

Group/Session : MONDAY, 1.00 PM

Subject : Social Psychology 0103

Course : Foundation in Natural and Built Environment (FNBE)

Lecturer: T. SHANKAR

Submission Date : 12th MAY 2014

Journal Entry #1

Extrinsic Motivation - taking a certain action in response to external pressure or obligation in order to avoid punishment or earn a specific reward.

March 3rd, 2014 11.20pm

After finished playing futsal, me and my friends went to our usual relax restaurant, “Lorong” to refresh our bodies

with a giant sized fresh juice at SS15. As we sat down and made our order, we remembered that our friend, Hazim

which already left after the game, lost his phone there last week. And so we thought, why not ask the workers. We

asked the guy who usually act as a cashier. He is an Indian but can speak both Malay and English fluently. We asked

and then he reacted. We only told that we lost a phone but he mentioned the size and colour of Hazim’s phone which is

a black colored Nokia Asha. He briefly said he knew nothing and had not seen it, but the facial expression his giving

was obvious that he do know about it. Thus, a game of psychology start. We kept asking until he smiled and said,

“What will you do once you have the phone?”. We said we’ll be thankful and ensure that our friend learn his lesson not

to leave him phone. He mocked my Islamic religion saying that being thankful, reciting “Alhamdulillah” was simple

and only we gain the benefit. And so we figured that he does know about and want something in return. I went straight

forward with him and forced him to admit it. He admit that the phone is currently with him and blamed us for leaving it

just like that, and demanded a compensation. We tried asking nicely for the phone but he ignored our request and

demanded us to pay RM40 for compensation. I requested to see his boss who was eating at the back of the restaurant. I

went there with Afif . The boss was devastated and afraid of us when we started our conversation. The boss still

demanded for compensation, however he only requested RM20. I thought for a while and agreed, I supposed Hazim

would not mind paying RM20 for a RM300 phone. I paid to the boss and quickly left that area with a frown face.

Nadine and Akmal swear that they will never go to the restaurant ever again.

March 4th, 2014 12.40pm

I asked Hazim to came early in the morning before our Accounts class so that I could pass his phone. He wanted

to pay me back the money I paid to the Indian guy, but I refused. I wanted him to promise that he’ll never do it again

and try to be more careful. Hazim told me that he bought a new phone. He bought the Nokia Lumia 525. Surprised, I

can only smiled and congrats him on acquiring a new phone. I told him all about what happened yesterday and as I

expected, he reacted calm as if nothing bad happened because he is a very patient guy. After our class ended, we went

to eat lunch with my friends whom I ate with at Lorong yesterday. The only thing we talked about while we ate was

how bad and fat the guy was and how they hate to go to Lorong ever again. I sat quietly thinking about it. Malaysia

was supposed to be a country rich with courtesy. It was our right to take the phone back, the worker should have just

give it to us. He did not sell it and chose to keep it because he knew that he can use that as a reason to seek rewards

from us. That was our weakness that night and we lose, however history shall not be repeated again.

Journal Entry #2

False Consensus Effect - assuming that everyone shares the same ideas or opinions as us.

March 20th, 2014 2.00pm

As usual, I have my English class at 10 a.m at Block D, I thought it’ll be another in class group work, but this week

task really surprised me. Ms Cassie divided ourself into a group of 3 and like always, Akmal and Hazim will be in my

group. We were required to prepare a list of questions which we will be doing a live interview with Taylor’s residents.

After 15 minutes of brainstorming, we decided that we should just go with questions about the FIFA World Cup,

1Malaysia Book Vouchers and the movie Frozen. Akmal disagree with my final question which was “Have you

watched Frozen? Do you like the song ‘Do You Want to Build a Snowman’ or ‘Let It Go’? ”. He disagreed because not

all students have watched it before, however I still wanted to try. Ms Cassie approved our questions and let us start our

interview. We only need 3 people and we interviewed 2 males which were Zakwan and Mr. Joe and a random girl. As

the first and second questions answered smoothly, all 3 people had a hard time answering the last one, my question.

Amazingly, all 3 of them had not watch Frozen before, however Mr Joe did listened to the songs before and hated both

of the songs I questioned. I am pretty sad that my question were not answered and the expressions of the people that I

wanted them to react upon hearing such question cannot be seen. In the end, Akmal was right, even if the movie like

Frozen was a great movie, it does not mean it had been watch by every single human lived on this planet. After finish

interviewing, we have to go to C5, block B to report to Miss Cassie. Ms Cassie told me that we did a great job at

interviewing and gave us some advice to help us with our future serious interviews. Ms Cassie told me that my

question was interesting, however I should avoid asking such open question. She mentioned false consensus in her

advice, and the next thing I do was to open my laptop and record this in my journal and may it be a lesson for me to

learn and avoid repeating it in the future. Just because I like the movie, does not mean everyone like it. Like politicians,

not everyone shared a same thought or idea.

Journal Entry #3

Discrimination - negative behaviors directed at a specific group of people.

March 25th, 2014 2.30pm

Last night, I had a fight with Darren, a friend of mine whom I just get close to during my 2nd semester. It was a

verbal fight via Facebook. At first, I thought it was a joke of how he was mad at me for not coming to Taylor and

breaking a promise which he said that I made. And so, I pretended to be angry and just go with the flow and replied all

his comments. Our conversation was noticed by the whole FNBE batch because we “fought” in our batch’s Facebook

group. Today, I realized he did not sit right next to me and did not even greet or reply my greet. I concluded that he

was seriously mad at me. Even so, I thought it was normal and as guys, we should be able to forgive each other

quickly. I thought it was easy as long as I apologize but Darren proved me wrong. All day long, he acted as if I’m a

ghost and walked away even when I tried talking to him at Arisan, the restaurant where we usually have our lunch

together with Hazim. My friends in FNBE asked me what really happened between us, and all I can say was “I thought

it was a joke, an act”. I tried instant messaging via WhatsApp but Darren did not reply and I knew by looking at last

seen function. Anyhow, I acted normal and hoped that this fight should not last long.

April 4th, 2014 11.00am

After I finished my morning English classes, I went back home. For the entire week Darren had ignored me. If he

wanted to be mad at me, it was fine but it was not just me, however Darren somehow was mad at the entire Malay

students from FNBE. He probably made a stereotype or something. Thinking that all Malay are the same and should

not be friend with. My friends, Akmal and Afif told me that they tried greetings and asking about works but Darren left

them standing there like a stone. My friends told me that I was being soft at him, trying to ask for forgiveness. They

said I should just forget about him because no one need a friend who his emotional beats a woman. Afif was in the

same team as Darren for Psychology. He said that since I had a fight with Darren, Darren did not reply Afif’s messages

and calls when Afif need to talk to him about their comic works. Darren changed and started displaying a bad attitude

towards us Malay. I see no reason to discriminate the Malay people as I am the one who caused this misunderstanding.

I cannot tell either he liked it this way or not but unlike him, I will not hold any grudge or hatred against the Chinese.

This was supposed to be a friend to friend conflict, not to start a war between Malay and Chinese. He’ll probably read

this one day. But know this, I hope there shall not be more of this kind of person. I will try to resolve this one day once

he able to understand that we shall not discriminate anyone without a good reason or without trying to get along with

the person or a group of people.

Journal Entry #4

Cialdini’s Six Weapons of Influence (Liking) - we usually say "yes" to people we liked and "no" to people we don’t.

April 15th, 2014 1.00pm

Today, I joined a community service organized by MARA. Both Taylor’s University and Taylor’s College

MARA’s scholars were involved. We were tasked to teach and entertain the children from poor family that lived there.

There were 24 of us and 27 of them. We knew some of them because this was the second time MARA organized such

event for us. For kids, they surely were hard to control and often ran all over the place. My team consist of 6 people

and we were asked to teach them about balloons. At first, we were given four kids. I did not take long because they

gave full attention to us, especially a girl named Darshiny. She loves to ask and answer our question and her

expressions gave us the spirits to teach others. After finished teaching the 4 of them, we were given seven kids this

time. I took turn with group leader, Ariesha to teach them. One will teach while the other helped the other members to

control their wildness. All of them seemed very unpleased with us. Ariesha gave me the signal, a signal we planned

earlier in case something like this occurs. I went to Ain, which was in charged of handling goodies and treats. I asked

her to hand me some candies and she gave me a lot of it that quickly caught the kids attention. I told them, “If you guys

behaved yourself, your bro and sis will reward you guys with delicious candies!”. They were mesmerized by the candy

and began to give us their smile and attention. I cannot believe that plan works and how kids changed so quickly for

candies. It was like bribing the kids but at least, Ariesha got the attention she wanted and we got to see these 7 children

had fun learning about balloons while eating our candies. Anim, one of the kids, who earlier sat quietly and ignored us

completely became energetic and talked a lot about her experience with balloons. My teammates did not really get it

because she was only four years old. However, she appeared to be more comfortable with us and began to accept our

existence there. I knew that our plan was more like bribing but I can assure that it was not. This is how people

practiced Cialdini’s Six Weapons of Influence. A way to make people to like you. Today, we might need a candy to get

the kids to like us, but for the days to come, this is a necessary practice so that they can be energetic and talkative

person even without giving them a candy. I learned that “making” others to like you was not a bad thing instead of

“making” them to hate you.

Journal Entry #5

Observational Learning - observing others acts and behaviors, then mimicking or repeating those actions.

April 20th, 2014 1.35pm

My uncle and his family came to our house to visit my nephew, Aisy. It was normal for my relative to came visit him as he was a newborn baby. When my uncle and aunt busy themselves playing with the baby, I will be the one taking care of their sons, Qamari and Tariq. Honestly, it was pretty annoying being with them because they were only 7 and 9 years old respectively. I cannot talk with them about anything a teen would know and once they get hold of my PS3, I automatically became a “ghost” and can fly away. I walked downstairs and came across Ain, my uncle youngest daughter. She was only 4 years old, so I tried helping her went up to her brothers. They did not notice her presence there and she tried to get their attentions. She also wanted to play. She tried to take the controller away from Qamari but Qamari stood up and raised his hand high up that she cannot reach it. I told Qamari to hand over the controller but he refused. I was scared a quarrel might get started and my fear became a reality. Actually, it was not a surprise for me nor to them because quarrels between their siblings were very normal. Even back then when I was a kid and got to live for a week with their family, their older brother, Haziq and sister, Balqis often fights. It can be either a physical fight or a long argue, shouting at each other. Haziq and Balqis endless fight back then probably the reason why their little sister and brother were fighting at my house that day. Both Ain and Qamari did follow their sibling footsteps, crying and shouting at each other. Me and Tariq quickly tried to calm them and asked for help from my uncle. My uncle came along with my brothers. He stopped them and brought Ain downstairs by force. I sat there on my bed feeling relieved that the drama was over. For Qamari, he stopped crying and continue his game. Tariq did not question much and joined his brother. I amazed that something like that can start and over in a blink of an eye. Later, i was yelled by my mom because I did not do a great job taking care of my cousins. Even so, today incident did taught me not to act the same way with my brothers in front of my little sister, and it did worked. Nowadays, me and my sister hardly argue and never fight. People should realized that aggression towards own siblings or friends was not because of their family gene or blood, but it was because of the environment that they were exposed of.

Journal Entry #6

Bystander Effect - choose not to act in the presence of other, hoping that others will take action.

April 28th, 2014 3.48pm

After my psychology class, I went to the 24/7 Room at Taylor to finish some assignment. I sat down and opened

my laptop and began my work. I noticed there were two girls in front of me, one was playing with her phone while the

other was reading a book. Also, there was this guy who was sleeping inappropriately beside them. I looked at them for

a while and then continued my work. 5-10 minutes later, my friends, Fizi and Adibah came and the people in front of

me left. We chat for a while until Fizi mentioned about a phone in front of us. It was an Iphone 5S. I was mesmerized

however it was a missing phone. The girl who was reading a book earlier probably left it. Adibah told us to get it and

bring it to the counter but me and Fizi looked at each and other and smiled at her. We looked around for the owner but

we cannot find her. She could had left in a hurry. The phone was still there waiting for someone to pick it up. We all

stared at it for a couple of minutes without doing anything about it. Suddenly, a tall woman came, I could not tell

whether it was the same person who read the book or not because I did not pay a good attention at the faces of the

people in front of me. She took it and left. Adibah asked me whether the woman was the one sitting there but I

shrugged. I got the laptop on in front of me, so I took the chance to write this as my fifth entry about bystander effect.

We all learned that we should take action and not to depends on someone else if something like that happen again.

May 5th, 2014 11.20 pm

Today, I went out with my family to Setia City Mall at 4 o’clock in the evening. We are not suppose to go

anywhere today and rest all day long. However, my sister convinced my dad to bring us here. As usual my brother and

I will just follow them around looking at clothes at H&M, go through hundreds of books at MPH and we were tired,

me and brother sneaked out of group and rest for a bit at the 3 rd floor. We played with our phones and looked at the

people walking around happily. Somewhere near Maghrib which is at 7.20-ish, we saw a group of people acting very

weird. They did not speak and only used hand signals. We figured that they were mute as they went to look for

something at the mall’s directory beside us. I thought that their unnatural behaviour only caught our attention, but the

people that sat and stand at the nearby shop also monitored them. Me and my brother looked carefully as there was an

intense conversation which they used hand signs as the medium. My brother said they obviously looking for a surau

because they were Muslims and one of them was doing one of Islam’s prayer first step which was raising both hand

beside his ears. I was asked by my brother to guide them to the surau, but I was afraid. Afraid that they might be deaf

and it’ll be hard for me to guide them. And so, again, the bystander effect, we wait for someone to help them as it was

clearly that a lot of people there noticed their needs of help written on their face. As suspected, no one did helped them.

The group left, continue their search for the surau which was actually quite near to them. My brother hit me on the

back and asked me to call our parent. What happen to the group? I do not know but I seriously felt bad for not helping

them and to let such situation occurs yet again in my life. First it was a missing phone, next, a “lost” group, surely one

day I might come across a situation where the subject really need my help and I need to take a leap of faith.