INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION AND CLOSE RELATIONSHIPFriday, October 9, 2015 @ 8:52 AM
PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS
Physical
attractiveness plays one of the biggest roles in interpersonal attraction.
Generally, physical attraction lies under the scope of external determinant
which is also one of the factors of interpersonal attraction and close
relationship. However, the external determinant differs in different
relationships. Most of man-woman relationships are based on physical
attractiveness basis. People have always been blinded by society’s standards of
beauty that only certain traits or characteristics are perceived or seen as
beautiful or handsome. People nowadays have always been making beauty as their
utmost priority in choosing their partners. This kind of mentality, I believe
should definitely be eradicated from our culture and people should realize that
beauty is not as important as inner qualities that make up a person.
In
society these days, we often see many rich and older men get married to
beautiful and young women or celebrities. From this particular phenomenon, we
can infer that their relationships are mainly based on beauty at which the
women are regarded to be beautiful at positive extreme but the men are just
ordinary-looking. The men who are mostly wealthy will be perceived as
completely more superior in term of wealth that they could be win the hearts of
stunning women.
Besides,
in high-school community, good-looking students are always involved in
relationships while the ordinary-looking students are always single. This
somehow proves that man-woman relationships during their adolescent level are
mostly on beauty basis because girls who are perceived as beautiful and boys
who are regarded as handsome will always switch partners regularly. As someone
who has experienced high school, I would definitely say that most teenagers do
not really attain their highest level maturity yet at this point in their lives
and this is most probably the reason why they do not really take into account
or consider other factors comprising of attitudes, wealth or etc rather than
merely look when choosing to be in relationships.
Society
also has always been blinded by stereotypes that segregate between good-looking
people and ordinary-looking people. Typically, when a good-looking person does
something bad, people are more likely to believe the person is probably
influenced by external factors that are completely unavoidable but on the other
hand, if ordinary-looking or hideous person does something bad, people will
tend to believe that it is his/her fault. We can perceive that there is always
biasness that distinguishes ordinary-looking people from good-looking people
and it is so sometimes called double-standard. For example, when an
ordinary-looking girl is said hardworking, most guys would perceive that she is
a nerd but when a drop-dead gorgeous girl is said to be a bookworm, most guys
would judge that she is a smart person or probably label them with beauty with
brain. This kind of mentality claims that people have always been
overly-obsessed with looks without even weighing other crucial factors in a
relationship regardless whether it is intimate or not.
(Shazrul Hafiz)
PROXIMITY
Have you ever realized how you meet your best friends and become attach to someone? I bet you don’t even think about it. Actually, this is the power of PROXIMITY. In Social Psychology, proximity is the physical closeness between two individuals with the respect to where they live, where they sit, where they work and etc. Naturally, people will not think about this as they are happy with their life that they have now. But here for me personally, after I know the power of proximity, I start to appreciate people around me. Do not worry because I also met my best friends by the power of proximity itself. To get attach with someone that close to you, it require you to undergo repeated exposure with that person and the most important thing is it must come along with the positive feeling towards that person. In my story, I met my best friends at my secondary school. Can you guess how I met her? She is my cube mate for four years. Plus we also become classmates in the last year of our study. Repeated exposure between both of us for five years actually made our bond become much stronger until today. Although we do not really share too much interests but the power of PROXIMITY overcome everything. Her attitude suit mine very well and I feel easy when I be with her. She is the most understanding friend that I have.
When talking about a friendship, I cannot deny that of course we will always meet new friends when we travel or further our studies in the new place. At INTEC, I am confident that the power of proximity is everywhere because we tend to get closer with someone that is near to us. I become closer with a person that sits near to me and we always spend time together where we called it repeated exposure. Being a classmate cannot assure that we will become best friends but when we share the most time together of course we can turn it around to become a best friends with that person. My participants in my study, Glen, Joyce, Eva and Ziada prove that proximity do find us a best friends that we have today because most of them admit that their best friends is their roomates and their classmates. So from now on, I realized that we should aware with the person that are near to us because we tend to get attach with that people. If you could see that the person near to you will give a bad influence towards you, you must take a fast action and protect yourself from being exposed too much with that person. Proximity will not assured that everything will turn out to be positive influences though it also can give negative influences towards our life.
(Afifah Aziz)
SIMILARITY
When talking about interaction, what is the most
important thing that you look up for your friends or partner to have? Based on
the book, the most crucial thing that can make an interaction become closer is
similarity. Basically, people will like and attracted to other people who are
similar to them rather than dissimilar. Well, this is just a theory made by
experts and since different people have different opinion, I understand if some
says that they prefer interaction or relationship with dissimilar people.
Personally, I am among those people who think similarity plays an important
part in an interaction. First similarity that I will find is in term of
personality. My personality needs to match well with my friends or partner in
order for me to understand them and they also understand me. My best friends
and I are about 80% similar and that makes me very comfortable to talk, to
laugh and to live with them (thank God for letting me know them).
The reason why interactions need similarity is that
similarity relates people. It provides rationale that a person is not alone in
his/her belief and also helps people to predict other’s future behavior. In the
story The Glass of Menagerie that I have learnt in literature class, the
mother, Amanda is very dissimilar compared to her son, Tom. They also have
different personality where Amanda is a perfectionist,
high-standard-kind-of-mom while Tom is just a humble, messy warehouse worker.
Their differences in personality and opinion cause them to erupt into a big
fight and at the end, Tom left the house leaving his mother and his sister
alone. See, what the experts say is true though.
(Hana Diyana)
FRIENDSHIPS: RELATIONSHIPS BEYOND THE FAMILY
A
close friendship is a relationship in which two people spend a great deal of
time together, interact in a variety of situations, and provide mutual
emotional support. It is more to a friendship between two people who are best
friend with the same or opposite gender. People are more likely to find the
best friends based on the same interest. If they like to play football or
shopping, their tendency to find someone who has the same interest with them
are higher. But not all people are like that, just the large number are like
that. Maybe other person like to find their best friend without looking at any
perspective, just without they realise, they had become best friend without
having the same interest but both of them respect each other interest without
comment anything. I have a friend who had best friend without the same interest
as her. My friend like to watch Korean movies and dramas and her best friend
actually anti-Korean movies and dramas. But her best friend respect my friend’s
interest. She did not comment anything when my friend started to fangirling
with the Korean actor, even she just hear everything that my friend told her.
This kind of friendship is good because even though both of them have different
interest, but they still can spend a great deal of time together without having
their different of interest as barriers for their friendship.
(Afiqah Zainon)
FRIENDSHIP AND ROMANCE
The
hottest subtopic in social psychology is presented by the hottest girl. The topic
is romantic relationship and falling in love. In a relationship either love or
friends, there are something that make the relationship to stay beautiful and
wonderful. My brother has just married for 3 years with a beautiful woman. She
is beautiful but she cannot cook. They always eat outside and I thought it is
wasting time and money. However, they actually have numerous mutual liking. They
like to travel and they are food hunter. That’s why they are happy with each
other. Besides that, feeling belonging to each other is important in a
relationship. Belonging makes us rely towards each other. Basically, I believe that
it’s all back to trust matter, how much we trust each other. I am never in the
situation that hurt by betrayal of trust so I tend to trust everyone that near to
me. when I have slight argument with my friend, I tend to forget the mistake
easier and seeking for forgiveness as I think that cold situation between us
makes me suffer more than lowering my ego and let the things go. And for me, I
love to laugh so the person with great sense of humour can make me excited. My closest
friend is the funniest friend in the world.
On
the other hand, I can see the differences in romance and friendship when it
comes to attraction. The girls always attracted to see gentleman guy while it
goes same as the boy. We do have different feeling when our eyes (opposite sex)
staring each other. Then, the girl might think that the boy likes her. We also
do have high level of expectation toward our partner. I want my husband-to-be
is a handsome guy with charismatic style and elegance with the coat and tie.
(Wan Rawanis)
"Trust,respect, loyalty and communication: essential part in successful relationship"
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REFLECTION OF THE TEST @ 8:29 AM
QUIZ OH QUIZ PART 1 !
Last Wednesday, we got a test for
social psychology subject. It was a kind of sudden test as my classmates and I
did not prepared anything for that test and I did not even knew that we will
have a test on that day. To be honest, I did not knew how to answer the test as
I forgot most of the topic that being tested. Luckily, I still can remember
some of them as for the topic, we had to make a role play about it. For the
first section, most of the question is the terms from my group’s presentation,
so I can still answer it. The second section, I did not knew how to answer it,
everything, as we have to define term with by complete the squares that had
been given. But Miss Hanis was very kind as she help us to answer it by giving
us the clues or maybe the answer for the question. Even though she knew that it
was wrong to help her students by giving the answer to us, but she still help
us. Thank you, Miss Hanis J The last section of the test, we had to
make a short essay and the answer for the short essay had been present by Nazifa’s
group before. And luckily I still can remember what had been present by Nazifa
and her others group members and I also can answer it. I do really think that
we have to make a preparation for the subject without have to wait to study for
the subject when we knew that we had the test for the next day. Make an earlier
preparation and it will give many benefits for us as we can answer sudden test
well because we had studied before this.
(Afiqah Zainon)
QUIZ OH QUIZ PART 2 !
Last few days, I’ve done a quiz about prejudice and discrimination. To
be honest, I didn’t study for the quiz because I expect we wouldn’t have enough
time to do it since we also have presentations to do/watch. Luckily when I was
on the bus to go to Intec, I felt the urge to open my notebook and read the
notes about prejudice and discrimination. Well, I just READ, no understanding,
no memorizing. When Miss Hanis announced that she would do the quiz, I was cold
sweated. Since I paid quite well attention during the last class, I manage to
answer the question. Still, Miss Hanis help us a lot, giving us hint and clues
for the correct answers. But the thing is, I regret my action because let say
Miss hanis gives a harder question, definitely I can’t even answer the quiz.
Let say Miss Hanis did not help us during the quiz, I bet I couldn’t write
anything on my paper. Above all, thank you Miss Hanis We love you
sooooooooooooooooooooo much!
(Hana Diyana)
"It always seems impossible until it is done"
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STEREOTYPING, PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATIONFriday, September 18, 2015 @ 6:18 AM
GENDER STEREOTYPES
Gender
stereotypes, I must say, is not something peculiar in our society. I would
describe gender stereotypes as norm but I guess it is a negative norm that
should definitely be eradicated from our culture. Some individuals might
perceive a few gender stereotypes are correctly matched to a specific gender
but to some extent gender stereotypes are also used by irresponsible to degrade
the contrary gender. Gender stereotypes, I believe, is also a form of sexist
ideology that is used to imply superiority of one’s own gender. In Malaysia,
gender stereotypes are completely common.
People
have always been saying that men are lazier than women because of their
masculine nature somehow makes their hard work run contrary from their nature.
However, this generalization is completely irrational as I strongly believe
there are an awful lot of men out there who are even more hardworking than
women. Well, I personally believe, I myself am more diligent than some girls in
my class when it comes to assignments, projects or presentations. This
stereotype somehow degrades men and purely disgust misandry.
Besides,
there is also a saying that says that men are always better than women in
Mathematics-related subjects but I sometimes believe in the other way round.
When I was in MRSM back then, the head of mentor of Add maths was a girl whom I
thought was probably the most intelligent girl I have ever met in my entire
life. She frequently scored 90 and above in add maths and I thought that was
somehow very outstanding and insane. Although most of the top scorers in add
maths were amongst boys but she amazingly managed to climb the rank to be the
best in that particular subject.
In
most of the society in Malaysia, Men are always viewed as leaders and women as
the subordinates. In my opinion, I firmly believe that this argument is invalid
because as we can see now many women in this world have widely become ministers
and great leaders in many countries and sometimes they even surpass men such as
Hillary Clinton, Shahrizat Abd Jalil and Zeti Aziz. Their achievements in
becoming charismatic leaders in their own fields should definitely be an
indication to all women in this world that they are capable of becoming of what
men become and doing whatever chores men are capable of doing. Women should
realise that they are never weak as depicted in medieval times back then where
women were regarded as the oppressed group and being put in the lowest rank in
societal hierarchy.
Last
but not least, the belief that I have always been developing an animosity
towards which is the belief those women should not study or go to college
because they will eventually end up cooking in the kitchen. This is somehow a
complete misogynistic belief that denotes that women are the ones who should be
devoting themselves to be concerned about the welfare of their marriage and
children instead of doing things for themselves. This sexist ideology also
deems that women deserve no education to improve themselves to be of the same
level as men and they are always regarded as the inferior gender in the
society. Idiom that states ‘Women belong in the kitchen’ that is often
used in Malay books or reading materials can actually describe how barbaric
Malay culture was back then.
DIFFERENTIAL RESPECT
Respect
is indeed a subjective thing to be intellectually interpreted by our moral
judgements and cognitive ability. But if I were to describe respect, I would
say it is never fair. Differential respect occurs at many stages of the
society. Most individuals would describe it with the term ‘double
standard’ which indicates different level of respect people often give when
they encounter different people.
Frankly
speaking, differential respect is also not an odd thing in Malaysia and other
countries. I had this male driving instructor whom I believe had shown no
respect towards male students . When he had to teach male students, he
obviously did not show any enthusiasm or interest to teach them and he often
yelled in our ears when we made mistakes like not giving a signal or when the
engine suddenly happened to stop but ironically when he had to teach female
students, he went from a being a super fierce to a kind and gentle old man you
probably could ever think of. That shows that he respected his female students
more than his male students because I believe it was in his nature to favour
girls more than boys.
In
high school, I have encountered numerous situations that I believe somehow
portray differential respect. For example, female teachers usually favour their
male students more than their female students. Through my observation when
being a high schooler, female teachers are most likely to be more approachable
to popular male students compared to their female students because technically
male students are always described to be more naughty, rebellious and
affectionate than female students.
OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE SCALE
These
two natures of stereotypes are best described via the examples in a school or a
college environment. Teachers, tutors or lecturers who are perceived to use the
objective scale often set standard marking schemes or standard evaluation so
that his/her objectives will be accomplished. This way of evaluating might seem
a little strict but in a way it is more reliable because it is perceived as a
method or scale that is free from bias. Students will first be informed
regarding how they will be evaluated and thus they will be satisfied upon
receiving the results in the end.
But
for subjective scale, on the other hand, students are not given the basic
guidelines or the components they will be evaluated and thus when
dissatisfaction occurs, they will blame the lecturer or the teacher. Besides,
this scale is also open to self-serving bias thus making this type of scale as
a bit inaccurate and unethical.
I used to have a teacher when I was in high school and she
assigned me and my classmates into a few groups for a presentation regarding
periodic table of elements in Chemistry. She, I believe, had used a subjective
scale to grade us which she did not set any scheme or standard to evaluate our
marks. In the end, it turned out that a male student whom she favoured the most
got the highest mark for that presentation even though that particular student
was obviously naive during the presentation and it was dreadful. That somehow
raised dissatisfaction among me and my other classmates about the inequality
that rose from the teacher’s subjective scale to evaluate students.
(Shazrul Hafiz)
SOCIAL LEARNING VIEW
In the last social psychology class, we presented a role
play about stereotype, prejudice and discrimination I became a social
psychology’s teacher with full of prejudice in action but denied with words.
From the class, I am interested most in Social Learning View which explains by
Miss Hanis because of the acronym AMIM. It seems easily to memorize. A stands
for Attention, M represents Memory, I is Imitation and M is for Motivation.
We cannot deny that parents are the most influential person
in children’s life because they learn more from their parents in their journey
of growing up. Children are shaped by what the parents wish and want. Besides
that, children also have tendency to follow the parents’ behaviour because they
use their observation skill. For example, my lil brother asks my dad playing in
the park but my dad refuses (just want to see how he wanna persuade him). Then,
my dad wears his slipper and goes to house compound. My brother grabs his
slipper in hand and chases my dad quickly. He doesn’t know how to wears the
slipper by himself. He wears the slipper in front of my dad right after he gets
my father. My dad says that he is clever. I smile watching his cuteness action.
Starting from that day, when he wants to go outside he will wears his slipper.
After a few times teaching him how to wears the slipper he can wear by himself
without any help. We also advise that he must wear shoes to protect his legs
from microorganism. I can see that it is easy to teach a kid than adult.
(Wan Rawanis)
SUBTYPE
Subtype is a type of specific things within a larger, more
general group. When we want to discriminate some group, we will discriminate
the subtype in a larger group. As for example, we can see in most of the people
nowadays, they tend to have prejudice and stereotype towards married couples
that do not have any child yet. They do not stereotype and prejudice towards
all married couple. They just have the feeling of prejudice and stereotype
towards married couple without child. This is what we call subtype. Sometimes,
subtype is good and sometimes is not. When we have the feeling of stereotype and
prejudice, it is good for us to be specific to which group we have that
feeling, rather than to have stereotype and prejudice to their larger group. As
for example, when we have the bad thought towards the feminist, we do not say
that we prejudice towards women, but instead, we have the prejudice towards
feminist only. It is good for us to classify the group rather than to see them
as one group. Subtype sometimes can be good and bad us. It becomes bad when we
tend to discriminate the particular group without thinking of the consequences
that can lead to their larger group.
(Afiqah Zainon)
ESSENSES IN PREJUDICE AND
DISCRIMINATION
Speaking of prejudice and discrimination, the related-term
that I like the most is ‘essenses’. Essences happen when people are being
prejudice and discriminate others by looking at their biological factor or in
other words, their ancestors. The best example that could explain essences is
when a white person prejudices towards another white friend when he or she
knows that the friend’s grandmother is a black. Even though the friend looks
like white, but since there is blacks’ blood in her body, that friend are
considered just as inferior as other black.
In korea, there is a famous singer name In Sooni. She is a
Korean woman borne to a Korean mother and an African-american father. Even
though she lives her lives 100% like a Korean (things that she’s different is
only her skin tone), she was discriminated by other Korean saying she is dirty
due to her tainted blood. Unable to withstand all the discrimination and
bullying, she didn’t even entered high school. She faced thousand of roses’
torn to become a prominent singer. In 2007, she became famous with a song ‘a
goose dream’ that reflects her hardship to become a singer because of her
status as a half korean half african american.
*this is In Sooni, singing 'a
goose's dream'
Talking about prejudice and discrimination makes me reflect
myself. I do admit that as a helpless human being, sometimes I also do practice
prejudice and discrimination especially towards people that have bad first
impression. When I went to a camp last week, I have a little discrimination
towards students in Korean program. First thing that trigger my anger is when a
few of them speak informally to me knowing that I am older than them. For me,
the world works in hierarchy. After I have poor first impression about them, I
started to discriminate all the Korean students labeling them as rude, ignorant
and over talkative. Whenever they talk in front, I would make such an ugly face
and do anything else. When the camp ended, I knew that my action was so
immature and shameful. Today, while I was waiting for my parents to pick me up,
I met one of Korean student that was my groupmate during the camp. I apologize
to her if she ever feels offended with my action and words. I realized that my
discrimination is so ungrounded and irrelevant. Well, that’s my story. How
about you? Are you sure you don’t being prejudice or discriminate other people
lately?
(Hana Diyana)
MODERN RACISM
AND RISK AVERSE
Prejudice towards other group and the feeling to secure our
own group cannot be deterioted by anything and we are blinded with that.
Feeling belonging to one’s group requires us to feel the obligation to secure
the dignity. I am a person that will always commit to my responsibilities and I
don’t want other people to look down at my own group whether it involve
friendship, family, race and nation. I will protect the people surround me and
the group I belonging too but I just realize that this feeling sometime make me
forget about the prejudice and discrimination that I have been practice since a
long time and still here. I always telling my friend that no matter what happen
I will not support Chinese. I will not be friends or best friends with them and
I will not let myself being fooling by them. Obviously as a Malay, I will not
let other races to blame or take opportunity on my group and give opportunity
for them to avail us for their benefits. I am not racist but I just want to
protect my own group.
When I learnt Sociology or Psychology I will agree that
Prejudice and discrimination is not a good thing to be practiced but then I
realized that I am the one that practice it. This is what we call Modern Racism
where our action or words justify everything. We don’t have to bring weapons
and have war with them but by saying that we don’t like them shows that
prejudice is our mind. Perhaps I have strong feeling of prejudice towards
Chinese because I never have Chinese’s friends that make me to have negative
thinking all the time. Personally speaking, although I show the friendliness
when talking with the Chinese, for instance my father’s Chinese friend, I could
not put away my prejudice towards them. When I learn about risk averse-people
weigh possible losses more than equivalent potential gains, I know I am one of
that people.
Now, I could see the clear reasons why I always have
prejudice toward Chinese because I am afraid Malay people will lose everything
that we have today if Chinese control and have power over all the races in
Malaysia. I don’t even think about the benefit that we got as a Malay compare
to Chinese.
(Afifah Aziz)
"Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible"- Maya Angelov
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REFLECTION ON TASK @ 6:17 AM
LONELINESS
Loneliness
happens when the unpleasant emotional and cognitive state based on desiring
close relationships but being unable to attain them. This happens when we feel
like we want to approach the person that we like, that we love, but we do not
know how to start talking with them, how to approach them. And at the end, we
stay lonely without get the chance to approach the person that we like to
approach. As for example, I have a friend who like someone. But she did not how
to approach the person that she like. My other friend taught her how to flirt
with that guy. With that, she got the spirit that she can get the chance to
approach that guy. But unfortunately, that guy had been in relationship with
another girl already. My friend feel depressed as her other friends have
someone to share problem with, to hang out with. She feel lonely. And to reduce
her loneliness, my friends and I decided to spend more time with her and make
her enjoy with us. From that, she feel did not feel lonely anymore. From that,
our loneliness can be reduced based on how we workout together to reduce it.
( Afiqah Zainon)
PROXIMITY AND PHYSICAL
ATTRACTIVENESS
Two days before mid-semester break, Miss Hanis informed us
to make an experiment regarding to the new topic: Interpersonal Attraction and
Close Relationship. There are many determinants that contribute to the
interpersonal attraction and one of it is external determinants. My group
got external determinants that contain proximity, physical attractiveness and
physical appeareance. Shazrul and i still in the same group have to make a simple
research about this determinants. People cannot avoid rather than having
interaction with others and it is rare to find a people that always alone
without having any interaction.
Everyone will have a relationship but the things that make
difference in the level of the intimacy is their proximity. Proximity is the
physical closeness between two individuals with respect to where they live,
work and so on. Before make any simple observation regarding to this topic,
any experiment Before undergo any research, we could identify another external
factor that can be considered when want to measure the proximity because we
were given a brief explanation after all. Reflecting to myself,
i realized that most of the people that i approach will have their own
characteristics that make me comfortable with them. Physical appearances also
become a measurement for me to choose the person that I want to get close or
attach. From my understanding, i could see that less sociable person tend to be
friends with those who are less sociable too. It is clearly that sometime
people will choose the person based on the physical appearance.
I am personally also having the same measurement where I
will try to approach a person that have the same interest with me so that I
could share and develop a great friendship with them. I also come to extent
prefering to be alone rather than be friends with people that their appearance
or behavior are not suit me. Basically this task will expose me the
variety factors of the proximity that lead to personal relationship. I believe
that everyone will have their own reasons for choosing the person that they get
close together. Then, by doing this simple observation during this break will
give us a chance to know the reasons of closeness behind others’
relationship!
(Afifah Aziz)
CLOSE RELATIONSHIP
We also have assigned by Miss a task for investigating some
issues on close relationship. It sounds interesting. I get topic about
romantic relationship and falling in love and being in group with Nabila and
Adlina. Nabila gets so excited, I am happy too seeing her happy. There is one
thing that catches my attention which is about friendship and romance. Some of
people cannot recognize whether the feeling that they feel is either friend
state or to the extent of in relationship ( p/s:for best friends that different
gender only)
I am curious and eager to know more how people define
themselves in friend zone. This ‘friend Zone’ is popular among teenagers where
they do not want to declare themselves in the relationship. It refers to two
friends having a relationship wherein one wants it to turn into a romantic one
while the other only wants it to remain a friendly one.
(Wan Rawanis)
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SOCIAL PERCEPTION : ATTRIBUTION & IMPRESSION MANAGEMENTFriday, September 4, 2015 @ 4:46 AM
ACTION IDENTIFICATION AND ATTRIBUTION PROCESS
Action identification process basically denotes the occurrence of one event but it has different interpretations. This process, I must say, is a very common phenomenon in our daily lives whether it is with or without our awareness. For example, we observe an event of a girl putting her money into her piggy bank. The first thing that will probably pop into our mind is she puts the money because she does not want to lose it. This interpretation is basically a low level interpretation which attributes to the action itself. The second thing that will pops into our mind will probably be that she saves the money because she wants to further her education abroad or she wants to perform Umrah. This interpretation is a high level interpretation which attributes to the person’s long term goals, motives or intentions.
One momentous experience that I have had during my high school years is I used to be an extremely diligent student who studied so hard 24/7. Some of my friends who did not know me so well or were not so close to me that time, attributed me as a nerd boy who loved to study but as time went on, I believe, they had developed different interpretation or attribution towards me which I studied because I wanted to be the best. They knew I did fancy being among average kids who studied just to score their exams outstandingly but I studied because I really wanted to be outstanding and exceedingly brighter than others. They knew I had a crush on a senior who are now studying in United States so they attributed me to be a conscientious person only wanted to accomplish my goal of furthering my studies abroad too. Frankly said, I was in MRSM which was actually one of the top high schools in Malaysia and some of my friends actually took it for granted that they believed that they were already in a good school so they perceived that they would sooner or later get excellent results. But fortunately, I realized that being in a superior school surely did not guarantee me a good result without perseverance and enthusiasm to succeed so I managed to embrace the top-ranked title of my school as a challenge for me to endure all the pains of struggling with fortitude to go to the highest level I could ever achieve.
I have always attributed those people who are involved in Multi Level Marketing (MLM) as people who like to falsify or exaggerate small matters. They carry out the MLM just to make people believe in them and that is probably why they apply the theory of deception to convince people to join their business. This is however a low-level interpretation which attribute it to the action itself rather than the high-level interpretation that gives an emphasis on their long-term goals or real motives of the people who join this business which are to buy fancy houses, cars, eat scrumptious food everyday and lead a fancy life.
In conclusion, action identification and attribution is something that is really common in our life. It is somehow completely unavoidable because it is in the nature of humans that we tend to judge every single thing in this world even the smallest one.
In cultural context, the action identification and attribution process bears some obvious differences between collectivistic and individualistic culture. Collectivistic culture in countries such as Malaysia and Japan focuses on action identification process on group basis at which people attribute an action of a particular person to the group the person belong to. For example, there is a particular stereotype of Indians in Malaysia that they are always involved in more extreme crime cases rather than Malays and Chinese. So in Malaysia, people tend to attribute Indian criminals who have involved in extremely dangerous crimes to all Indians as a whole as people with high brutality when it is actually not necessarily right.
In individualistic countries such as United States, Canada and Australia, people tend to attribute an action to the person doing that action him/herself. That is why there’s a term like hipsters which means people who are different from others in terms of their clothing style or hairstyle or grooming style. In individualistic culture also, most people rarely attribute the action of a person to the group she/he belongs to like religious, racial or ethnic groups.
(Shazrul Hafiz)
“you fell; I was pushed”
Actor-observer error is when we have the tendency to attribute others’ behaviour mainly to dispositional (internal) cause while for our own behaviour mainly to situational (external) cause. This scenario always happens every day in our daily life. The most common thing that happened based on actor-observer error is when our friend fall on street, we tend to blame herself by saying, she was careless and etc. But when we fall, we tend to blame the street as it is slippery. Other than that, when one of my friend lost her purse or smartphone, I have high tendency to blame herself or the internal cause of her for being careless as the thing that she lost is something valuable. I will help her to find her missing purse or smartphone but at the same time, I will scold her because she careless. If I lost my purse or smartphone, I will blame other things, for the example I will blame other people that steal my belongings without blaming myself for not taking a good care of it. All of us have the actor-observer error in ourselves when we tend to blame others because of the internal causes that have inside of them rather than blaming the external causes.
(Nurul Afiqah)
ATTRIBUTION & DEPRESSION
I know everyone is familiar with the term “self-serving bias” so today, I’m going to talk about the opposite of self serving bias which is “self defeating”. Basically, self defeating happened when people relate positive result to other people (except themselves) while negative results are caused by them. Personally, I think that the major cause for people to behave in self defeating is low self esteem. A very low self esteem is very harmful for people as it causes your trust level in yourselves to deteriorate drastically. Once you are in self defeating condition, you would appreciate and value yourself less and this will result to more serious effect which are depression, anxiety, emotional distress and even physical harm. One example of self defeating could be seen in a movie title “A Brilliant Life” starring Song Hye Kyo and Kang Dong Won. In the movie, the mother (Song Hye Kyo) blames herself thinking she is the reason why her son suffered “Progeria”, a disease that makes a person to age 10 times faster than normal people physically ( including skin, sight, bones and organs). One night she said to her husband (Kang Dong Won) that their son is sick because she jogs too much when she was pregnant and also maybe because she was once prayed that she doesn’t want the baby to be born. The husband tried his best to convince her that she was doing great but she doesn’t want to believe in his words. I think that in some situation, having a very small percentage of self defeating is more favorable as it shows that you are being humble and doesn’t show off. However, in individualistic culture, it is better to prevent even a small percentage of self defeating because they afraid it may lead to a greater self defeating. Well, looks like western culture strongly believe that “prevention is better than cure” right.
( Hana Diyana)
IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT
Last Tuesday’s lecture, we had two group presentations on impression management including myself and my partner, Afrina. Afrina talked about “Is accuracy always best in social perception?” in a relationship we must perceive our partner more than he/she really is to maintain the tie last longer. I can relate this subtopic with my situation. I have never been in partner/love relationship so I have no idea about how I would feel about my partner. However, I do have a best friend that I valued the most and try my best to keep her by my side. I have the positive illusion as Afrina’s mentioned towards my best friend. I perceive her more than she really is thus I label her as perfect. She is so perfect in everything. She is consistently performed in her study shows she is very intelligent, she always take a risk to do the difficult task- a risk taker, she is so sweet in her own ways treating others, she loves to get know about political issues which not everyone’s interested to, she is a money-wiser and she always take a good care about herself and her friends. I likes to give her compliments most of her good deeds because I think I supposed to but she always remember herself for being humble and not to feel over confident in her action. I believe that positive illusion helps to strengthen a relationship and keep the relationship long-lasting.
Second, self-enhancement was applied by me without my consciousness. On the day of Hari Raya, me and my members of family will dress-up nicely in baju kurung and baju melayu to visit our relatives. It was applied not only for our family but I bet all of muslims who celebrate Hari Raya. Since we were in the beautiful and bright clothes, everyone sees us attractive and we are comfortable and happy to have a conversation after a couple of months did not meet each other. Besides, having a good self-appearance will boost our self-esteem and increase our mood on that day. Increasing of mood allow me to increase my effort to collect duit raya hence the more duit raya I got, the happier I am. Obviously, it is begun with appearance because appearance affects the mood. On the other hand, wearing nice-looking shawl on the hari raya makes us appear as high skilled because we could match the colour of our baju kurung with the shawl and also we are able to wearing shawl which not every women or girl know how to wear it.
Other-enhancement tactics is always been used by everyone in order to make a group of people like us. For example, I used to praise Sabrina on the way she looks to the class today and she accept the accomplishment with big smile. Then, I asked how she wore make up on his face it looks suit on hers. After that she began to story that she always watch the video of makeover on the internet, she also talked about where did she usually bought her clothes and her accessories, and she even storied about her favourite brand of makeup which is Maybelline and she is loyal customer of Zalora’s boutique. She talked a lot showing her interest and comfortable talking with me and I keep my eyes on her to show my fully attention towards her symbolising how I express my interest nonverbally. I used the tactics occasionally because if it being overused everyone tend to judges me as the picky in choosing friends and also materialistic. This is not the right way to make and choose friend in our life because we used the person for our own benefit.
(Rawanis Rahim)
COGNITIVE LOAD
Have you ever feel burden and your mind are miserable when thinking of something? Have you experiences the time where because you are under pressure sometimes you make silly mistakes and give bad impressions to other? This is what we call cognitive load: when someone is trying to possess a positive impression under a number of stress factors. We always want to make a favorable impression to other but unconsciously in a time we failed to make it. We also try our best to make positive impression so that other people can accept us and we will confirm with the group that we are in. However, to what extent we can control our self to perform favorably if we face cognitive load in our mind. Having cognitive load can give both negative and positive effects. It is depends on what kind of person you are and what situation you are being in.
Firstly, talking about positive effect of cognitive load, it will help you to boost your performance and give favorable impression to others. I used to experience it by myself when I want to give my first speech in Speech Communication class. I am not a best speaker especially when it comes to English speaking and I don’t really have confident to give a speech at that time. However, proudly speaking I could say that I delivered the speech fluently without any blunders although I make some mistakes in my pronunciation. When thinking back about this situation, I knew that cognitive load did help me to perform well. Actually at that time, I was thinking about my father as my speech is about my idol. I choose to talk about my father as my idol in that introduction speech. One of the things that make me forgot everything about the audiences perceptions or their feedback toward me, I was in nostalgic at that time where I remembered the incidents where my father got into an accident. It was the tragic moment in my life as the accident happened in front of my secondary school just after he sent me back to the hostel. As my mind was focused and kept recall the incident, I forgot about my nervousness even the thought that I could not speaking well in English. Finally, my speech got attention by all audiences and my lectures also compliment me for that impressive speech. I was not expected that I could perform better that anyone else during that time. Thanks to cognitive load!
On the other hands, cognitive load also give a negative effect towards your performances. I could not deny the fact that cognitive load do help me to perform better but sometimes it also give us negative consequences depends on our situation. Personally, I would say that cognitive load will give a greater impact towards ourself when we are in the comfort zone or upper level. What I mean with upper level here is where we always perform well in certain things and suddenly our performances declined or worst just because of the thought that we have at that time. This kind of situation happened to me when I having a cognitive load when I attended a first IELTS Speaking Test. For me, I believe that I could perform better during the test based on my previous achievement where I got full mark for my mock interview in my college. I used that achievement as my indicator to build up my confidence. Even before I entered the test room, I tried my best to believe that I can do this well in this speaking test. However, because I kept thinking about my English is not good enough and I cannot enhance my idea and the result was I make too much blunders during the speaking test. It was very frustrated as I know I can perform better than that. Then, the next day was the reading, writing and listening test. I always perform well during my practise time but because I kept thinking about my speaking test, I ruined everything. Even during the listening test, I still think about my speaking test result. How bad the result that I will get? I lost hope to do better in my next test though I can do better if I able to control my mind at that time. Just because I cannot separate my frustration for speaking test on that day, I did very bad for another test and the final result is I could not pass the requirement of my sponsorship for IELTS result that cause me to repeat it again. This is not just about the impression that you make to other but for me it also included on how you perform in your daily life and you see you own impression.
Whatever cognitive load that we face, we must have an ability to separate that thought from interfere our performances. If the thought is negative, obviously we should get rid it from our mind so that we can make favorable impression about ourself. But, for sure it will give benefits to us if we have a positive cognitive load that help us to ignore the fact that make us feel down and we finally can perform better than before. Last but not least, the power of cognitive load depends on how you handle it.
"Many times judgement can be replaced with understanding. And by truly seeking to understand others you will yourself be far better understood" - Anonymous
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