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To recap what are the 10 comments i've wrote, please refer to the following blogs:



http://coolbeanshowshow.blogspot.com/

http://racismtsc.blogspot.com/

http://lauwanxin.blogspot.com/

http://juzshirlzblog.blgspot.com/

http://20somethink.blogspot.com/

http://ph87.blogspot.com/

http://funwithsocialpsychology.blogspot.com/

http://socialpsych20.blogspot.com/

http://francizthepatriz.blogspot.com/

http://blissful-society.blogspot.com/

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Altruistic Artistes, Or Egoistic Element in them?

Finding a social issue is not that difficult but mastering the skill of noticing things around can be difficult especially when one does not do that often. John mentioned about Altruism being the area he was very interested but however, he was doubtful if anyone would sponsor him. Among some of the words he said, an idea strucked and 'actors and actresses' surfaced.



This though has been bugging me since i was a young girl. Watching those mediacorp artistes performing great and dangerous stunts on and off stage, i sometimes wonder if they are doing for the good cause. Those familiar faces, are they there to increase their supports from their fans or are they really doing for the good cause? What about those artistes who did not perform? Is there really an altruistic person in Singapore? Perhaps that is too quick to judge.





There is a Cost Analysis Model of Helping that we can use to perhaps explain a little of the motives behind these artistes. Perhaps there may not be an emergency however, artistes must have been through this weighing process of the benefits and costs. This Model defines prosocial behaviour if the rewards for helping outweigh the costs of not helping.


The artistes who participated must have been altruistic, as their intentions were to help the poors and sicks. They brave swords and fire, bruises and cuts.They have a motive though, even it is altruistic, which means the desire to help another person even if it involves a cost to the helper. They may have done it to get some media attention and increase their fame, one kind of reward. Cost here could mean the effort involved, the time required, the risk of harm and perhaps the negative emotional and physiological response. However, the motive can be a prosocial one too as there is really a pure motive for helping, which one experiences events and emotions like the person experiences it.


So are we convinced of their altruism?
How about below's explanation?





Performing prosocial behaviour could due to another cost, the cost of not helping. They may feel guilty if they had not put in the effort or not perform, to touch the audiences' hearts. Not wanting to feel guilty could be a motive too. Although it was rather a selfish thought, we can see the prosocial mindset of the artistes.



That however, depends again on the individual differences. If the person by nature is empathic, they will always put themselves in other people's shoes, which is also perspective taking. They will able to show their empathic concern, imagine themselves in the situation and reflect on the degree of distress others feel. Perspective taking, empathic concern, personal distress and fantasy, are the subscales of Interpersonal reactivity index developed by Mark Davis.

so can we still say that artiste are altruistic when they perform in those charity show? It's hard to tell, but but! i'll personally say it is more of personal growth and experience that every artiste wants to have. So in the end, i think it's still egoistism rather than altruism that spurs them to perform those breathe-taking stunts.....

a sad blog

March 9, 2008

Depressed.
it took a lot of courage for me to actually post this post of mine.the a level results are out, and it aint that good. trust me, it was the biggest blow of my entire life. and it seemed difficult to actually climb back up again.my results are in the grey area. neither here or there. then it comes to think that why is life, why is god so unfair to me. allowing all these to happen to me but not to anyone else. you know how much does it hurt to see other people happily celebrating their results, but me. im no where.and i have no idea where did i go wrong. it is not like i did not put in effort, its not like i did not sacrifice. WHY ME?sigh. its just not fair. i can never figured out why.i hated god for whatever he had done to me. HE NEVER GIVE ME ANYTHING worthy for me to be happy about.my dad, although he's trying hard to comfort me, but i know that deep down inside, he is hurting and disappointed too. i dont want this to happen.everyone did better then me. WHY? surely i deserved better grades then those who slacked their time away RIGHT?its just not fair.gosh. i cant reallycontrol my emotions at this point of time. now i totally can comprehend those people when they describe their experiences as living in a dream. for me, it really felt like living in a dream, and you wish that you can wake up now and stop all this. but it is no dream, it is real.i can literally go bonkers now. i almost broke down on the night of results day. could not think straight, it felt like if i were to jump down from my window, anything can end this suffering of mine.gosh. i dont think i can be happy anymore. i cant even bring myself to smile again.you know what god told me before i collected my results? he said that i cannot go to uni. and he was right. he is DAMN right at saying all the bad things about me. but never right about the good things that can happen to me, if there is any that is.so now everyone can happily apply for a place in uni without a single care in the world, and can sleep in their beds tonight, in PEACE.but please remember that in some corner of spore, there are people that are weeping and going into depression,and all they ask is for their worries to go away and be happy like the rest is.to all those who had did well, or those well enough to be considered potential applicants for university, congrats.god talked to me yesterday, i dont know whether is it true. i was mad at him. shiping said that she was blessed by him. no offence shiping, but i just cant help to think that god had not really blessed me all this while. you were lucky to be blessed by him. me? i still have to be tortured by him for the whole of my life.he told me where my mistake is. he said that yes, you studied hard, and in actual fact, you could have gotten good results based on the efforts that i had put in. but you studied for all the wrong reasons. he said he needed to take this opportunity to wake me up and he needed me to humble myself. i was flipping through the bible and the phrase kept popping up, trust in the lord with all your heart and not lean on your own understanding, in all your paths acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. when he was talking to me, i needed a confirmation, and i was reading and my eyes was on this verse" be completely humble and gentle" and " pride comes before disgrace" maybe it was him. i dont know.but now i know i needed to live my him, not by my own.god once told me that he is hurt to see me in this way, but he has to do this to make me learn.god, all i ask is to get into uni, give me a chance to step in and live by your way, and walk with you. im really humbled now. knowing well that im no good and that others are better then me, i know that you have to let me retake the whole examinations again. and i know that it is the best way for me. but all i ask is to alter this just for once. you said ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find. but please.i know i sounded desperate. but i cannot be the janice that you people used to know anymore. i cant smile now. i have no idea why.and it hurts a lot more to see the picture of me mugging for a levels at shiping's blog but end up screwing it up. and feeling the happy mood from gayne's blog. no offence ladies, but it sucks really.it FELT LIKE A DREAM but i just cant wake up.

I came across this post when i thought i needed some entertainment from internet. It was a post on the blog of my junior from student council. She was seen as a bubbly girl and she stands up for what she believed.So she chose to believe that she worked hard for her exams as well as believing God would give her the strength and all those she needed for the As.


Results show how well one has done and learnt in their pursue of studies, but luck as well as other environmental factors were involved too. So we cannot really attribute to internal attribution and have correspondence biasness- tendency to see other people's behavior as caused by internal factors, even when external factors are present. of her. However, she believed in God that He will give her strength. I guess it's a false hope syndrome, that one repeatedly trys to acheive goals that were unrealistic because they have unrealistic expectation about their likelihood of success.

It could mean that one tries asking God to help when they themselves do not do anything to help themselves (trying to acheive unrealistic goal). She thought that as long as there is faith, she will do well.


It could also be the false consensus effect that she might have that everyone is just as bad as her because of the midterm test. And perhaps the construct of this society is such that we need to score well in the exam so that we don't 'lose our face' when friends asked us about our results, as well as Singapore being an elitist country, surviving in a small country with so many people vying for common jobs. This will hence result in social comparison which would cause relative deprivation where the feeling of anger and resentment would surface when one's outcome is based on comparision with the better-offs. "knowing well that im no good and that others are better then me, i know that you have to let me retake the whole examinations again."

Her belief in God is unwavering but blogging about God talking to her sounds as if, from a bystander's point of view that she might be using God's name to confirm what she had thought to be true and will come true.


"i still have to be tortured by him for the whole of my life.he told me where my mistake is. he said that yes, you studied hard, and in actual fact, you could have gotten good results based on the efforts that i had put in." It can be explained by what social psychology term called, Cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance as referenced from Social Psychology Alive, is the awareness of consonant cognitions makes us feel good, whereas awareness of dissonant cognition motivate us to do something to change our state. What people will normally do to change their cognitive dissonance are, to 1) change their dissonant cognition, 2)change their behaviour, 3) add a consonant, 4) reducing the importnace of dissonant cognition or 5) to increase the importance of consonant cognition.


For her, it would be what we called effort justification, where she will be motivated to 4) change one of the dissonant cognitions or to 5)add consonant cognition.


she thought she worked hard and now her results showed dissonance, The statement she wrote "he told me where my mistake is. he said that yes, you studied hard, and in actual fact, you could have gotten good results based on the efforts that i had put in" showed that she used 5) raising the importance of her consonant cognition.



"but you studied for all the wrong reasons. he said he needed to take this opportunity to wake me up" It could be another reduction of dissonant but she probably have an illusory correlation, where one believes that two variables are related to one another when in fact, they are not. She thought that she didn't do well because of wrong study method, when it could be time management that got her down.



when he was talking to me, i needed a confirmation," Confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and avoids information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. She didnt look for other sources to contradict her belief in God and that may oppose the meaning of confirmation bias-"tendency to search for and interpret new information". However, she did avoid other sources that contradict her belief......

Orchard's persuasion

Tutorial on Wednesday morning made me realised that i could use persuasion method to explain the theory behind persuading someone. Simply using the central route-cognitive response theory, and the peripheral route-heuristic. Probably Maslow's hierarchy of needs to explain why people buy branded bags imitations. The central route to persuasion means that under certain condition, people are motivated to pay attention as well as to think deep about the facts in the message. The peripheral route to persuasion would mean that people pay attention to characteristics that are superficial and appealing when first looked at. Maslow's hierarchy of needs include satisfying the basic needs such as food, water and shelter, security needs, belongness and love needs, esteem needs and lastly, self actualisation.



it has been a puzzling thought that i have carried in my mind for a long time and finally, social psych provided me the official names and theories to it.

My mom and I would walk the Orchard area when it's holiday for me. Of course, we would walk pass the Orchard underground tunnel that will lead us to either Marriot Hotel, Wheelock, Isetan or Tangs...

Along the Orchard tunnel, we will often see people bustling to and fro with some flyers distributors. But, out of the intertwining flow, you will see a barrier that will cause the flow of human 'water' to be especially squeezy at the area near the barrier.

Barrier here would mean a whole lot of aunties crowding at a corner buying imitations of branded goods such as the wallets and purses. i do see LV, guess? and other sorts. It's not legally sold i am sure, because they were ransacking for more nicer looking ones IN A LUGGUAGE BAG! The person selling it looked, according to heuristic biasness, like he was from China. SO, using representative heuristics, we often associate China with imitation and unsafe products. I not trying to smear the reputation of China chinese or trying to do anything bad but...it's a fact...:D

of course, armed with persuasions, i used the central route to change the attitude of my mom's. i told my mom that they are imitations and even if it is real, it could not possibly be sold at such area, in a lugguage bags with the shifty eyes of the vendor. People selling stuff like these would be caught by the police and whoever buys them, violate the law on purpose. So i broke the whole thing down to let my mom think and analyse, and instilled the 'fear' in her.

So why are aunties buying imitations?? What's more at Orchard Tunnel?

First of all, advertisments of branded goods by famous celebrities appeals to our cognitive peripherally, that if you have a branded good, you are cool, you will be like by your friends and you will be part of the higher social class.The peripheral route to persuasion- heuristic persuasion or the 'soft sell' refers to using images, emotions, or values to sell.

MOtivated,one would want to have it for themself because that will boost your self-esteem. WIth self-esteem, you will strive for the next need-self actualisation.

but because those aunties cant afford that expensive luxury, they then settle for the lesser.

i thought the aunties would do better without these luxury because that would make them feel more guilty by buying imitations.

Older women strikes!

ST, March 14, 2008

Tycoon's wife charged with slapping SIA girl.

woohoo! can we say this is a tabloid, or gossips women would gather together to discuss and curse the old wife of tycoon's? (yes, another schema for women being the nose parker.)

Automatic thinking comes along when the accessibility( ease which schemas can be brought to mind easily) of women being nosy, full of jealous, and overbearing are easy to surface on our minds. NOw with this news paper article, it primes and therefore triggers us to think deeper, whether our concept of women is really that unchangeable? Is women in our mind that bad an image!?
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THere may be exceptions where some women are really nice and not bear grudges against those who hurt them, but i guess social psychology let me understand one thing. Although sexism is no longer that prominent, the stereotype that we had before might somehow influence how we think. Implicit intergroup bias, the distorted judgements about members of a group based on a stereotype, which can occur without the person's awareness, explains what i meant.

It could be the evolution theory that affects us. What was held steadfast would still exist in the modern society now. Examples would be women are still weaker than man, african-americans are still biased against as compared to the whites and etc.

The article says this, which contribute even more to the implicit intergroup biasness:

'Tan Siew Hoon, 61, was taken to court a week after she settled a civil claim by Ms Then Jiamin, 25, with an unspecified payout.'

obviously, the age element stated in the newspaper triggered the available heuristic in people that old women had some grudges against younger and prettier women.

It may be true that older women are 'jealous' of those pretty girls but havent it occur to us that those old women had their glorious times before?! They were those pretty girls in "da club" before.

That somehow triggered my available heuristics about older women being barred from going into the clubs. haha..yes those people must be thinking...it's disgusting for old women tobe in,but for that case...i stand by with the older women.

However, after thinking 'socialogically', We cant blame 61 yr old Tan because she was feeling insecure. Though she could inherit the large amount of money from the tycoon husband, i guess ultimately, women would love the feeling of being attended to.

" she also claimed that after the alleged assault, Tan asked her loudly: ' why are you talking to my husband?'"

That double confirms that she's 'jealous' because she's scared that her husband, like all typical men, would succumb to beauty.

However, we should sympathise women in general because beauty is short-lived.

Below is how she looks like....as to how to interpret her case depends on how u look and listen.

Adios

MAS SELAMAT WINS BLAME GAME!

INSIGHT S9, ST, Saturday, March 15 2008

Mas Selamat wins in blame game

" ... NO, wait... within sight of some minister, who sits at home with a huge bank of television screens, channel-surfing so that he knows everything that goes on here -......There's a certain gleefulness i detect on blogs and chatrooms in pointing out how Singapore's much-vaunted and supposedly 'all-seeing and all-knowing' Government has been blind-sided and tripped up by a limping terrorist's ability to walk out of a secure facility that one int'l report i cam across described as Guantanamo Bay."


We can see that Singaporeans are rather active in the cyber world, speaking their minds without much thought. I supposed that the schema they have was that Government is almighty and it would be so impossible that Mas Selamat would escape, except their comments on net.

When i first read it, i thought the government was rather incompetent when such a short and unkept person would actually get out of the hands of the superior government. However, from the social psychological perspective, the question of why people jumping at conclusions that quickly soon reveals.

So, the foremost question we should be asking is, why would all Singaporeans see government as the almighty? Government although is supposed to be the structure, the body that controls and feed the ultimate accurate information to the public, they are afterall, humans because it's not machines at work. I am sure that humans make error. Those comments made on net showed that they made the Fundamental Attribution Error, where according to Social Psychology Alive book, the tendency to overestimate the extent to which a person's behavoir is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors. Yes, it's perculiar that Mas Selamat escaped when there's hundred of eyes on him but, i guess it's not due to any internal factors such as policemen being slackers, spy for Osama, same fate as Mas S. etc. But rather, situational factors like Mas S. is good at escaping as said by the police, changing shifts of policemen that result in lower attention, hunger and therefore, a slip of attention....

I don't think we should blame on the efficiency of the government. I believe that government in this case cannot take up the whole responsibility in rap of the policemen who lost Mas S. because we must take into account of the situational factors which were unforeseen. The policemen gave their best i'm sure and besides, Singapore is that small and with large amount of money pumped into the military sector, the militants are bound to find Mas S. in no time. Even if he were to limp into Malaysia, with the diplomatic ties that tight, Malysia will lend its helping hands. In Just World Theory, it is said as a defensive attribution where people assume that bad event will happen to evil people and the good will reward the good people. There will be a time when the policemen use a smart strategy in nailing Mas S. down gloriously and Mas Selamat will get his desserts. Well, in fact, the government was indirectly made the victim of those vile tongues. It may be said that the victim had it coming due to their lack of attention and so on but as the saying goes, Good will triumph Evil( Mas Selamat and the underminers).

What the Government is doing now is reparative work. Such as getting more resources to fix deficiencies and launching manhunt, shall seal those net vipers' lips because what those detractors can do were just finger-pointing and damaging the confidence and spirit and effort of the National Service men in hunting down. Instead, we should not have any bystander effect, where the chance of intervening into or even concerning the effort decreases in case of emergency such as the time in hunting down is longer than expected or Mas S. attacks people, as the number of bystander increases, especially in Singapore.

Singaporeans are educated in such a way that they strive for the better. In this event of losing Mas S., government as said by others, SHOULD NOT have let that happened because they supposedly have all the best systems locked onto Mas S and policemen at their best performances. When Government does something good such as helping the poor, citizens regard that as the job of the Government and they should do it with no complaints.


Citizens expected more bonus from the government and they believe that government should continue to do that. I saw this word in The Straits Time before this article and they had this word 'Beware of the Red Packets', something that has to do with bonus giving from the government because of the revenue earned from the GST 7%. i guess Singaporeans expected too much from the government when they are doing good. When the government does something, which everyone didn't like, they blame government for making decision before showing off their democratic actions.


That is related to selective information processing, which we can also call the cock-tail phenomenon. According to 'Social Psychology Alive', Selective Information Processing means that we tend to select what we want to attend to. What stereotypes we have can guide our attention as well as interpretation of behaviour. What is seemed 'unglam' would be criticized and our schema or can we say 'stigma' of the government is so strong that a fair bit of mistake would throw the government into a bad light. I'm sure that Government is doing their best as a granny for the state.