This document is a student's journal entry for a social psychology class. It discusses social cognition and how perceptions of risky behaviors can be influenced by cognitive biases. Specifically, it describes an observation of speeding motorcyclists and suggests their judgment of risk may be impacted by availability heuristic and schema perseverance effects. Due to media coverage of accidents, people may incorrectly judge lightweight motorcycles as more dangerous than heavyweight ones. Schemas of motorcyclists as muscular men may also cause confusion at seeing non-stereotypical riders.

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL AND BUILT ENVIRONMENTS
NAME: PANG KHAI SHUEN
STUDENT ID NO: 0318423
WORD COUNT: 303
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (PSY 30203)
ASSIGNMENT 1: FIRST INDIVIDUAL JOURNAL
LECTURER: MS. NORUL HIDAYAH
SUBMISSION DATE: 30TH OCTOBER 2014
Pang Khai Shuen | FNBE April 2014 | Social Psychology (PSY 30203) | Fi rst Individual Journal

2. Social behaviour is defined as a behaviour directed towards society. How we perceive
these behaviours is dependent on our social cognition, which is the manner in which
we interpret, analyze, remember and use information about the social world.
While having my vacation at Ipoh, Perak, I saw a group of heavy motorcyclis ts
speeding down the road. It occurred to me on how social cognitions can come into play.
Why would these bikers engage in such a dangerous activity? Do they have no idea
how easily they can lose their lives? Perhaps so. According to the availability
heuristics, people base their judgements on the ease with which they can bring
something to mind. We all know that riding a motorcycle is fairly dangerous, especially
on a highway full of speeding cars. Fatal motorcycle accidents are always on the news,
so we should know that it is dangerous, right? But there is a catch. The motorcycles
featured in the news are almost all lightweight motorcycles. This means that when these
bikers judge on the safety of this hazardous activity, what they have in their minds is
that lightweight motorcycles are dangerous, not the heavyweight ones they are riding.
Pang Khai Shuen | FNBE April 2014 | Social Psychology (PSY 30203) | Fi rst Individual Journal

3. In fact, heavyweight motorcyclists are more susceptible to fatal crashes as they are
moving a lot faster than lightweight motorcyclists.
Another factor is the perseverance effect, the tendency for beliefs and schemas to
remain unchanged despite of contradictory information. We have formed a schema
about heavy motorcyclists as buff men, around 30 – 40 years old, and wears thick,
heavily decorated jackets. What if someday you see a thin youngster, or even a woman
in the group? You would certainly be taken aback. We may want to believe that he or
she is not a member of the group, because what we see is contradictory to our schema.
Pang Khai Shuen | FNBE April 2014 | Social Psychology (PSY 30203) | Fi rst Individual Journal