1) The document describes a comic plot where Matt, an overweight student, is disliked by his classmates who assume overweight people are unintelligent. During gym class, Matt is pushed and accidentally hits another student, John, who wants to fight Matt due to feelings of anger and assumptions about Matt's character. The two are caught fighting by a teacher and punished by running laps holding hands, during which John realizes Matt is not unintelligent as he had assumed. They become best friends.
2) Key psychology concepts discussed in relation to the comic include social perception, correspondence bias, self-efficacy, operant conditioning, and accommodation. Social perception and correspondence bias explain the initial negative assumptions about Matt. Self-efficacy explains
2. PLOT
Matt, is a freshman in Johns class.
Everybody does not like Matt because he is fat. They think that every fat boy is dumb so John is
one of them.
Matt always gets teased by his classmates because he's damn fat.
One day, during gym class, Matt was pushed down by the other friend.
Matt fell on John and banged on his foot accidentally..
John felt angry at Matt and wanted to fight with him.
Matt got punched by John.
While they were fighting, they were caught by teacher.
They were punished by the teacher. Gym teacher asked them to run around the track while
holding each others hand.
While holding hands, John realised that Matt actually was not a dumb.
They became best friends.
3. 5 Concept that apply on this
comic
1) Social Perception
1) Correspondence
Bias
1) Self-Efficacy
1) Operant
Conditioning
1) Accommodation
4. Social Perception
-forming an impression of others based on
available information
-Eg: In class, everybody didnt like Matt
because of his big body size. All of them
thought that all fat boy was dumb so they
thought Matt was also a dumb. John also
thought the same on Matt although John had
not interacted with him yet.
5. Correspondence Bias
- people make more dispositional
attributions for others behaviours
- assume their behaviour is indicative
of their personality, not due to the
situation
- tends to happen when we dont
have enough information
- Eg: Matt fell down and hit Johns
leg. John thinked that it was all
Matts fault but he didnt know that
Matt was pushed by another guy.
6. Self-efficacy
- your belief in your ability to achieve
certain goals
- people with high self-efficacy see
difficult task as challenges while
people with low self-efficacy see
difficult task as something to be
avoided.
- For example, this concept is applied
in the comic when John wanted a
fight with Matt. John has a high self-
efficacy as he believe that he can
beat Matt in the fight.
7. Operant Conditioning
(Positive Punishment)
- A process that attempts to modify
behaviour
- The goal of punishment is to
decrease a behaviour
- Positive punishment is when
unfavourable outcomes or events are
given in order to weaken the
undesirable behaviours
- Eg: Matt and John were punished by
gym teacher due to the fight in order
to correct their bad behaviour.
- Referred as punishment by
application.
8. Accommodation
- Accommodation is a process in which we
modify existing cognitive schemas in order
to include new information.
- Eg: John starts to modify his existing
cognitive schemas of Matt. Therefore, they
become best friend in the end. This is
because when they hold each others hands
and run the track, John starts to adapt Matt
which is, he is not dumb and that fat like
what he used to think of about fat boys.
9. Reference
Webs:
Operant conditioning (skinner) (n.d.). Retrieved 28 May 2015, from http://www.learning-
theories.com/operant-conditioning-skinner.html
What is positive punishment? (n.d.). Retrieved 28 May 2015, from
http://psychology.about.com/od/operantconditioning/f/positive-punishment.htm