ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Level I Institutionally Accredited
Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna
Performance Task 1 โ PSY13 - SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
PT 1
Thinking Like a Social Psychologist!
Direction: Is there any social phenomenon that currently tricks your mind? Have you tried to
find solutions from those inquiries? Now, it is your time. Think of yourself as a social
psychologist. Look for a social phenomenon in your area and evaluate the person-situation
interaction that is happening. Make a thorough observation and include any related literature
that may support your statement.
With digital ages, facebook and TikTok are now part of our life. It's a source of
entertainment and information. However, we can't deny the fact that with the increasing daily
use of social media, there's also a growing number of fake news. Fake news is widely spread
on social media. It's kind of scary and frustrating to see, especially when people easily believe
it. What is even sadder is that majority of the audience are youth or teenagers. They easily
believe everything posted on Facebook and TikTok without checking if it's reliable or not.
What is more important from them is trends, likes, and views.
Fake news about the COVID-19, vaccines, politics, and even history are widely spread,
and I can observe that information can easily influence their behaviors, action, and
perspective in life. Sometimes those boomers are also the great victim of it. For example, I
have anti-vaccine neighbors because she ""read"" on Facebook that someone has died because
of a particular vaccine; they even believe it can lead to a zombie. Another example is a
teenager believing in misleading information and fake credential of electoral candidates. That
misinformation could influence casting their votes in the upcoming election. It's very alarming
and life-threatening to see that many people fall for fake news. They easily swayed with the
information without realizing the harmful effects of it.Fake news can be life-threatening. If we
consider, for example, the issue of immunization. Science is rather clear here โ vaccines save
lives. However, people around the world have been exposed to a multitude of fake news
regarding immunization that has been spread on social networks. Scary pseudo-scientific facts
shared online have managed to reduce immunization rates, leading to the outbreak of
diseases that had been virtually eradicated.Bozovic (2019)
It keeps me thinking about why they fall for fake news and why it's getting worse. As a
social psychologist, I realized it has something to do with the role of social conformity.
Teenagers believe and spread fake news because it's trending. They want to build a social
image and a connection with others in the same environment. ;Talwar et al. (2019) stated that
social media users will share information to gain social approval and to build their image And
recent studies have shown that certain false information can be strengthened if it belongs to
the individuals in the same social environment. Wang et al. (2018). Also they believe likes and
LSPU SELF-PACED LEARNING MODULE: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
