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Social psychology: Altruism · Attribution · Attitudes · Conformity · Discrimination · Groups · Interpersonal relations · Obedience · Prejudice · Norms · Perception · Index · Outline Social facilitation is the tendency for people to be aroused into better performance on simple tasks (or tasks at which they are expert or that have become autonomous) when under the eye of others, rather than while they are alone (audience effect), or when competing against another (coactor effect). Complex tasks (or tasks at which people are not skilled), however, are often performed in an inferior manner in such situations. This effect has been demonstrated in a variety of species. In humans, it is strongest among those who are most concerned about the opinions of others, and when the individual is being watched by someone he or she does not know, or cannot see well. ResearchThe earliest published research on social facilitation was conducted by Norman Triplett in 1898. Triplett observed that among bicycle racers, the presence of other cyclists tended to increase performance, leading to faster race times. Research on social facilitation progressed slowly over the next few decades as the presence of others seemed to increase performance in some situations, and decrease it in other situations. Origins of the theoryTriplett's cyclists scores Triplett's early experiments (1898) [1] mark the beginning of an enquiry on the complex mechanism governing what would later be called the Social Facilitation-Inhibition (SFI) theory: the effect the presence of others has on people's behaviour. Recording the speed of professional cyclists in three conditions: alone un-paced against time, alone paced against time and in a competition set-up with a pacemaker, Triplett found the best performances in the last condition (a gain of up to 25% over the un-paced scores), followed by the performances in the second condition. Triplett's reeling apparatus He then conducted an experiment involving children and a reeling apparatus. This time, results were more ambiguous. While most children managed to reel faster in the presence of an audience, some seemed unaffected by that presence and some reeled slower, which led Triplett to speculate that the latter group's impaired performance may have been caused by over-stimulation.
The type of tasks has an influence on social facilitation, for example mental versus motor, but so has the type of presence. As reported by Aiello & Douthitt (2001), Dashiell (1930), found and studied four types of audience: the mere presence, the later-called evaluative audience, non-competing coactors and competing coactors. His instructions to his participants not to compete were a valiant, but as in today's research, perhaps only partly successful attempt to eliminate the competitive element from the equation. To make matters worse, Guerin (1993) highlights the fact that in many early studies, the alone condition sometimes meant the researcher in the room (Aiello & Douthitt, 2001). More recently, Baron (1986) proposed an alternative view of social facilitation, one that is based on attention and distraction. He suggested that task performance is dependent upon the number of cues or distractions present in the situation. Today, most social psychologists believe that social facilitation in humans is influenced by both arousal (as in Zajonc's theory) and cognitive processes (such as distraction, and also evaluation apprehension). ZajoncZajonc's Social Facilitation article helped clarify the issue. First, he made clear the distinction between a passive audience and one involved in the same task (co-action effects). However, he insisted that the mere presence was enough to cause arousal. In support of that idea, social facilitation effects were found in an experiment where participants were prevented to "attend directly" to the audience (Platania & Moran, 2001). Zajonc then formulated a theory explaining the opposite effects an audience has on performance:
The mechanism underlying the process, later called the Arousal or Drive Theory, is thus: the presence of others creates a state of arousal, which in turn causes the activation of dominant responses. In the case of the mastered task, this means an improved performance, but if the task is new, or difficult, dominant responses will mostly be erroneous resulting in a poor performance. The audienceMultiple factors may affect performance, depending on the individual's perception of the audience.
Blue Yellow Red
Factors mediating SFI effects are almost endless, and notoriously difficult to control. However, Zajonc states that mere presence is "not only necessary but sufficient for social facilitation" (Aiello & Douthitt, 2001). Further researchThe social facilitation process consists of complex interactions between "types of task, types of audience, types of actor" (Grant & Dajee, 2003). Many questions remain unanswered:
To concludeArousal, and its debilitating effect on unpractised performance, can be demonstrated in the most basic audience condition. Ongoing psychological research demonstrates that the presence can even be virtual, as in online encounters, virtual teams or computer monitoring in the workplace (Aiello, 1999) [2]. Although a hundred years old, Social facilitation theory is a dynamic, complex and vital field of research within Social Psychology. See also
ReferencesKey texts - papers
Additional papers
What is it called when you perform better in front of others?Social facilitation is a social phenomena in which being in the presence of others improves individual task performance. That is, people do better on tasks when they are with other people rather than when they are doing the task alone.
What is it called when the presence of others causes improved performance?Social facilitation is an improvement in the performance of a task in the presence of others (audience, competitor, co-actor) compared to their performance when alone.
When two or more people perform the same task in the presence of one another the effect on the behavior is known as?Coaction the effect on behavior when two or more people are performing the same task in the presence of one another. Coaction is said to decrease productivity and creativity. EX: people tend to eat more in large groups than alone.
What do you mean by social loafing?This phenomenon is called “social loafing”—the idea that some people put in less effort in a group setting. According to social psychology, social loafing occurs when there is a diffusion of responsibility and a shift of focus from individual performance to group performance.
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