Social Facilitation

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Social Facilitation

• August 31, 2006

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Announcements/Objectives

• Discuss innovation paper guidelines.
• Learn about social facilitation and go over
  results from last weeks experiment.

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Basic Phenomenon

• Social influence How people behave when in the
  presence of others.
• Social facilitation Is a persons performance
  on a task affected by the mere presence of
  another person?
• EARLY DEMONSTRATIONS
• Triplett (1897) bicyclist's times faster when
  racing together than when racing alone.
• Children told to wind string on a fishing reel as
  rapidly as possible wound faster when working
  with a co-actor than when working alone.

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Research Dilemma

• Sometimes the presence of others improves
  performance
• Tripletts studies of cycling and reeling.
• Ants excavate more sand, chickens eat more grain.
• Sometimes the presence of others diminishes
  performance
• Learning non-sense syllables, completing a maze,
  performing complex multiplication problems.

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The Zajonc Solution

• Divergent findings caused research in the area to
  halt completely for almost 25 years.
• Zajonc (rhymes with Science) proposition
• Arousal enhances whatever response tendency is
  dominant (e.g. behavior during an emergency).
• Presence of others increases arousal which in
  turn facilitates performance on easy tasks for
  which the dominant response is the correct one.

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In-Class Demonstration
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Results (Fall 2006)
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Results (Spring 2005)
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Results (Spring 2006)
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Discussion of Results

• How did it feel to be in front of an audience?
• Was it less motivating to be outside of the
  classroom, or did you feel watched anyway?
• What are some individual differences that might
  explain why the results didnt work quite as well
  this semester?

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Psychological Mechanisms

• AROUSAL
• Presence of others leads to arousal.
• We are more alert in the presence of strangers
  than familiars and more aroused in the presence
  of those we cannot watch.
• Arousal in turn influences task performance by
  increasing concentration.
• Did participants feel nervous while completing
  the math problems? Why or why not?

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Psychological Mechanisms (cont.)

• ATTENTION
• Physical distraction Response to the presence of
  others is an urge to monitor them.
• Conflict between attending to the audience versus
  attending to task increases arousal and
  influences task performance.
• Was the audience distracting? Did you find
  yourself watching the audience?

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Psychological Mechanisms (cont.)

• SOCIAL EVALUATION PROCESSES
• Learned fear of being evaluatedevaluation
  apprehension.
• Apprehension facilitates performance of simple
  tasks but inhibits performance of difficult
  tasks.
• Increase in self-focus reminds people that they
  can fail and therefore motivates them.
• Did you worry about doing poorly on the math
  exercise? Did the fear motivate or paralyze
  you?

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Methodological Questions

• Social facilitation is discussed in reference to
  ants, cockroaches, bird, chickens, humans, etc.
• Did you find these generalizations convincing?
• Should psychologists stick to studying people?
• Is anyone really ever alone in a social
  facilitation experiment?

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Thinking of Practical Applications

• I would advise the student to work all alone,
  preferably in an isolated cubicle and to arrange
  to take his examinations in the company of many
  other students on stage and in the presence of a
  large audience.
• Why did Zajonc give this advice?
• How do you study for exams?
• How do you typically take an exam?

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Facilitation in organizations

• When Bloomberg became mayor of NYC, the first
  thing he did was to tear down all of the cubicles
  so that everyone could see each-other.
• Did he have the right idea?
• Which tasks in organizations does social
  facilitation apply to?
• Does this theory put any boundary conditions on
  the effectiveness of working in groups?

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On Thursday

• We will discuss social norms.
• Read all three articles I assigned for this week.