Social Facilitation in Psychology

Mere Presence

Social facilitation refers to the increased likelihood of improved performance due to the mere presence of others—either as co-actors or an audience.

In 1898, Norman Triplett found that cyclists raced faster when in groups, reducing their times by up to 30%.

Drive Theory by Zajonc

Robert Zajonc proposed that the presence of others increases arousal, enhancing the dominant response. Skilled individuals improve, while unskilled individuals perform worse.

This was demonstrated by Michaels et al in a study of student pool players:

Aim	To test whether an audience improves well-learned tasks and inhibits poorly learned ones.
Method	Pool players were observed. Six above-average and six below-average players were then tested in the presence of passive observers.
Results	Skilled players improved from 69% to 80%; unskilled players dropped from 36% to 25%.
Conclusion	Supports Zajonc's theory—dominant responses are enhanced by audience presence.
Evaluation	Small sample size and limited to student demographic.

This theory evolved into the Inverted U Hypothesis:

Performance improves with arousal up to an optimum point, after which it declines. Skilled individuals require more arousal to reach peak performance.

Evaluation Apprehension Theory

Cotrell argued that it’s not just presence, but the fear of being evaluated that affects performance. This was tested by Bartis et al. (1988).

Aim	To see if evaluation affects performance differently in simple vs. complex tasks.
Method	Participants listed knife uses (simple) or creative uses (complex), with either individual identification or pooled results.
Results	In the evaluation condition, simple tasks performed better, while complex tasks performed worse.
Conclusion	Evaluation apprehension improves simple task performance, but hinders complex task execution.
Evaluation	Artificial lab setting reduces generalizability to real-life scenarios like sports.

Distraction-Conflict Theory

Proposed by Saunders et al. (1978), this theory suggests that others create a distraction that causes conflict, influencing performance.

Aim	Test the impact of distraction on task performance.
Method	Participants completed simple or difficult tasks with co-actors doing either the same or a different task.
Results	High distraction improved simple task performance but impaired complex task performance.
Conclusion	Supports distraction-conflict as a mechanism of social facilitation.
Evaluation	Can explain facilitation in animals, who don’t experience evaluation apprehension.

Below is a visual representation of the distraction-conflict theory: