Social Facilitation

Introduction

When an individual performs a task, their performance is influenced by the presence of others
this phenomenon is called social facilitation. Social facilitation was first studied by researcher
Norman Triplett in 1898 when he saw that there was improvement in performance of cyclist while
racing against others than trying to beat their own times. Subsequent research conducted by Floyd
Alport in the year 1924 found that people tend to experience social facilitation when they are familiar
with a task or for well-learned skills. However, their performance decreases in the presence of others
when they are presented with difficult or novel tasks. This decreases in the performance in the
presence of others is known as social inhibition.

Apart from Triplett many psychologists have studied social facilitation and gave theories one
among it is Cottrell’s evaluation apprehension theory. This theory assumes that people learn from
experience that the source of most reward and punishments are other people they interact with.
Therefore, people associate social situations with evaluation and hence, feel apprehensive in presence
of other people. The evaluation apprehension improves performance on simple tasks but is
debilitating in more complex and difficult tasks.

Social psychologist Zajonc gave generalized drive hypothesis which was the first theory that
addressed both increase and decrease in performance of people in the presence of others. Zajonc
argued that presence of others heightens arousal and thus increases an organism’s ability to perform
habitual/well-learned tasks. On the contrary, heightened awareness acts as a flaw when performing
complex/unfamiliar tasks.

Dashiell (1930) found that the number of arithmetic problems performed by participants
increased in the presence of others, so did the number of errors made by them. Another psychologist
Schmitt et al (1986) found that participants typed their name faster in the presence of others but did
best alone when asked to type their name backwards. The same results have been found in animal
studies where simple mazes are worked out faster when in the presence of other animals whilst
complex mazes are done better when alone. (Zajonc, 1969). The psychologists Dashiell, Schmitt,
Zajonc have observed three different situations but they all theorized one theory which is known as
the dominant response theory. A dominant response is simply the response that is most likely to occur
in the presence of the given array of stimuli. If a task is easy for a person, then the dominant response
i.e., the response that is most likely to occur will be the correct response and the onlooker helps elicit
this. Likewise, even in a difficult task the onlooker helps elicit the dominant response, which in this
case is the wrong response. It can also be observed that if the onlooker is not present while the person
is performing difficult task then the task might be performed better.

There are many factors that might affect the performance of the person. If a task is difficult or
complex, social facilitation is less likely to occur. Instead, impairment in task performance might
happen. Another factor is the personality of the performer, people who are more confident or look
more favourably on social situations may see their performance enhanced compared to those who
view them negatively or who have low self-esteem. Factors such as the supportiveness of
the audience, how close it is, and its size might also play a role in social facilitation.

Problem
How does the presence of onlookers affect the individual's performance in a mental ability
test?
Objective
Objective of the experiment was to evaluate the variation in the performance of the
participant in a mental ability test in the absence and presence of onlookers.
Hypothesis
It was hypothesized that the presence of onlookers would increase the level of performance of
the participant in the mental ability test.

Method
Plan and Design

Setting Testing Task Time allotted for Measurement of

condition task completion performance
Experimental Controlled Mental ability 10 minutes Time taken, number of
laboratory condition test (individual) items attempted, number of
(absence of correct, responses number
onlookers) of wrong responses.
Experimental Mental ability 10 minutes Time taken, number of
condition test (individual) items attempted, number of
(presence of correct, responses number
onlookers) of wrong responses.

Independent variable: presence of onlookers.

Dependent variable: performance of the participant in the mental ability test.

Participant details: The participant was BST, an 18-year-old female student who is currently
perusing Integrated MSc at the University of Hyderabad.
Measures and materials: The instruments used are two forms i.e form A and form B each
containing instructions and10 mental ability questions and scoring key. The materials used
are observation book, paper, pencil, stopwatch
Procedure
The experimenter brings form A and B and arrange them on the experiment table along with
other materials which are required to conduct the experiment. Then experimenter contacts three
people who are unknown to each other. The first person the experimenter contacts is the participant
and the other two persons are the observers. After the participant comes into the laboratory and sits
comfortably on the chair the experimenter establishes rapport. When the participant builds trust on the
experimenter, he/she will sign the consent form and give her/his details to the experimenter. Later, the
experimenter explains the participant the nature of the experiment and gives instruction one. When the
participant confirms that he/she is ready to take the test then, the experimenter gives them the Form A
As soon as the participant completes Form A the time taken to complete the task is recorded
and 5 minutes break is given. Meanwhile, the experimenter keeps the partition board in front of the
participant to keeps the test B ready and also instructs the onlookers. At the end of the 5 minutes
break the participant is given instruction 2 followed by test B. While the participant is doing the test B
the onlookers come in and stand near the participant. The onlookers go away when the experimenter
lifts the pencil. When the task is completed, the experimenter takes the introspective report and
requests the participant to leave the laboratory.
Instructions
Instructions for the onlookers:
Please come to the laboratory when I call you. You will find a person sitting in front of me please
stand beside that person keeping at least one feet distance. Please look at the task performed by the
person for about 10 minutes without creating any disturbance. When I raise my pencil, please leave
the laboratory silently.
Instructions to the participant
1. This is a short test to assess Your mental ability. There are 10 questions in total and you are given
10 minutes time to complete the test. You must start working on the test, when I when I say start. At
the end of 10 minutes when I say stop, please stop writing. Take a deep breath and get ready for the
test.
2. The mental abilities can be assessed reliably only when the test is repeated at least once. Hence,
you are requested to take the test once again. All rules stand the same but this time two persons are
going to watch your performance in the test. Take a deep breath and get ready for the test.
Results
Table 1
Responses, scores, time taken and number of items attempted in a controlled and experimental
conditions

Sr no Controlled condition Experimental condition

Response Score Response Score
1 √ √
2
3
4 √
5 √
6 √
7 √
8 √ √
9
10 √
Total 6 3
Note. Total time taken (Control condition 7.15 minutes and experiment condition 7.26 minutes).
Number of items are attempted (control condition 10 and experiment and condition 10).

In the table l the recorded responses of the participant for controlled condition and
experimental condition are scored and the total score is calculated. The total score of the participants
response in controlled condition is 6 and the total score of the participants response in experimental
condition is 3. The participant took 7.15 minutes in controlled condition and 7.26 minutes in
experimental condition. Out of 10 questions given to the participant, the participant attempted all 10
questions in both the conditions.
In the table 2 the frequency of attempted responses of the participant, it’s percentage and
correct responses of the participant, its percentage is calculated in both controlled and experimental
condition along with the total time taken. In the controlled condition, the total time taken is 17.5
minutes, the frequency of attempted responses is 10, the percentage of attempted responses is 100, the
frequency of correct responses is 6 and the percentage of correct responses is 60. In the experimental
condition, the total time taken is 17.26 minutes, the frequency of attempted responses is 10, the
percentage of attempted responses is 100, the frequency of correct responses is 3 and the percentage
of correct responses is 30.
Table 2
Frequency and percentage of attempted and correct responses and time taken in controlled and
experimental conditions

Condition Total time Attempted Percentage of Correct Percentage of

taken responses attempted responses responses correct response
Controlled 17.15 10/10 100% 6/10 60%
Experiment 17.26 10/10 100% 3/10 30%

Introspective report
Discussion
The objective of the experiment was to evaluate the variation in the performance of the participant in
a mental ability test in the absence and presence of onlookers. By analysing the results, we could
make an observation that the participant performed better in the form A than in the form B. This
decrease in performance of the participant in the 2nd test might be due to several reasons.
According to Cottrell’s evaluation apprehension theory the participant might have felt apprehensive in
presence of other people’s evaluation which led to the poor performance in form b compared to form
A. The participant might have felt apprehensive of the fact that the task was been observed by other
people who are unknown to her when I instructed her that two people are going to look at her
performance and recalled her past experiences and associated social situations with evaluation. Here,
the participant was not only affected by the onlooker’s mere presence but by their evaluation. A
further extension of the evaluation approach is the learned drive hypothesis, through which we can
understand that the participant had poor performance because when the participant was performing
the onlookers were focusing on what the participants were doing (Corttell ed al, 1968). The
participants performance can also be extrapolated by another theory called the self-presentation
theory. According to it the participants performance differed due to the presence of others because of
personality factor, where she was motivated to make good impressions with others and maintain a
positive self-image.
Distraction Conflict theory of social facilitation suggests that rather than the mere presence of others,
it is the conflict between giving attention to a person and giving attention to a task which affects
performance. The participant in the introspective report stated that the task that was given to her was
simple, that the reason we can also understand from the theory that the mere presence occasionally
produces social facilitation in the absence of evaluative or competitive pressure; social loafing can
occur on simple well-learned tasks (Barron, 1986). In 1930, psychologist Dashiell found that the
number of arithmetic problems performed by participants increased in the presence of others, so did
the number of errors made by them. In the same way even though the participant attempted all the
questions but the number of attempts made by her have increased with the presence of others.

Therefore, based on the results and observations, we find that on an overall bias, the
participant has scored less in the form B which was being solved when the onlookers were
present. The results of the experiment are not according to the hypothesis that was
formulated. Hence, we can conclude that the hypothesis has been rejected.
 References
Bernd HSchmitt, ThomasGilovich, NatanGoore, LisaJoseph (1986, May). Mere presence and social
facilitation: One more time. Retrieved March 19, 2022, from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0022103186900272
Cottrell, N. B., Wack, D. L., Sekerak, G. J., & Rittle, R. H. (1968). Social facilitation of dominant
responses by the presence of an audience and the mere presence of others. Journal of personality and
social psychology, 9(3), 245.

Dashiell, J. F. (1935). Experimental studies of the influence of social situations on the behavior of
individual human adults.
Guerin, Bernard; Innes, John (2009-09-17). Social Facilitation. Cambridge University
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Psychology. 3 (2): 32–52.
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