Social Facilitation as a Function of the Mere Presence of Others

Abstract

According to R. B. Zajonc's (1965) drive theory of social facilitation, the mere presence of others increases arousal and, thereby, the frequency of dominant responses (i.e., responses with the greatest habit strength). In the present experiment, U.S. undergraduates performed a stimulus discrimination task under 1 of 2 conditions: in the presence of another individual (audience) or alone. The mere presence condition was designed to make it difficult for the participants to attend directly to the audience. The task was designed to minimize the likelihood that the specific response (numerical preference) would be attributable to a desire to respond appropriately to the audience. There was a significant difference in the mean number of dominant responses between the participants in the audience condition and those in the alone condition. The results provide support for Zajonc's mere presence drive theory of social facilitation.     

Social facilitation as a function of the mere presence of others

According to R. B. Zajonc's (1965) drive theory of social facilitation, the mere presence of others increases arousal and, thereby, the frequency of dominant responses (i.e., responses with the greatest habit strength). In the present experiment, U.S. undergraduates performed a stimulus discrimination task under 1 of 2 conditions: in the presence of another individual (audience) or alone. The mere presence condition was designed to make it difficult for the participants to attend directly to the audience. The task was designed to minimize the likelihood that the specific response (numerical preference) would be attributable to a desire to respond appropriately to the audience. There was a significant difference in the mean number of dominant responses between the participants in the audience condition and those in the alone condition. The results provide support for Zajonc's mere presence drive theory of social facilitation.     

The Varied Impact of Social Support on Cardiovascular Reactivity

Two experiments examine the hypothesis that the effect of social support on cardiovascular reactivity depends on participants' evaluative concerns and their motivation for task performance. In both experiments, heart rate and blood pressure were recorded while participants gave a speech to either a supportive or nonsupportive audience, with the experimenter either present or absent. Experiment 1 showed that support decreased performer reactivity relative to nonsupport when the experimenter was present, whereas support increased reactivity when the experimenter was absent. Experiment 2 replicated this pattern and helped clarify interpretation of the results. The results may help resolve inconsistencies in previous support and reactivity literature, and suggest that social support may not always improve health by lowering cardiovascular reactivity.     

Negative social evaluation, but not mere social presence, elicits cortisol responses to a laboratory stressor task.

BACKGROUND: Recent research has supported the premise that performance conditions characterized by social-evaluative threat, in which an aspect of the self could be judged by others, are associated with cortisol responses. However, it remains unclear whether this effect is due to negative social evaluation per se or simply the presence of another during a performance situation. Method: In the present study, 89 undergraduates delivered a speech in 1 of 3 conditions: in front of an evaluative audience panel (social-evaluative threat [SET]), in the presence of an inattentive confederate (PRES), or alone in a room (non-SET). RESULTS: Consistent with hypotheses, participants in the SET condition demonstrated a significant cortisol response, while those in the non-SET and PRES conditions did not show increases in this hormone. Further, participants in the SET condition who reported greater posttask levels of self-conscious cognitions and emotions demonstrated the greatest increases in cortisol. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that the mere social presence of others is not driving the changes in cortisol observed under social-evaluative threat; instead, explicit negative social evaluation may be responsible for increases in this health-relevant physiological parameter.     

Social facilitation of laughter in children

This experiment was designed primarily to show that laughter can be socially facilitated. Independent groups of 7-yr-old children listened on headphones to amusing material under three conditions: they were tested in isolation (alone condition), with a nonlistening companion (audience condition), or with another who also listened to the material (coaction condition). Pairs of children were of like sex. The companions from the audience condition listened on a later occasion. Total times spent laughing and smiling were highest in the coaction condition, and were higher in the audience condition than in the alone condition. The data provide some support for Zajonc's “mere presence” hypothesis. They are also discussed in relation to: (1) informational aspects of laughter; (2) the relationship between overt expressive responses and subjective ratings of funniness; (3) an operational definition of “mirth”; (4) sex differences in laughter and smiling.     

Missing the dog that failed to bark in the nighttime: on the overestimation of occurrences over non-occurrences in hypothesis testing

In three studies, we investigated whether and to what extent the evaluation of two mutually exclusive hypotheses is affected by a feature-positive effect, wherein present clues are weighted more than absent clues. Participants (N = 126) were presented with abstract problems concerning the most likely provenance of a card that was drawn from one of two decks. We factored the correct response (the hypothesis favored by the consideration of all clues) and the ratio of present-to-absent features in each set of observations. Furthermore, across the studies, we manipulated the presentation format of the features’ probabilities by providing the probability distributions of occurrences (Study 1), non-occurrences (Study 3) or both (Study 2). In all studies, both participant preference and accuracy were mostly determined by an over-reliance on present features. Moreover, across participants, both confidence in the responses and the informativeness of the present clues correlated positively with the number of responses given in line with an exclusive consideration of present features. These results were mostly independent of both the rarity of the absent clues and the presentation format. We concluded that the feature-positive effect influences hypothesis evaluation, and we discussed the implications for confirmation bias.     

Social facilitation during the initial stage of motor learning: a re-examination of Martens' audience study

This study partially replicated Martens' (1969a) social-facilitation study of motor behavior. His very robust performance findings provided impressive confirmation for Zajonc's hypothesis, and his arousal findings have since been used as evidence for a nonlearned-drive basis for social facilitation. The present study also extended Martens' investigation by examining the separate and combined effects of an audience and videotape camera. The effects due to the presence of the audience and camera were not additive; instead, the audience detrimentally affected subjects' performance consistency and the camera resulted in more trials with errors greater than 30 msec after the performance criteria had been attained. Martens' most robust findings for constant error were not replicated, nor were some of his physiological arousal findings. His pattern of constant error results over all trials is atypical of known learning strategies that subjects use to reduce error over successive trials. Overall, audience effects accounted for only a very small portion of the variance.     

Effect of an audience on learning a novel motor skill

The purpose of this study was to assess effects of an audience on learning a novel motor skill. Subjects (N=64) were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions and administered 15 30-sec. trials with 30 sec. intertrial periods on a pursuit rotor task on two different days. Comparison of Time-on Target performance between conditions indicated that the No Audience condition had significantly higher performance than the Audience condition in Session 1. Comparison of Absolute Retention and Final Retention scores among the four experimental conditions in Session 2 after 48 hr. yielded no significant differences attributable to the presence of an audience, thus supporting the hypothesis that an audience would have no effect on learning.     

Attributional self-presentation and information available to the audience

Public ability attributions of public task performance were investigated as a function of test performance (high or low), task performance (high or low), and the availability of information about test performance to the audience (audience informed or audience not informed). The results were largely in agreement with self-presentation expectations, Ability attributions concerning public task performance addressed to an audience which was not informed about test results, were found to be strongly self-serving, although they were also influenced by consistency of test and task performance. In ability attributions directed at an informed audience, self-serving biases were completely absent, the attributions being in accordance with the consistency or inconsistency of test and task performances.     

Distraction,attentional conflict,and drivelike behavior

Two studies provide evidence supporting a distraction-conflict view of social facilitation effects. Study 1 demonstrated that presence of an audience produced drivelike effects on the latency and vigor of a motor response. This effect, however, only occurred when attending to the audience caused attentional conflict. Study 2 demonstrated that in a two-task setting, attentional conflict, resulting from having to choose which task to work on, led to poorer performance on a complex copying task (p < .01, one tailed) and a larger percentage of dominant responses on J. L. Cohen and J. H. Davis' (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973, 27, 74–85) hidden word task (p < .04, one tailed), relative to a yoked control. Study 2 is consistent with earlier reports that choice heightens drivelike effects, while Study 1 indicates that attentional conflict contributes to social facilitation phenomena.     

Social facilitation in a coaction setting: An examination of the effects over learning trials

Zajonc's proposal that the presence of others facilitates emission of dominant responses was examined in a coaction setting with human maze learning. On a maze where dominant responses were likely to be correct, coacting subjects made fewer errors than those working alone. On a maze where dominant responses were likely to be incorrect, subjects performing alone made fewer errors than those coacting. Investigation of task performance at different stages in learning showed that a change in the rate of learning corresponded to a change in the dominant response from incorrect to correct. It was concluded that the presence of others has a facilitative effect on the dominant response, hindering learning when the dominant response is incorrect and helping learning when the dominant response is correct. Coaction effects were extremely pronounced in females but almost nonexistent in males.     

The influence of a salient distractor in object-substitution masking

It remains unclear whether a salient distractor directly affects performance accuracy and the perceptual resolution of a target. In order to investigate this issue, the present study employed object substitution masking (OSM) to index perceptual hypothesis testing of a target. Trailing-mask duration of the four-dot mask was varied to investigate how the representation of the masked target decayed over time. Participants responded to the presence of a vertical line on a target ring that was isolated by a four-dot mask while an irrelevant salient distractor was presented in a subset of trials. The results revealed that the salient distractor only impacted performance when the mask and target offset concurrently (Experiment 1) or at short mask durations (Experiment 2). At longer mask durations performance in the distractor present condition was identical to performance in the distractor absent condition, suggesting that involuntary capture of attention did not affect OSM. These results show that the perceptual resolution of a masked target can operate independently of involuntary attentional selection.     

Presence of administrators differentially impacts eyewitness discriminability for same- and other-race identifications

Best practice guidelines recommend that eyewitness lineup administrators be blind to a suspect's identity, but no research has investigated whether the mere presence of a lineup administrator impacts eyewitness identification decisions. Informed by social facilitation theory, we predicted that the presence of an audience would differentially impact identification accuracy for same- and other-race identifications. Participants (N = 191) viewed same- and other-race lineups either with an audience or alone. Although the presence of an audience did not directly impact identification accuracy, significant indirect effects indicated that the audience provoked evaluation apprehension which hindered other-race identification accuracy and improved same-race identification accuracy. We suggest that using double-blind lineup procedures may not sufficiently protect eyewitness identification accuracy when making other-race lineup decisions in the presence of others.     

自我监控性作为性别助长效应的干涉变量

采用双手调节器操作任务进一步验证“性别助长”假设。20个自我监控者与20个我行我素者(男女各半)分别按抵消顺序接受两种实验处理：男性观众和女性观众。结果表明,异性观众可以助长男性被试的操作速度,而削弱女性被试的操作速度;对于作业效绩也存在着同样的交互作用;自我监控性是性别助长效应的一个重要干涉变量,男自我监控者表现出明显的异性助长,女自我监控者表现出明显的异性抑制,而我行我素者没有表现出明显的观众效应。由于自我监控性对相应的异性效应有一种放大作用,可知性别助长效应的基础是以印象管理动机为主。     

Opposing pupil responses to offered and anticipated reward values

Previous studies have shown that the pupils dilate more in anticipation of larger rewards. This finding raises the possibility of a more general association between reward amount and pupil size. We tested this idea by characterizing macaque pupil responses to offered rewards during evaluation and comparison in a binary choice task. To control attention, we made use of a design in which offers occurred in sequence. By looking at pupil responses after choice but before reward, we confirmed the previously observed positive association between pupil size and anticipated reward values. Surprisingly, however, we find that pupil size is negatively correlated with the value of offered gambles before choice, during both evaluation and comparison stages of the task. These results demonstrate a functional distinction between offered and anticipated rewards and present evidence against a narrow version of the simulation hypothesis; the idea that we represent offers by reactivating states associated with anticipating them. They also suggest that pupil size is correlated with relative, not absolute, values of offers, suggestive of an accept–reject model of comparison.     

Form of evaluation and audience expertness as joint determinants of audience effects

A more stringent test was made of Martens and Landers' (1972) conclusion that direct evaluation of performance and outcomes leads to greater performance impairment than indirect evaluation of outcomes only. Expert and nonexpert audiences viewed Subjects performing a motor task with visual information and knowledge of outcomes (direct evaluation), with no visual information but knowledge of outcomes (indirect evaluation), and the absence of both visual information and knowledge of outcomes (no evaluation). Contrary to Martens and Landers, with an expert audience, both direct and indirect evaluation impaired performance equally. Results indicated that at least two factors in social facilitation research, audience characteristics and form of evaluation, can be considered interactive determinants of evaluation potential. These results directly support Cottrell's (1968) notion that the potential for evaluation characterizing a social situation is the chief source of audience and coaction effects in humans.     

When Audience Presence Is Enjoyable: The Influence of Audience Awareness of Prior Success on Performance and Task Interest

Subjects received positive feedback on a practice anagram task and then performed a similar task in front of either an audience that was aware of their prior success or an audience that was unaware of their prior success. Two control conditions were included in which subjects performed alone after receiving positive feedback or performed alone without feedback. Results indicated subjects' task interest and performance increased under conditions in which they performed in front of unaware audiences. In addition, subjects' task interest and performance levels decreased in the presence of audiences that were aware of their prior success. These results point to an important role of audience awareness in setting performance standards and expectations. These findings are interpreted from a resource-investment analysis of task value and performance. Implications for surveillance in public settings and in the workplace (e.g., automated computer monitoring) are discussed.     

A review of paradoxical performance effects: Choking under pressure in sports and mental tests

Paradoxical performance effects (‘choking under pressure’) are defined as the occurrence of inferior performance despite striving and incentives for superior performance. Experimental demonstrations of these effects on tasks analogous to athletic performance and the theories that may explain them are reviewed. At present, attentional theories seem to offer the most complete explanation of the processes underlying paradoxical performance effects. In particular, choking may result from distraction or from the interference of self-focused attention with the execution of automatic responses. Experimental findings of paradoxical performance decrements are associated with four pressure variables: audience presence, competition, performance-contingent rewards and punishments, and ego relevance of the task. The mediating factors of task complexity, expectancies, and individual differences are discussed.     

Ethicism, Interpretation, and Munich

abstract   The paper, using Spielberg's Munich as a test case, argues that the theory of ethicism – the view that a work of art's moral point of view affects the work's overall aesthetic evaluation – has serious restricted applicability owing to a number of reasons. Ethicism does not apply to works of art (1) that have no moral content; (2) that do have moral content but whose prescribed responses are non-moral; (3) whose prescribed moral responses do not ask the audience to accept or reject the moral claim but merely to contemplate or entertain it; (4) whose prescribed moral responses assert moral claims that are indeterminate; and (5) whose prescribed moral responses are embodied in equally plausible or true but incompatible interpretations.     

Motivational Similarity and Interpersonal Evaluations: The Role of Ambiguity, Self-Derogation, and Emotion

ABSTRACT The present study tests two hypotheses which are based on a motivational threat model of interpersonal evaluation: ( a ) Dominance- and dependency-oriented perceivers evaluate motivationally similar others less favorably only when evaluation pertains to an ambiguous attribute and perceivers score high on self-derogation; and ( b ) the relatively unfavorable evaluation of the similar target person is mediated by an arousal process. Males observed a working dyad in which one man was dominant and the other dependent, but both were ambiguous on sociability. Throughout the observation, subjects' emotion-related skin conductance responses were monitored. Subjects then evaluated the target person they expected to meet and recalled information. Results supported the first hypothesis, but were only partially consistent with the second hypothesis. In addition, dominance-oriented perceivers produced more assertiveness constructs than dependency-oriented perceivers in free recall. The findings suggest that the threat model should be revised to include the moderating factors of attribute ambiguity and attitude toward the self, and perhaps also an additional mediating process: generalization of attitude toward the self to motivationally similar others.