Social facilitation

The effects of the presence of another individual and evaluation apprehension were independently manipulated within a 3 (alone, mere presence, observation) × 4 (none, low, medium, high evaluation) factorial design. Ten subjects (five male, five female) were randomly assigned to each of the 12 conditions. Subjects' behavioral performance on a hidden-word task and a measure of autonomic arousal were the main dependent variables. Analysis of variance results showed a significant performance difference on the hidden-word task among the four evaluation apprehension conditions as predicted. No significant effects were found for the palmar sweat conductivity measures. The results add support for the concept of evaluation apprehension as the mediating variable in producing social-facilitation effects, and suggest that arousal as an intervening variable may be multidimensional.The author wishes to thank Joseph E. McGrath, James H. Davis, and Samuel S. Komorita for their helpful comments on a previous draft of this article.     

Social facilitation

Video-recording procedures have been used in previous research as a motivational manipulation. The present study investigated the permanent recording of behavior as a manipulation of evaluation apprehension and its effects upon behavioral performance and upon autonomic arousal. Twenty-four subjects (12 males, 12 females) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions formed by completely crossing two levels of audience status (peer or authority) with two levels of behavioral record (non-permanent or permanent). Another 24 subjects were assigned to an external control group to the 2×2 design. Subjects' performance on a hidden-word task and their arousal level (as assessed by the Palmar Sweat Index) were measured. Analyses of variance results showed a significant performance (p<.05) and a significant arousal (p<.05) difference between the behavioral record conditions as predicted. The control group was also found to be significantly (p<.05) different from the experimental groups on the behavioral performance measure. The results were related to previous research findings and interpreted within the context of the evaluation apprehension notion presented within social facilitation research.The author would like to thank Angelia Mellors, Valerie K. Golish, and Judy Cohen for serving as experiments, and Susan L. Doman and Cheryl Primmer for scoring the PSI measures.     

Conflict over emotional expression: implications for interpersonal communication

The current study examined the role of conflict over emotional expression for subjective and interpersonal functioning. The Ambivalence Over the Expression of Emotion Questionnaire (AEQ) was administered to female students who were videotaped while engaging in a conflict-resolution and feedback task with their boyfriends. External ratings showed ambivalent women to be less positive in their verbal statements and to be more constricted in their nonverbal expressions. When mood and other personality constructs were controlled for, ambivalence entailed greater overt submissiveness. Ambivalent women also displayed lower congruence between their verbal and nonverbal communication, irrespective of depression and other personality variables. These data suggest that conflict over emotional expression entails less congruent communication, less positivity in close relationships, and a subordinate stance for the ambivalent individual.     

Erotic stimuli and aggression: facilitation or inhibition.

The present experiment attempted to reconcile previous results on the relationship of erotic stimuli and aggression. Subjects were either insulted or not insulted prior or subsequent to observing erotic stimuli of varying levels of arousal inducements. It was found, in support of prior research, that mildly erotic stimuli had an inhibiting effect on aggression when viewed subsequent to anger arousal, whereas highly erotic stimuli tended to maintain aggression at a level similar to nonerotic exposure. Prior viewing of erotic stimuli, however, had a facilitative effect on aggressive behavior. It was proposed that erotic stimuli have two components (arousal and attentional shift) that interact with anger arousal to either inhibit or facilitate aggressive behavior. The article considers the implications of this two-component system for future research on erotic and aggressive stimuli.     

Social "facilitation" as challenge and threat.

The authors conducted an experiment to test a theoretical explanation of social facilitation based on the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat. Participants mastered 1 of 2 tasks and subsequently performed either the mastered (i.e., well-learned) or the unlearned task either alone or with an audience while cardiovascular responses were recorded. Cardiovascular responses of participants performing a well-learned task in the presence of others fit the challenge pattern (i.e., increased cardiac response and decreased vascular resistance), whereas cardiovascular responses of participants performing an unlearned task in the presence of others fit the threat pattern (i.e., increased cardiac response and increased vascular resistance), confirming the authors' hypotheses and the applicability of the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat to explain these results.     

Social support mediating between coping by emotional expression and depression

The present purpose was to investigate the effects of social support on the relationship between coping by expressing emotions and depression in women. Japanese undergraduate students (N = 218) completed four self-report questionnaires: the dispositional and situational versions of the Emotional Coping Questionnaire which measures the mode of expression as being either to self as in a diary or to others as in telling a friend, the Social Support Scale to evaluate received support, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale. Analysis showed that expression of emotions to self in both dispositional and situational coping had significant positive correlations with depression, especially for women who scored high on depression, and expression of emotions to others in both dispositional and situational coping were significantly positively correlated with social support. However, no significant mediation effects of social support in emotional expression and depression were found. Limitations and topics for research are discussed.     

面孔表情和声音情绪信息整合对返回抑制的影响

返回抑制(inhibition of return, IOR)与情绪刺激都具有引导注意偏向、提高搜索效率的特点, 但二者间是否存在一定的交互作用迄今为止尚不明确。研究采用“线索-目标”范式并在视听双通道呈现情绪刺激来考察情绪刺激的加工与IOR的交互作用。实验1中情绪刺激以单通道视觉面孔或一致的视听双通道呈现, 实验2通过在视听通道呈现不一致的情绪刺激进一步考察视听双通道情绪一致刺激对IOR的影响是否是由听觉通道一致的情绪刺激导致的, 即是否对听觉通道的情绪刺激进行了加工。结果发现, 视听双通道情绪一致刺激能够削弱IOR, 但情绪不一致刺激与IOR之间不存在交互作用, 并且单双通道的IOR不存在显著差异。研究结果表明仅在视听双通道呈现情绪一致刺激时, 才会影响同一阶段的IOR, 这进一步支持了IOR的知觉抑制理论。     

Computer facilitation of communication within professional communities

This report is based on several projects at the University of Michigan. The software used is CONFER, a computer-augmented conferencing program. Access is provided nationally through TELENET data services. The paper describes hardware and software for information systems at the University of Michigan, the development of CONFER, and a rationale for computer-aided communication within professional communities. Six applications of this particular software and system are summarized: national committees, regional planning groups, on-campus working groups, and user consulting services. One innovative application (support of an international congress held recently in Ann Arbor) is described in detail. Computer-based conununications were used for sending messages, adjusting schedules, planning additional sessions and trips, and developing written material through computer-mediated caucuses on specific topics. Contributions of computing to professional communications are summarized, with particular attention given to projected impact on teaching and research in universities.     

Social facilitation in young toddlers

As a test of Zajonc's social facilitation hypothesis, the behavior of 18 young toddlers (16-24 mo.) was observed. Their performance on a simple task was incongruent with his hypothesis, that is, these young toddlers may not evaluate their outcomes in relation to a social standard.     

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.     

Emotions and emotional communication in infants

Important advances have recently been made in studying emotions in infants and the nature of emotional communication between infants and adults. Infant emotions and emotional communications are far more organized than previously thought. Infants display a variety of discrete affective expressions that are appropriate to the nature of events and their context. They also appreciate the emotional meaning of the affective displays of caretakers. The emotional expressions of the infant and the caretaker function to allow them to mutually regulate their interactions. Indeed, it appears that a major determinant of children's development is related to the operation of this communication system. Positive development may be associated with the experience of coordinated interactions characterized by frequent reparations of interactive errors and the transformation of negative affect into positive affect, whereas negative development appears to be associated with sustained periods of interactive failure and negative affect.     

Affective facilitation and inhibition of cultural influences on reasoning

Research in South Korea and the United States examined how affective states facilitate or inhibit culturally dominant styles of reasoning. According to the affect-as-information hypothesis, affective cues of mood influence judgements by serving as embodied information about the value of accessible inclinations and cognitions. Extending this line of research to culture, we hypothesised that positive affect should promote (and negative affect should inhibit) culturally normative reasoning. The results of two studies of causal reasoning supported this hypothesis. Positive and negative affect functioned like "go" and "stop" signals, respectively, for culturally typical reasoning styles. Thus, in happy (compared to sad) moods, Koreans engaged in more holistic reasoning, whereas Americans engaged in more analytic reasoning.     

Affective facilitation and inhibition of cultural influences on reasoning

Research in South Korea and the United States examined how affective states facilitate or inhibit culturally dominant styles of reasoning. According to the affect-as-information hypothesis, affective cues of mood influence judgements by serving as embodied information about the value of accessible inclinations and cognitions. Extending this line of research to culture, we hypothesised that positive affect should promote (and negative affect should inhibit) culturally normative reasoning. The results of two studies of causal reasoning supported this hypothesis. Positive and negative affect functioned like “go” and “stop” signals, respectively, for culturally typical reasoning styles. Thus, in happy (compared to sad) moods, Koreans engaged in more holistic reasoning, whereas Americans engaged in more analytic reasoning.     

Some cognitive and neuropsychological aspects of social inhibition and facilitation

Tasks that, in the working memory and neuropsychological literature, have been related to executive and frontal processing, and nonexecutive and more posterior brain processing, bear distinct similarities with the kinds of tasks that, in the social psychological literature, have been associated with social inhibition and facilitation, respectively. Accordingly, a cognitive-neuropsychological model of social inhibition and facilitation is proposed whereby the presence of others engages the executive and frontal systems, and facilitates the function of systems active in more automatic, nonexecutive processing. In two experiments, the tasks most associated with executive and frontal processing (phonemic switches and answers to complex questions) showed evidence of social inhibition, whereas those more associated with nonexecutive and more posterior temporal processing (phonemic clusters and confidence–accuracy correlations), showed some evidence of social facilitation. Implications are discussed.     

Lexical inhibition and sublexical facilitation are surprisingly long lasting

When a listener hears a word (beef), current theories of spoken word recognition posit the activation of both lexical (beef) and sublexical (/b/, /i/, /f/) representations. No lexical representation can be settled on for an unfamiliar utterance (peef). The authors examined the perception of nonwords (peef) as a function of words or nonwords heard 10-20 min earlier. In lexical decision, nonword recognition responses were delayed if a similar word had been heard earlier. In contrast, nonword processing was facilitated by the earlier presentation of a similar nonword (baff-paff). This pattern was observed for both word-initial (beef-peef), and word-final (job-jop) deviation. With the word-in-noise task, real word primes (beef) increased real word intrusions for the target nonword (peef), but only consonant-vowel (CV) or vowel-consonant (VC) intrusions were increased with similar pseudoword primes (baff-paff). The results across tasks and experiments support both a lexical neighborhood view of activation and sublexical representations based on chunks larger than individual phonemes (CV or VC sequences).