Social Facilitation

Definition

Social facilitation refers to the general phenomenon that physical and cognitive performance is improved when other people are present (and possibly watching the performer). Psychologists use the term social facilitation/inhibition to indicate that performance is sometimes facilitated while being observed, and other times inhibited in the presence of others. The critical factor for determining whether performance is facilitated or inhibited is whether the task that the individual is performing is well learned (simple) or novel (difficult). Research has shown that well-learned tasks are facilitated under observation, whereas novel tasks are inhibited under observation.

History and Background

One of the first documented studies in social psychology appeared in Norman Triplett's 1898 article “The Dynamogenic Factors in Pacemaking and Competition,” which described observational data from competitive cyclists and an experimental study on the speed at which children could spin a fishing reel. Triplett demonstrated that competitive cyclists paired with other cyclists yielded faster racing times than did cyclists racing against the clock. In the experimental section of the article, children were instructed to spin a fishing reel as quickly as possible to move a figure along a racecourse, either with other children (coaction) or alone. Children in the coaction setting were more likely to spin the reel faster than were those performing the task alone. These findings led to the conclusion that the presence of others, particularly coacting others, improved performance.

By the mid-20th century, social facilitation research had waned. A cursory examination of the literature revealed inconsistent findings regarding how the presence of others affected performance. Though it appeared that performance improved when in the presence of others, not all the data supported this conclusion. Even in Triplett's research, only 50% of the children performed faster when coacting, and among the remaining children 25% performed the same and 25% performed worse when paired with others.

In the mid-1960s, Robert Zajonc published an influential article on social facilitation that brought order to these inconsistent findings. Zajonc argued that the presence of others could bring about facilitated or impaired performance depending on the type of task being performed. When the task at hand was well learned, observers or coactors could facilitate performance, but when the task was novel, the presence of others could inhibit performance. Zajonc argued that the underlying reason for these differences was an arousal or drive component. According to the drive theory, the presence of others evoked an undifferentiated arousal or drive that increased the likelihood of a dominant response. (The dominant response is whatever response is most likely in that exact situation.) In well-learned or easy tasks, the dominant response would be the correct answer. In novel or complex tasks, however, the dominant response is likely to be the incorrect answer. Zajonc's distinction explained the inconsistencies in social facilitation studies and why tasks that involved well-established and fluid responses were improved by the presence of an audience or coactors, but tasks that required problem-solving skills were impaired.

Zajonc demonstrated support for this theory in one of the classic social psychology studies. Instead of studying task performances of college sophomores, Zajonc enlisted 72 female cockroaches (Blattis orientalis, to be exact) to run an easy or a difficult maze. In addition to the difficulty of the maze, Zajonc manipulated whether the cockroach ran the maze with an audience of other cockroaches (the cockroaches were in clear boxes adjacent to the maze) or without a cockroach audience. The final critical factor was whether cockroaches ran the maze alone or paired with another cockroach. Zajonc found that the presence of conspecifics (i.e., members of the same species) as either coactors or as observers (the audience) increased running time in the easy maze, but decreased running time in the difficult maze relative to running times in the alone condition. These findings were interpreted as support for the drive hypothesis of social facilitation, specifically that the presence of conspecifics increased general arousal states and that arousal facilitated dominant responses and impaired nondominant responses.

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