Social Facilitation Effect

Presented By: N.Susmitha PGP/SS/11-13/ISBE

Social Facilitation:Social facilitation is the tendency for people to

do better on simple tasks when in the presence of other people. This implies that whenever people are being watched by others, they will do well on things that they are already good at doing.

Social facilitationWhen working with someone , so effectively

against that individual you work much harder.An explanation for this was founded by Allport

(1924)- even when there is no presence of competition

When asking his participants to complete tasks within the vicinity of each other they worked better than when alone- Allport called this the Co-action effect

Audience effects:

Completing an easier task in public- perform better

Participants doing a difficult class perform worse with an audience.

Micheals (1984):Aim: Affects of audience upon a set task.Method: Field experiment.Procedure: Rate pool players on a scale of Below average-Above average.Researcher then stood by pool table and observed

them play.Results: Above average increased from 71%-80%. Below average Decreased from 36%-25%.Conclusion: Audiences improve performance on

well learned skills, but damages the performance of those who with poorly learned skills.

Audience effects in everyday life:Hawthorne effect: When researchers

observed factory workers they found that productivity increased regardless of their environment.

One explanation: They were being observed so changed their behaviour accordingly.

Social Loafing:When working in groups individuals tend to

reduce their own level of effort...this is commonly known as the Ringlemann effect.

The more people = Less effort.When Latene researched this he found that when

asked to clap individually and in groups that the larger the group the less clapping occurred individually.

Social Loafing:Sport education provide opportunities for

social loafing as you can participate in teams and hide your work rate.

Combat- Target setting in these areas allows for the assessor to identify individuals in a large groups.

De-individuation:

Loss of self awareness and sense of personal responsibility.

As a result of feeling anonymous you engage in behaviour that you would normally refrain from. This has been used as a explanation for crowd violence.

De-individuationZimbardo (1969) Female participants in groups

of four gave electric shocks to learners.In condition 1 they all wore a hood and

identical coats.In condition 2 the women were individualised-

they wore their own clothes and tags to ID them.Result: Anonymous women gave twice as many

shocks as the individual women.Conclusion: It is the uniform not the anonymity

that gives rise to de-individuation.

Factors that affect de-individuation:

Mood- People pick up on moods e.g. friction in a football match, or mournful at a funeral.

External cues to behaviour- e.g. uniforms as described in Zimbardos study.

Sources of social influence:

Sources of social influence.

Group NormsBehaviours and attitudes we expect of each other.

Scripts Schemas ensuring certain behaviours occur in certain settings.

The MediaPublic interest, opinion, stereotypes.

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The Fishing Reel Experiment: When Working In Groups Increases Performance

In 1898, Norman Triplett noticed that cyclists reported faster race times when riding with another rider than they did when riding alone. To test his theory that competition enhanced performance he devised an experiment.

Triplett asked 40 children to wind a fishing reel. The only difference was that some children were asked to reel it alone, while others were asked to reel it in direct competition against another child. 

He found that those participants reeling in competition reeled faster than those who had reeled alone.

Triplett concluded that working in teams improves performance. Whether it is the competition, the audience factor or the fear of looking lazy, when people are made to work in groups they perform better.

But the case was far from closed.

Management Implications: How to Maximize Performance in Your Team

If the task is simple or well learned, working in a team environment will improve performance. So if you have an expert performer who has not been working to their level, put them in front of a crowd. Even if they are not in direct competition with the crowd the audience factor will improve performance.

If the task is complex or unfamiliar to people, working in a team would hamper performance. So if you want people to learn a new task or come up with new ideas, get them to work alone. This will ensure that the arousal of working in a team will not hamper their learning and creativity.