6 - The Presence of Others Flashcards
Social Facilitation Theory (Zajonc, 1965)
- the presence of others causes a general drive state (physiological arousal)
- this drive state promotes us to carry out a certain behaviour, with two possible outcomes:
> if the behaviour is well-learned, we perform it better (social facilitation)
> if the behaviour is not well-learned we perform worse (social inhibition)
Cottrell et al. revision to Social Facilitation theory, including observers
- finding that the mere presence is not sufficient, the social facilitation is stimulated by the presence of people that are actively watching
Hypotheses for social facilitation theory
Evaluation Apprehension
- performing well can lead to praise
- poor performance can lead to negative outcomes
> i.e. self-presentation (people desire to present themselves in a positive light)
- presentation and evaluation depends on being observed
General State of Arousal
- evaluation apprehension can represent a challenge or a threat
> Challenge: the person has the resources to complete the task
> Threat: the person does not have the resources to complete the task
- Arousal state will depend on the perceived threat or challenge
- there are measurably different states of arousal depending on the perception of the task
> challenge greatly increases heart rate and cardiac output
> threat increases HR but not as much
Revision of social facilitation theory including observers and perceived task arousal
Social Facilitation Theory
- the presence of an active observer causes evaluation of one’s ability to carry out the task
- if perceived ability is insufficient, Threat Arousal is induced and performance is impaired via Social Inhibition
- if perceived ability is sufficient, Challenge Arousal is induced (more extreme physiological arousal) and performance is enhanced via Social Facilitation
Other explanations for social facilitation effects
Evaluation-Apprehension theory
- the effects are due to evaluation-apprehension, not the presence of others
> responses can be facilitated by imagined observers
Distraction-conflict theory
- facilitation effects occur due to being distracted from the task, so attention is split
- distraction has less effect on dominant (learned) responses but impairs non-dominant responses
Triplett’s (1898) study showed
- social facilitation
- social inhibition
Zajonc & Sales’s (1966) study showed
- social facilitation of dominant responses
NOT social inhibition - this was other studies
Social Loafing
A reduction in Individual Effort due to the presence of others (motivation loss)
Ringlemann Effect
- when people are working in groups, they exert less effort than they would when along
> increasingly less effort with more people
Ringlemann Effect:
= Total Capacity - (coordination loss + motivation loss)
- coordination loss: poor coordination of efforts in groups
Explanations for Ringlemann effect in noise study:
Potential coordination losses:
- sound cancellation
- directional coordination loss (due to microphone placement)
Testing this (Latané et al. 1979):
- cheering study replicated, controlling for coordination loss:
> blindfolds and headphones
- Actual Groups:
> shout alongside others
+ coordination and motivation loss expected - Pseudo-groups:
> others do not shout but participants
+ any differences are due to motivation loss
Results:
- motivation and coordination loss causes greatest reduction in effort
- motivation loss only still causes reduction in effort
Therefore, social loafing is due to Motivation Loss
Explanations of Social Loafing
Identifiability
- the larger the group, the less identifiable the individuals
- when the cheering study is replicated with individual identifiability, we see no loafing effect
explanations for identifiability:
- evaluation apprehension
> performing well leads to praise, vice versa
- effort matching
> people match their effort to their expectations of others’ effort - dispensability of impact
> belief that individual input is less impactful
Collective Effort Model (of social loafing)
Karau & Williams, 1993
3 variables determine whether social loafing will occur:
- Expectancy
> Individual’s expectation of their impact
- Instrumentality
> will a high-quality performance help achieve a given outcome?
- Valence of Outcome
> how desirable is the potential outcome?
Therefore:
- social loafing is most likely to occur if and individual:
> believes they will have little impact
> believes that their effort will not help achieve the outcome
> do not desire to achieve that outcome
Groupthink Model (Janis, 1972)
- some groups care more about the cohesiveness of the group, rather than the outcome of the group’s activity
3 variables can lead to groupthink:
- Group Cohesiveness
- Organisational structural faults of the group
> how the individuals fit with eachother
- Situational factors
> high stress or low self esteem increases groupthink
(these can lead to groupthink)
Symptoms of groupthink:
- overestimating the ability of the group
- closed-mindedness
- pressure towards uniformity (failure to accept other ideas) (use if mind-guards to protect the group)
Groupthink leads to defective decision making:
- failure to take into account alternative information
- lack of a contingency plan
Which leads to a poor outcome
Criticisms of Groupthink model
- limited evidence base for the model
- most evidence for the model is from retrospective case-studies (has not been used for prediction)
> few experimental tests with mixed finding
Crowd Behaviour (deindividuation)
- Halloween candy study
> kids took more candy when in a group, and more still if the whole group was anonymous
