Social facilitation Flashcards
What are the basic premises of social facilitation?
When people are present during performance, arousal increases.
This arousal increase affects performance either positively (social facilitation) or negatively (social inhibition).
People’s presence can be categorised as either ‘mere presence’ (audience) or ‘co-active’ (competitors, supporters etc)
What does the ‘dominant response’ refer to and why is it important?
The dominant response is the ‘usual’ response of the performer in a given situation (correct/incorrect). eg. A beginner’s dominant response is often incorrect whereas an expert normally produces a response that is correct.
It is important because the dominant response becomes more frequent under pressure. A beginner whose arousal is increase tends to fail even more but an expert who is autonomous in the skill will produce an even better response under high arousal situations.
When social facilitation occurs (a performers arousal increases and the skill is helped) how might their performance change?
As arousal increases motivation improves, better focus, more concentration, higher effort levels, appropriate level of challenge. The perfomer would be ‘optimally aroused’ (see inverted U theory in AS PE Skill.)
When social inhibition occurs (a performers arousal increases and the skill is helped) how might their performance change?
As arousal increases the performer becomes nervous, makes mistakes, performance deteriorates, they might become afraid of making mistakes and ‘freeze’. There would be cognitive signs of stress (worry, concern, avoidance) and somatic signs (sweaty, shaking, heart rate increase etc)
What is evaluation apprehension and what are it’s effects?
Evaluation apprehension (by Cottrell) refers to the fear of being evaluated and the responses/reactions/feelings that a judgement on performance generates.
Causes are the perceived judgements on performance, especially by significant others (family members, judges, coaches, selectors)
The effects include increased arousal, panic and concern over performance levels, deterioration of performance, anxiety, stress.
As a coach how might you go about combatting the effects of social inhibition?
Restrict judgements on performance especially with beginners.
Provide differentiated tasks that performers feel confident in and can complete.
Try to find appropriate challenge that raises arousal levels but not beyond the optimum.
Give opportunity for time out to recover from stress/high arousal.
Develop skill levels so that the dominant response becomes correct.
Educate performers about perceived judgement and that it is a good/informative/supportive thing and that they shouldn’t be afraid of it.
Build confidence through performance accomplishment.
Look to develop resilience by accepting failure in none pressurised situations so performers do not fear the failure or negative judgement.
