In various areas of society, at the level of an individual, company or state, there is a need for effective tools of assistance and influence.
Social facilitation is just one of them. This tool allows you to cope with a variety of tasks and achieve your goals. Among them is the way out of the crisis, as well as the direction of one person or group of people towards changes of a completely different quality.
Definition of the concept
Social facilitation is a phenomenon expressed in the effect of enhancing the active activity of the individual, which manifests itself in the presence of other people. In other words, a person performs even the simplest tasks (for example, crossing out certain letters in a text, easy addition examples, etc.) much better if he understands that he is being watched.
Social facilitation is a change in an individual's behavior that is induced by the presence of an audience. This phenomenon manifests itself in increased emotional arousal of the performer.
It has also been established that the speed and quality of performing more complex work in the presence of strangers undoubtedly decreases. This explains the opposite phenomenon to what social facilitation is. It is called social inhibition.
Reasons for the audience effect
Social environment - what is it in psychology
The audience effect is a familiar phenomenon characterized by the way one person's behavior changes in the presence of a stranger. It is believed that cases of positive or negative influence of a stranger on a certain individual arise due to general excitement.
Note! Increased arousal is a positive effect when an individual performs simple tasks, he is confident in himself and his work.
People feel the audience effect differently
Much more often people encounter negative influences when an individual is afraid of making a mistake, not being confident in solving a problem.
Facilitation is contrasted with moderation; these are two different concepts. Facilitation is more flexible in relation to conducting conversations with people. Therefore, it is often ordered for employees by company managers in order to unite them and explain the importance of teamwork for the growth of the organization’s success.
History of discovery
In 1989, psychologist Norman Triplett noted that cyclists are able to achieve better results when they compete with each other. All athletes' performance is significantly reduced if they simply turn on the stopwatch during training. The psychologist conducted a number of studies in order to confirm his guesses.
Subsequently, Triplett's experiments became one of the first in social psychology. They consisted of asking children to wind fishing line onto a spinning reel. It was confirmed that the kids worked much more energetically when other people were present nearby. Reeling in the line alone was a more challenging task for them.
Scientists have observed a similar effect, which psychologist Floyd Opport called social facilitation, in animals. For example, chickens eat grains faster, and ants dig holes in the ground if other individuals are nearby.
Thus, social facilitation in psychology is the influence of social assessment on performance. This phenomenon has caused unprecedented interest in scientific circles. This led to the fact that the research begun by Norman Triplett was further continued. Somewhat later, the fact was established that if, when performing a certain task, there are passive observers near the performer, then the effectiveness of his actions is significantly reduced.
This was the moment when scientists were unable to compare the two phenomena, which led the general theory to a dead end.
The social facilitation research program was resumed only in 1965 by Robert Zejonc. He researched social facilitation much more deeply. The activation theory, formulated by him, explained two seemingly opposite phenomena. Robert Zeyonc suggested that the phenomenon of social facilitation is possible only in cases of performing the simplest, most familiar and learned mechanical actions by a person. The opposite effect, which is called inhibition, occurs in more complex intellectual situations.
This statement was based on the established fact that the emerging excitation is an activator of the dominant reaction. In this case, arousal refers to the presence of other people who are nearby in the process of performing a particular task. That is why, in cases of simple work, the most likely, dominant reaction is an incentive to carry out the necessary actions as quickly as possible. At the same time, there is often only one correct way to solve a given problem. In cases where the correct answer is not so obvious, the excitement caused by the presence of other people provokes incorrect reactions.
Somewhat later, there were other assumptions explaining the phenomenon of social facilitation and inhibition. This was, for example, the distraction-conflict model proposed by Robert Barron. According to her theory, the presence of strangers causes internal conflict in any person. It lies in the fact that the individual cannot determine whether to pay attention to the audience or complete the task assigned to him. Such a conflict, arising in connection with increased arousal, either helps to complete the task, or, conversely, interferes with it.
Story
At the end of the 19th century, psychologist Norman Triplett noticed that cyclists performed better in competitions than in single races. Triplett conducted a series of experiments that confirmed this pattern. Later experiments were carried out on animals, ants worked faster in the presence of other individuals, chickens ate grain faster.
Later, scientists discovered the opposite effect: the presence of individuals of their own species slowed down the performance of some tasks. Because of this, research stopped for a short time, and was continued only in the second half of the twentieth century by scientist Robert Zajonc. It was he who formulated what the effect of facilitation and the opposite effect of inhibition are.
The fact is that when performing tasks that a person performs without thinking, the presence of strangers stimulates the acceleration of the work - this is the facilitation effect. But when performing more complex, unfamiliar and intellectual tasks, the presence of observers, on the contrary, slows down the speed of work; this phenomenon was called the inhibition effect. Robert Zajonc gave a general name to these phenomena - the audience effect, also called the Zajonc effect.
Fear of evaluation
Social psychology explains social facilitation and inhibition as phenomena caused by three reasons. The first of these is fear of evaluation. Psychologists explain this effect by saying that a person’s dominant reactions are much stronger when he thinks or knows for sure that those present are evaluating him. This is why the following happens:
- the performer tries to work faster and better if other performers or colleagues have slightly greater skill or competence;
- the level of excitement drops when in the group of authoritative people there appear those whose opinions the performer is indifferent to;
- those around them have the greatest influence on those who worry about the expressed opinions of observers and the assessments they give;
- the phenomenon of social facilitation or inhibition finds its most striking manifestation in cases where the people present are unfamiliar to the performer, and he does not have time to follow them.
According to psychologists, observers instill anxiety in a person because he cares how all his actions will be assessed. At the same time, the performer experiences embarrassment, which prevents him from coping with the task proposed to him. Thus, basketball players who think about how they look from the outside and begin to analyze all their movements will definitely miss during the decisive shot.
Social facilitation and inhibition
Two opposite social phenomena, facilitation and inhibition, can be observed simultaneously in a group of people who find themselves in the same situation and in seemingly identical conditions. Inhibition involves a deterioration in the activity of a person who comes under the supervision of outsiders, in contrast to facilitation, when the presence of observers causes a surge in activity among group members engaged in some activity. Why this or that effect occurs, D. Myers (American psychologist) identified several reasons:
- Mood
– a bad one causes an effect, a good one enhances facilitation. - Fear of evaluation
- the presence of unfamiliar people, or those whose opinions are not indifferent, can increase excitement and activity in some participants, but also provoke inhibition of productivity in others. - Representatives of the opposite sex in the audience
- women and men - may begin to make mistakes on difficult tasks if there are observers of the opposite sex in the audience. With the phenomenon of facilitation, activity processes, on the contrary, improve.
Distraction
The phenomenon of social facilitation is that sometimes the performer begins to think about how his colleagues are doing their work or how the audience will react to the result. In this case, the person’s attention is scattered, and excitement begins to grow. In this case, a conflict arises that moves the performer’s thoughts between the inability to escape the attention of others and the need to focus on solving the task at hand.
An example of this type of social facilitation is the distraction of a person's attention not only due to the presence of other people, but also due to periodically appearing flashes of light.
Publicity effect
A person who lives in society always strives to make a good, positive impression on others. We sometimes cannot make decisions on our own in the sense that we constantly look back at the opinion of the majority. The effect of social facilitation forces one to follow social guidelines and focus on its requests. So it turns out that a person begins to live by the demands of society, forgetting about his own needs. This is how internal dissatisfaction, a feeling of loss and personal unfulfillment are born.
The effect of publicity is expressed in the fact that, being in society, a person begins to act in accordance with the expectations placed on him. She doesn’t do anything extra, but behaves quite adequately for each specific situation.
The fact that there is an observer
Social facilitation in psychology is a phenomenon that causes not only the fear of external evaluation or scattered attention. A similar effect may be caused by the presence of observers. For example, during an experiment conducted by psychologists, subjects were asked to name their favorite colors. At the same time, observers were nearby. On the one hand, such tasks have neither right nor wrong answers that could be assessed by outsiders. However, their presence clearly “electrified” the subjects. From this, scientists concluded that people's reaction to the presence of an audience of observers occurs unconsciously. However, there are certain factors that have a direct impact on the degree of reaction.
Among them are the following:
- The number of people around. The more observers there are, the more influence they have on an individual's actions. A person becomes much more excited when there is a mass audience.
- The presence of sympathy and antipathy within the group itself. When people interact well with each other, the effectiveness of completing a task increases significantly.
- Degree of spatial proximity. Social arousal, as well as the degree of social facilitation (inhibition), is directly dependent on how close people are to each other.
Effects of social facilitation and social inhibition
The effect of social facilitation is the strengthening of dominant responses in the presence of other people. The discovery of this effect can be traced back to Norman Triplett in 1897. He also owns the term that he used to define the phenomenon he discovered - “social facilitation.” Triplett's experiment was to study the influence of a competitive situation on the change in the speed of a cyclist compared to the results of one race. The subjects were 40 children. Triplett found that cyclists performed better when they raced against each other rather than against a stopwatch, and concluded that the presence of other people spurred them to greater energy.
Further experiments by V. Moede, Fl. Allport (1920), V. M. Bekhterev (1923) showed that in the presence of other people, the speed of completing simple mathematical tasks, crossing out given letters in the text, performing simple motor skills tasks, etc. increases. In the 20s, the effect of social facilitation was interpreted by scientists as a change in the motivation to solve a problem in a group member in the presence of people significant to him. For example, based on his research, N. Cutrell came to the conclusion that unfamiliar, random people do not affect a person’s success. Other people have the greatest influence when they are perceived by a person as significant others. Moreover, the presence of significant others influenced individual performance not directly, but indirectly through changes in motivation.
The effect of the presence of other people can influence a person's motivation both positively and negatively. On a positive level this is the “social facilitation effect”, on a negative level it is the “social inhibition effect”, which is a decrease in the motivation of a group member to solve a problem in the presence of others. Thus, the presence of other people reduces a person’s performance when memorizing nonsense syllables, completing a maze, and solving complex multiplication problems.
The understanding of the term "social facilitation" changed in the mid-1960s. Scientists began to view it as a broader social and psychological phenomenon. For example, R. Zaens studied how the presence of other people causes neuropsychological (social) arousal and enhances dominant reactions. The principle of experimental psychology that arousal always enhances the dominant response can be applied to social psychology. Increased social arousal promotes a dominant response, whether it is correct or incorrect. When solving complex problems where the solution algorithm is unknown and the correct answer does not follow by itself, social arousal, that is, an unconscious reaction to the presence of other people, interferes with mental operations (analysis, synthesis and establishment of cause-and-effect relationships) and leads to an incorrect solution. A person’s attention switches from solving problems to the people around him. When solving simple problems, the response is innate or well learned. The presence of other people turns out to be a powerful stimulant and contributes to the right decision.
Gender of observers
A particularly striking effect of social facilitation occurs in cases where the audience of outside observers is represented by people of the opposite sex. For example, a man will certainly make a large number of mistakes if women are present nearby. In the same way, he will very quickly complete the easiest task in front of the ladies. For example, during the experiment, athletes ran at high speed past the podium from which a woman was watching them. Their speed was significantly lower if the lady was sitting with her back to them.
Skill level
The phenomenon of social facilitation and inhibition can manifest itself in different ways. Everything will depend on who is performing the task - a “novice” or a “professional”. How does social facilitation work? Examples from life in this case are found literally at every step. Thus, a person who is just learning a new job and training on his own will feel much calmer if there are no outside observers nearby. And here many can remember how they learned to drive a car. This task is very difficult and complex. And at first, a beginner often has to stop literally in the middle of the road to think about the current situation. However, everything changes with experience. When all movements are brought to automaticity, even the presence of passengers in the cabin cannot cause emotional stress and lead to mistakes.
That is why, in order to do their job one hundred percent, each person must first practice his actions and movements, bringing them to automatism. Only after this will he not depend on the influence of the audience. Experienced professionals, being dexterous and trained, in the presence of outside observers only improve the effectiveness of their actions. After all, they feel quite confident in activities that are familiar to them, striving to demonstrate the skills they have acquired.
Social laziness
How much individual contribution does each member of the work group make? When people share a common goal, a psychological phenomenon that is distinct from social facilitation occurs.
Almost a century ago, an engineer from France M. Ringelmann calculated that the collective performance demonstrated by a group of people does not reach half of that which all its members individually possess. An example of this was an experiment in which a rope was pulled. The subjects did not know whether they were making efforts together or alone, as they were blindfolded. But if they were told that the team was pulling the rope, their effort decreased by 18%. At the same time, they believed that they were working to the best of their ability. This is the phenomenon of social loafing, the main reason for which lies in the fact that group work reduces the fear of evaluation. People who are not responsible for the final result are unable to appreciate personal contribution. Their responsibility for solving the task is divided equally among group members.
Agriculture can be cited as an example of social laziness. After all, personal gardens, which occupy only one percent of the land in the country, produce almost 27% of the harvest.
Facilitation and business
Current economic changes often pose numerous questions for both individuals and companies. What to do? What's happening? How to develop during a crisis? How to prepare yourself for future growth? Of course, there are no ready answers to these questions. People search for them during joint discussions during brainstorming sessions, strategic sessions and working meetings.
However, time at such meetings is often wasted by participants. Each of them is so involved in the conversation that disagreements increase and the effectiveness of group work sharply decreases. And here social facilitation comes to the rescue, which, having entered the business sphere, took a professional form. Translated from English facilitate - “help, facilitate.” That is why facilitation in business is understood as providing assistance that allows the group to solve the task assigned to it. This process helps to increase work efficiency, unlock the potential of participants, and increase their interest.
When using technology to facilitate meetings, sessions and brainstorming sessions, performers are directed towards more intense mental work.
Facilitation in business is both a process and a series of skills that allow you to effectively organize a conversation to discuss a controversial situation and a complex problem, completing all the items on the agenda of a meeting or meeting without wasting time. And all this becomes possible only with preliminary preparation, planning and a constructive approach.
