Social facilitation effects in animals

Abstract

Introduction It may be asked: why is there a chapter on non-human animals (called ‘animals’ from here on) in a book on social facilitation? There are five answers to this. First, the early literature made great use of animal experiments after about 1930, especially within comparative psychology. This was not discussed in Chapter 2 but left till now. So a full understanding of the early arguments about social facilitation requires a look at this extensive literature. Second, Zajonc (1965) included a lot of animal studies in his major review which was outlined in Chapter 3, and this triggered a lot more animal research after 1965. This was probably helped by the fact that the methodology was so clearly set out that it could be easily applied to animals. Many experiments looking for the social facilitation interaction effect were conducted. A third reason for including animals is that the theories given in Chapter 5 suggest that animals will not be affected by evaluation apprehension and social conformity. Therefore, if social facilitation effects can be shown with animals, it would mean that social conformity is not a necessary condition for mere presence effects. This would mean that the mere presence idea has some merit. The fourth reason for including animals is that the mere presence effects discussed in Chapter 4 suggest that such effects would be more important in non-human animals than in humans. Some of the fear reactions of animals have been discussed there, and these reactions seem easier to demonstrate in animals.