Social Facilitation Effects Research Articles

Meal duration mediates the effect of “social facilitation” on eating in humans

This experiment examined the ‘time extension’ explanation for the social facilitation effect, which is that people eat more as the number of co-eaters increases. Seventy male and 62 female participants ate a lunch consisting of pizza, cookies, and bottled water, alone or in (same-gender) groups of two or four and were given either 12 or 36 min in which to do so. The independent variables were gender, group size, and meal duration. The main dependent variable was amount consumed in the meal. The results showed that male participants ate more than did females, and participants eating the longer meal ate more than did those eating the shorter meal. However, the effect of group size was not significant. It was also the case that the amounts consumed by participants eating in two-person groups resembled one another to a greater extent than did of pairs of participants who ate alone or by participants in four-person groups. It was concluded that the results of the present paper provide strong support for the idea that the effect of group size on intake seen in previous studies is mediated by meal duration.

Effect of a Third Party Observer on Neuropsychological Test Performance Following Closed Head Injury

Abstract The effect of a third party observer on neuropsychological test performance was examined within the framework of social facilitation. Social facilitation refers to the influence of an observer's presence on human behavior. Previous studies of social facilitation have demonstrated that an observer improves performance on easy or well-learned tasks and diminishes performance on complex or novel tasks. To examine social facilitation effects on neuropsychological testing, the Trail Making Test, Verbal Paired Associates subtest from the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R), Finger Tapping Test, Grip Strength, and the Grooved Pegboard were administered to 60 individuals with a self-reported history of mild to severe closed head injury. Half of the participants received a standard test administration, and the other half were tested in the presence of a third party observer. A statistically significant difference between groups was found on the Verbal Paired Associates delayed recall from the WMS-R with...

Too close for comfort? The effects of social facilitation on feeding behaviour in the horse (Equus caballus)

Social facilitation has been observed in the stabled horse with access to forage (Sweeting et al. 1985). Socially facilitated feeding behaviour has not been investigated through the provision of concentrates. It is likely that the motivation to ingest a concentrate feed is different to that of forage. In a variety of species social facilitation will only occur when presented with a novel food. Therefore it has been proposed that a function of social facilitation is to increase the acceptance of novel feeds. The first objective of this study therefore, was to investigate if social facilitation occurs with the horse’s standard concentrate feed and or a standard concentrate feed plus a novel flavour.Visual contact has been found to be a necessary component in the facilitation of forage ingestion. Increasing visual contact between stables improves awareness of conspecifics, which has been linked to a decrease in abnormal behaviour. There has, however, been limited investigation into the relationship between neighbouring stabled horses especially during potentially stressful periods such as meal times. The second objective of this study was to investigate the effects on behaviour of the presence or absence of a familiar horse during meal times.

Types of task, types of audience, types of actor: interactions between mere presence and personality type in a simple mathematical task

Research into social facilitation effects reveals three factors affecting response performance: types of task, types of audience and type of actor. This study attempts to establish a minimal baseline for task and audience type in order to examine difference between personality types in the actors. Results indicate that performance in both extraverts and introverts increases in the minimal conditions of the mere presence of another person whilst carrying out a simple mathematical task. These results are interpreted through an analysis of Zajonc's (1965) drive theory with Eysenck's (1967) personality theory indicating that through further investigation performance curves might be devised for introverts and extraverts performing under a variety of task and audience conditions.

Online auctions, messaging, communication and social facilitation: a simulation and experimental evidence

This is a study of social facilitation effects in online auctions. We focus on the growth in online auctions, and the emergence of instant messaging and communication availability technologies. These two trends merge to provide a collaborative online social framework in which computer mediated communication may affect the behaviour of participants in online auctions. The interaction between buyers and sellers in traditional, face-to-face markets creates phenomena such as social facilitation, where the presence of others impacts behaviour and performance. In this study we attempt to replicate and measure social facilitation effects under the conditions of virtual presence. Does social facilitation apply to online auctions, and if so, how can it influence the design of online settings? We developed and used a simulated, Java-based Internet Dutch auction. Our findings indicate that social facilitation does indeed occur. In an experimental examination, participants improve their results and stay longer in the auction under conditions of higher virtual presence. Participants also indicate a preference for auction arrangements with higher degrees of virtual presence. Theoretically, this study contributes to the study of social facilitation, adding evidence of the effect when the presence is virtual.

Effects of social facilitation for locating feeding sites by cattle in an eight-arm radial maze

A study was conducted in an eight-arm radial maze to determine if cattle with various foraging experiences could facilitate location of feeding sites by other cattle. Heifers assigned as “followers” ( n=24) were initially trained to expect straw at the end of each arm. Initial training of heifers assigned as “leaders” ( n=12) differed based on the three following treatments:(1) no-experience, (2) barley in the same two arms, and (3) barley in two arms but locations changed daily. During training, leaders with barley in fixed locations foraged more efficiently by traveling to fewer ( P<0.05) arm ends to find barley than leaders in the variable treatment. After training, two followers were placed in the maze with a leader, and barley was available in two arms. Leaders facilitated the location of barley by followers. In 61% of the occasions that followers first found barley, leaders were at the feeding site. Eighty-one percent of followers later located barley without leaders in the maze. Followers with experienced leaders did not find barley consistently more often than heifers with inexperienced leaders. Cattle can apparently learn feeding site locations from other animals, but additional research is needed to evaluate the behavioral mechanisms that influence social facilitation during foraging.

Performance and Learning Goal Orientations as Moderators of Social Loafing and Social Facilitation

The social loafing and social facilitation phenomena were examined in contexts that encourage the adoption of either performance or learning goals. Social loafing and social facilitation were operationalized using a manipulation of evaluation potential by others (copartici-pants and experimenter) present in the experimental situation. Performance goal instructions were controlling and emphasized the test like nature of the task, whereas learning goal instructions were autonomy-supportive and emphasized its learning aspects. As expected, increases in evaluation potential resulted in increases in performance, lending support to a hypothesized continuum of evaluation potential underlying social loafing and social facilitation. The social facilitation effect was more pronounced in the performance goal compared to the learning goal context. In contrast, the social loafing effect was not moderated by context. Implications for group situations are discussed.

LIVE SUPERVISION IN FAMILY THERAPY AND SOCIAL FACILITATION EFFECTS: A CASE STUDY WITH PHYSIOLOGICAL MEASURES

In this case study a family therapy trainee is treating a family during a live supervision session while wearing a blood-pressure monitor. The data are used to illustrate the paradox inherent in live supervision from a social facilitation theory standpoint: While the peer group is considered essential to the process of supervision by some models, the presence of observers and coactors is hypothesized to give rise to negative social facilitation effects which may inhibit the acquisition of complex skills and prolong the training phase of the professionalization process.

Social facilitation acts more on the appetitive than the consummatory phase of feeding behaviour in domestic fowl

Abstract. This experiment was designed to quantify the motivation to show socially facilitated behaviour, by equating the increase in feeding behaviour shown by a subject chicken, Gallus gallus domesticus, in response to the sight and sound of another bird feeding, with the feeding behaviour shown by the same subject chicken following food deprivation periods of either 15, 30, 60 or 120 min. Feeding behaviour was recorded both as the amount of food consumed and the number of food pecks in a 30-min trial period. As expected, the amount of food consumed and the number of food pecks following food deprivation increased linearly with length of deprivation and the birds ate more during the social facilitation test than during the control when no stimulus bird was present. When this increase in the amount of food consumed during social facilitation was plotted on a regression line of the amount of food consumed it was found to be equivalent to 27 min of food deprivation. When the number of food pecks due to social facilitation was plotted on the regression line of the number of food pecks it was found to be equivalent to 92 min of food deprivation. A reason for the difference between the two estimates of the motivation to feed in the social facilitation test may be derived from the nature of the relationship between the two variables; food consumed and number of food pecks. A bird cannot eat without pecking at the food, but it can peck at the food without eating it. It is proposed that a satiated bird directs its attention to the food in response to the social facilitation effect of the stimulus bird feeding but eats relatively little. Thus social facilitation seems to act more on the appetitive phase of feeding behaviour than on the consummatory phase.

Gender and Social Facilitation Effects on Computer Competence and Attitudes toward Computers

Subjects (36 male, 36 female), aged from fifteen to fifty-two years, performed a computer-based tracking task under one of six audience conditions in an experiment designed to investigate the effects of gender and social facilitation on performance. In addition to the computer task, each subject completed a fifteen-item questionnaire designed to identify levels of computer usage, computer-related anxiety, confidence and competence when using computers, and attitudes toward computers and computer users. Males performed significantly better than females, and a significant social facilitation effect was found. A significant Gender × Audience interaction was found, with females performing very much better in the presence of a female audience than alone or with a male audience. The implications for educational policy and practice are briefly discussed.

Electronic performance monitoring and social context: impact on productivity and stress.

In a laboratory study, the presence of individual- or work-group-level electronic performance monitoring (EPM) was manipulated as participants worked on a data-entry task alone, as a member of a noninteracting aggregate, or as a member of a cohesive group. The pattern of results suggested the operation of a social facilitation effect, as highly skilled monitored participants keyed more entries than highly skilled nonmonitored participants. The opposite pattern was detected among low-skilled participants. No signs of social loafing were detected among group-monitored participants. Nonmonitored workers and members of cohesive groups felt the least stressed. The implications of these findings for organizations adopting EPM systems are discussed.

Low reproductive output of isolated, self-fertilizing snails: inbreeding depression or absence of social facilitation?

Inbreeding depression has been studied extensively in many animals, but the potential of `social facilitation' (a response to the presence of conspecifics in the environment) to influence reproduction has received little attention. Studies of reproductive output in freshwater hermaphrodite snails have implicated inbreeding depression, but never social facilitation, in the reduced reproductive output of isolated compared with paired/grouped snails. In this experiment, isolated, self-fertilizing Biomphalaria glabrata snails had reduced reproductive output compared with paired, predominantly cross-fertilizing snails. However, the reproductive output of control snails (paired, but prevented from cross-fertilizing) was similar to that of paired, cross-fertilizing snails, suggesting that the low reproductive output of snails in isolation was not simply due to inbreeding depression with self-fertilization. I suggest that an absence of social facilitation, caused by deprivation of social communication as a result of isolation, may play a role in reducing reproductive output of isolated B. glabrata, and that future studies of inbreeding depression using isolated and paired/grouped hermaphrodite snails should be designed to control for possible effects of social facilitation.

Local enhancement and seed choice in the juvenile canary, Serinus canarius

The influence of the presence and feeding behaviour of the father on the behaviour of young canaries was examined. The naive offspring had access simultaneously to canary seed or oat seeds in the same place as did the parent, who either did or did not have access to seeds (canary seeds, oats or hemp). In the absence of an adult, the juveniles took, husked and ate few seeds. The presence of the father increased the picking up, husking and ingestion of seeds by the juveniles, who also tended to feed in the same place as the parent (local enhancement). The choice of seed was also influenced by the parent's behaviour as the young birds picked up more oat seeds when these seeds were available to the father. This was not observed for canary seeds, which tended to be selected spontaneously by the young birds. The amounts of canary seeds and oats husked and ingested by the juveniles did not only depend on seed choice. Manipulation of canary seed by the father facilitated its husking by the juvenile, whereas manipulation of oats by the father had no facilitatory effect on the use of this seed by the young birds. Overall, the effects of social facilitation tended to favour ingestion of seeds spontaneously selected by the offspring.

Effects of an audience on the task performance of subjects with high and low self-esteem

The present study was designed to examine whether self-esteem moderates the effects of audience conditions on task performance. It was proposed that the presence of an audience would have only weak effects on the task performance of subjects with high self-esteem. For subjects with low self-esteem, it was proposed that, irrespective of the complexity of the task, levels of performance would be impaired under audience conditions (presence of a video camera). The results partially supported the hypotheses. Individuals with low self-esteem performed the simple task more poorly in the video than in the alone condition, while the performance of the high self-esteem subjects was similar across the two conditions. On the complex task, the results were contrary to expectations. The presence of the audience had no impact on the task performance of subjects with low self-esteem. For the high self-esteem subjects, there was evidence that performance was enhanced under audience conditions. Based on an attentional interpretation of social facilitation effects, it was further proposed that levels of distraction would be higher in the audience condition than in the alone condition for the low self-esteem subjects, but not for the subjects with high self-esteem. Analysis of the data obtained from the low self-esteem subjects performing the simple task provided some support for this proposal.

Monitoring and Performance: A Comparison of Computer and Supervisor Monitoring1

This research addresses how computer monitoring affects the way individual workers perform on their jobs. The study tests the effects of a supervisor's physical versus electronic presence on individual worker performance. Forty‐two women were hired to perform a simple data entry task. The women worked in one of three conditions: (a) alone, (b) in the physical presence of the supervisor who monitored their work, or (c) computer‐monitored (electronic presence) by the data entry system without the physical presence of the supervisor. It was hypothesized that social facilitation effects would result from either the physical or electronic presence conditions. Electronic presence does seem to result in social facilitation, though the mean differences are not statistically significant. The results for physical presence are mixed. Profile analysis indicates that there are significant differences in the patterns of performance. When subjects work alone or with electronic presence, performance follows a steady pattern. When subjects work with physical presence, performance is somewhat lower than in the alone condition, except when the supervisor is actively monitoring, then individual performance is significantly increased. There are no satisfaction differences between the three conditions. The results of this research suggest that “Big Brother” is not lurking inside every computer‐monitoring system.

Sheep food repellents: Efficacy of various products, habituation, and social facilitation

The study of food repulsion in ungulates is of practical importance for controlling browsing damage to forest trees and agricultural crops. Experiments with domestic sheep assessed the repulsive value of three natural and two synthetic products, using a food-choice situation. Animals were individually presented with two troughs, each containing 30 g of maize, one treated with a chemical product, and the other a control. The odor of domestic dog feces appeared to be highly repulsive, as none of the treated food was eaten, whereas 3 g ±9 and 6 g ±10 were eaten, respectively, of food treated with fetal fluids from sheep and odor of pig feces. Synthetic odors of lion feces and a commercial deer repellent were less efficient as repellents with 11 g ±13 and 14 g ±15 of food eaten, respectively. Habituation to three of the repellents was tested for a minimum of seven successive days. With dog feces, no habituation to the odor was observed. On the contrary, significant habituation (P < 0.05) was observed as early as the third trial for sheep fetal fluids and the fourth trial for the commercial repellent. To test for the effects of social facilitation, groups of four sheep including no, one, or two anosmic animals were presented with food treated with the odor of dog feces. No social facilitation was observed as none of the intact sheep ate any of the food, although the anosmic animals actively ate it throughout the test. In individual food choice tests, the odor of dog feces appeared to be an especially efficient repellent when compared with the other natural or synthetic products. Such repulsion was nearly complete, and neither habituation nor social facilitation could be observed.

OFFENSE CLASSIFICATION AND SOCIAL FACILITATION IN JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Considerable research has investigated the effects of social facilitation on either positive or neutral behaviors, but little if any research has examined whether the presence of others can lead to greater levels of negative behavior. The purpose of this project was to explore the influence of social facilitation on patterns and severity of offenses committed by juvenile delinquents. Study l compared the severity of crime (as measured by the offense classification) as a function of 130 currently incarcerated juvenile delinquents' self-reports of whether their crime was committed alone or with others. Results suggested that juveniles tend to act in concert with others in delinquent acts. White females tended to act in concert with others more than African-American female adolescents in the commission of delinquent acts. However, no significant effects were found for social facilitation and severity of crime, even when controlling for MMPI lie scores. Study 2 addressed the same question, but used an archival approach. Data was obtained for criminal charges and whether the crime happened in the presence or absence of others from random sample of 30 records from a juvenile delinquency home. The best predictor of severity of crime from this sample was the number of people involved with the crime. The study therefore provides limited support for Zajonc's drive theory that suggests social facilitation can have a non-directional effect on behavior.

Social Facilitation Effects in Shopping Behavior

Unobtrusive observation was used to compare time in the store and load size of lone and group shoppers. Consistent with social facilitation theory, groups spent more time in the store and purchased larger loads than did lone individuals. The larger loads of group shoppers held up with shopping time controlled. Women and older people spent more time in the store and bought larger loads than did men and younger people.

PLAYING GAMES BEFORE AN AUDIENCE: SOCIAL FACILITATION OR CHOKING

This study examined video game performance under audience scrutiny to see if social facilitation or choking effects would be obtained. Social facilitation theory suggests that good players would do better and poor players would do worse under audience pressure and that all players would do better on a simple or maximizing game and worse on a complex or optimizing game under audience pressure. Choking research indicates that audience pressure would produce poorer performance on both games. College student players played either a simple game, Pinball, or a complex game, Tetris, unobserved and then as the experimenter watched. Results showed that good players performed worse and bad players played better on the simple game under audience pressure. All participants played worse under audience pressure on the complex game. The choking approach accounts for these results better than social facilitation theory does.

Group Effects on Decision-Making by Burglars

30 active burglars were observed and interviewed extensively over a period of 16 months. They were asked to evaluate sites they had previously burglarized and those burglarized by others, as to their perceived vulnerability to burglary. Burglars who evaluated sites singly rated the sites more vulnerable than those same burglars when evaluating the sites in the presence of their usual co-offenders—showing a trend toward more cautious decision-making while in groups—a group polarization effect. On the other hand, self-reports indicated that burglars were more active (committed more crimes) when working as part of a group than when working alone. Their self-reported apprehension rate was 5 times greater when working in groups than when working alone, a finding which may reflect task impairment as a result of social facilitation effects.