Do you think we do the same thing when someone looks at us?Do you think the presence of others can improve or hinder our performance in the development of a task?Read on to find out.
One of the first authors to take an interest in these topics and want to do such experiments was Norman Triplett, who knew how to verify that other people’s presence improved our performance, conducted his experiments with cyclists and compared his grades in his training alone and, later, in training with other cyclists.
- Another experiment developed by the same author was conducted with children.
- And he could also see how performance varied as accompanied or not by other children.
- Hours of work were shortened and all did so faster and better when they performed the tasks they were doing than when they were alone in the observation situation.
These studies have shown that when working with other co-authors, that is, people who perform the same task as others, performance improves, but what happens when viewers are only spectators?
Social facilitation refers to when other people’s presence helps us improve and better perform the activity When does that happen?This effect occurs when the task is easy for the person who performs it or when it comes to knowing that the person has mastered it and does not require much concentration and can be solved without complications.
On the other hand, the opposite is true of social inhibition. When a person is not familiar with the task or requires a lot of concentration and involvement on the part of the subject, the presence of other people will negatively influence performance, i. e. there will be social inhibition.
Both effects can be understood when we focus on the type of task, when we judge our work or are mere spectators, the experience and familiarity with the type of activity in question are decisive, so I can benefit from someone who is looking to do my job. better or I prefer to be alone to concentrate and develop my work better, it all depends on the nature of the task.
Other studies in the field of sport have studied the effect of the presence of others, and social facilitation effects have been found when observers were ten or fewer people, at the time they studied performance with many viewers (more than eleven). , no facilitating or inhibitory effects were observed.
This may be related to observer behavior. When their behavior is positive and we have some control over them, that is, we listen to their comments or we can analyze their actions, they have an effect that influences us when it comes to acting. On the other hand, when it comes to a large audience, we lose control over them and, as a result, we are no longer sensitive to their influence.
The conclusions we draw from the presence of others relate to the type of task we have to perform. When the task is easy, we can improve our performance when someone is looking at us; on the other hand, performance decreases compared to performance that would be achieved only when the task is complicated and requires all attention.
Overactivation caused by the presence of others can be positive when we can do the work without having to use all our cognitive resources; on the other hand, when the task forces us to focus our attention on it, others can cause a rush that does not benefit us (since there is probably already a good level of acceleration due to the complexity of the challenge) and ends up distracting us.