22.5: The Mere Presence of Others
- Page ID
- 95229
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The mere presence of others can affect our performance on many sorts of tasks. Social facilitation occurs when their presence enhances performance. For example, many people do better in athletic events if an audience is present. The same holds true for cognitive tasks; we often do a better job at solving verbal or mathematical problems and puzzles if others are watching.
In some cases, however, the presence of others detracts from our performance. This is known as social impairment. Research suggests that an audience enhances someone’s performance on a task if they are accomplished at it, but it detracts from their performance if they are not. Although these findings are of interest, we will focus more on longer term social influences on thought.