Social Faciliation essays

Social Faciliation essays People seem to act differently when other people are around. Is there a reason for this? Psychologist, Robert Zajonc (1965,1980) thinks so. He discovered that "the presence of others increases arousal, which can affect performance in different ways, depending on the task at hand" (249). This is termed the Social facilitation theory, which relates with how the presence of other people affect our behavior. Zajonc believes there are three steps to the presence of performance. First, the company of other people causes a physical arousal, livens up the action. Secondly, the person will perform the "dominant response" (the most simple response to the situation). Lastly, Zajonc thinks the quality of the persons action depends on the kind of task theyre doing (249-250). Therefore, the complete definition of social facilitation is a "process whereby the presence of others enhances performance on easy tasks but impairs the performance on difficult tasks" (251). Two personal examples will demonstrate both areas of this concept. In high school I tried out for the volley ball team. I never played before besides in gym class, but to my surprise I made varsity. Practices were vigorous and stressful, yet after a few weeks I had the basics of the sport. More importantly, my coach thought my powerful serve was going to help the team a lot that season. The first home game the stands were packed. Most of my friends, my parents and my boyfriend all sat waiting anxiously to see me at my new game. Well, as we were huddling before the game I saw my name on the starting roster. I was like, "you have to be kidding me." Not to mention, I was the first player to serve. I get in the game and I hear people cheering for me in the bleachers. Smiling, I turn to them and I begin to sweat feeling a wave of intense energy come over me (physiological arousal). Now, I grab the ball throw it in the a ...