Behavior in Presence of Others

    1. Social Facilitation: The tendency to perform better in the presence of others than when alone.
            Tends to occur when others are performing same task or are just merely observers
                Social Inhibition: When the presence of others inhibits individual performance.
            Social Facilitation vs. Inhibition: The presence of others creates arousal, and arousal strengthens dominant response
                Dominant response: if this response is the correct one for success, then social facilitation occurs,
                    but if it is incorrect, social inhibition occurs
                So, what creates arousal in the presence of others?
                    a. Zajonc says it’s just an innate tendency to become aroused by the presence of others
                    b. Evaluation apprehension: we become concerned about how others will evaluate us
                    c. Distraction-conflict model
                        Conflict between paying attention to others (distraction) and attending to task

    2. Social Loafing: When an individual’s contribution to group cannot be evaluated, we often work less hard than we would alone.
            Ringelmann study: asked students to pull on rope as hard as they could
                As group size increased, individual effort decreased
            Latane study: same group effect happened when students were asked to cheer and clap
            How hard we work in a group depends on:
                (1) Whether we believe our contribution will be necessary for success
                (2) How much we will value the group’s success
            Social Loafing is reduced when: we work with highly valued partners (e.g., friends, family, etc.);
                our work for the group is identifiable; when the possible rewards are high; when tasks are meaningful, complex, or interesting.
            Social Compensation: If success of the group is very important to us, and we recognize social loafing of others in the group,
                we often find ourselves working that much harder to compensate for those slackers
            Social evaluation of performance: key factor in whether we get inspired (social facilitation) or loaf around.

    3. Social Impact Theory: The total impact of source on individual depends on the number of observers, their strength, and their immediacy.
            We experience more arousal in front of more people
            We experience more arousal in front of an important audience
            We experience more arousal in front of a live audience rather than being taped for a future audience to watch
            Social facilitation vs. social loafing as a function of social impact of source

    4. Deindividuation: When in a crowd or mob, we sometimes lose our sense of responsibility for our own actions.
            Social Contagion: Mob behavior/emotion is contagious; Impulsive behavior is free to be expressed…
            Zimbardo electric shock study: subjects who wore lab coats and hoods gave more (fake) electric shocks to a
                 confederate not in the group.
            Deindividuation seems to happen more often when the social context is negative or aggressive: Halloween masks facilitate
                 deindividuation; Spring breakers facilitate their own wackiness; Prosocial environments do not facilitate deindividuation

    5. Group Polarization: Group discussion leads individuals to more extreme decisions.
                The decisions groups make are often riskier or extreme than individual views before the discussion of the group (risky shift).
                    Does not occur when members of group are evenly split on issues
                Possible mechanisms
                        a. Group discussion may lead to repeated expression of original ideas which leads to a firmer, more extreme view
                            in the direction of the original idea
                        b. Social Comparison Theory: group discussion shows that others hold similar positions to us (“Am I OK? -- Yes!”)
                                We then want to show similar others that we are as good as/better than them
                        c. Social Identity Processes are enhanced through group discussion
                                Members of group focus on group membership and identify with group during discussion
                                Pressure to conform becomes great
                                Results in greater shift to extreme position of group