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Example Of Social Facilitation

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One of the oldest Social Psychology theories in the history of the field is Social Facilitation. Social Facilitation is about how the presence of other people in the environment could affect our goal directed behavior. The term “Facilitation” refers to the early observations that an individual’s performance is enhanced because of external factors such as the presence of other people. Social Facilitation is a phenomenology that causes the behavior of an individual to change in the presence of other people. Guerin (1993) stated that Social Facilitation exists when in the presence of other people, an animal’s behavior increases or decreases its level of arousal however does not interact with it. Hence, an individual’s performance on a task causes either a positive or negative effect. This can be seen in many situations such as when one feels uneasy and uncomfortable in front of a many people and performs worse than usual or when one dances better than others opposed to when dancing alone. In an even-handed context, it is the idea that an individual’s performance is being facilitated in the presence of another individual (Travis, 1925). …show more content…

Guerin (1993) says that research on Social Facilitation tries to study the inconsistency of human behavior in a non-social environment and inconsistency of human behavior in a social environment. Social Facilitation is not more concerned on how often this phenomenon happens in real life but on what responses an individual can provide during this occurrence (Guerin, 1993). The theory of Social Facilitation concentrates on altered behaviors that arise when an individual performs a task in an alone setting as opposed to being in the presence of other people. Lastly, Social Facilitation Theory also deals with how huge its influence extends to an individual’s performance in the

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