Social influence

"performance of a task is enhanched by the presence of other people"

Triplett: simple task of reeling in the rod as fast as possible. 1% faster when in pairs. Shows that the presence of other people enhances performance 

" perfomance is facillitated and learning is impaired in the presence of spectators "

Well learnt task is enhanced by people whereas new or complex tasks are inhibited by other people 

Application: world class basketball player, shooting balls through the hoop is the dominant response. In a match, an audience will facilitate this

Michaels: whether an audience enhances well learned and inhibits poor. 6 above avg and 6 below avg pool players. above avg managed to go from 71% to 80% when observed whereas below avg went from 36% to 25% when observed.

"the presence of other people create a distraction to the person attempting to perform the task"

This interfers with the attnetion and results in conflict 

Sanders: simple of complex task in the presence of other people with the same or different task. In distraction, performed better in a simple task 

"the presence of other increases arousal which increases the tendancy to prform dominant responses"

When arousal is too high or too low performance is impaired. It needs to be an optimum which is specific for each individual 

Application: in golf, a highly skilled player. The presence of others may push arousal too high, impariing perfomance 

" the presence of others raises concern that our performance is being evaluated" 

simple tasks increase arousal having an enhancing effect whereas in complex tasks arousal increases too much which impairs perfomance. 

Bartis et al: Evaluation apprehension. Partipants had to think of simple and creative uses of knives. Some participants were told they were being evaluated indivually and others were told they were being collected as a group. Found more in simple tasks. This shows that EA improves perfomance in simple tasks but not complex ones

1. Real audiences are noisy whereas these are passive - lacks ecoligcal validity 

2. dont take into account cognitive processes or personality 

3. Self awareness - striving for ideal

1. Dont take unto account cognitive processes such as attention

2. Arousal may have occured because of having to attend two stimuli, reducing the amount of attenetion to task so more errors are made