Social Facilitation Theory

Introduction One of the three major principles of the cognitive level of analysis in psychology is that the mind can be scientifically studied by using theories and research models. One theory is the social facilitation theory, which is the tendency for people to perform better on simple tasks when they’re in the presence of others than when they are alone. Norman Triplett’s study on this theory in 1989 is believed to be the first of this kind. Triplett first noticed the effect of social facilitation in his research on racing cyclists. Cyclists performed better and faster when they were racing against each other compared to cyclists who were just racing by themselves against the clock. He decided to experiment this theory in laboratory conditions
One reason this design was chosen was so that order effects don’t influence the second condition. Because this experiment is testing performance on a wordsearch, order effects such as fatigue or boredom would greatly impact the results. Also, demand characteristics are less of a problem in an independent measures design. By giving each individual only one condition and testing them only once, they are less likely to guess the aim of the study and act accordingly. The single blind control used in this experiment also helps with this problem. Independent measures also made the experiment run faster, which was important since the researchers were limited on time. The independent variable is the presence or absence of other competitors or co-actors. The presence of other co-actors is the experimental condition, the absence of other co-actors is the control condition. The dependent variable is the performance on a wordsearch, and this is measured by the number of words found on the wordsearch. Controls included giving all participants the same wordsearch, giving everyone the same amount of time to complete their wordsearch, giving everyone a desk and chair to work on, making sure the words on the wordsearch were familiar to every participant, and standardized instructions. Ethical guidelines were accounted for through the briefing, debriefing form, and consent form. (See Appendix __ and
Participants were then randomly allocated by counting them off by 1’s and 2’s. Afterwards, the two groups were separated. Participants given “1” were given Condition 1, the control condition, and they went to a separate room. Participants given “2” were given Condition 2, the experimental condition, and they stayed in the same room they were at. Participants from Condition 1 were called out individually one-by-one and were given the same standardized instructions before starting the wordsearch. Every participant was given only 2 minutes to try to complete the wordsearch to the best of their ability. After each participant from Condition 1 finished their wordsearch, they waited in a separate waiting area so no communication could happen between those who have done the experiment and those who haven’t. Those given Condition 2 followed the same procedure except they were not tested individually, but all at