Social Facilitation Experiment

ABSTRACT
The study us experimenters re-conducted was based on Norman Triplett’s study of social facilitation and how social presence or encouragement improves an individual’s speed and consistency in their performance.
The experiment was replicated in using several trials for accurate results and was split into two stages: a mental challenge and a physical challenge. The two male and two female participants ranged from ages 15 to 17 years old.
For the mental challenge, each participant was pulled aside one at a time to match 22 flashcards as fast as possible by themselves. The results recorded were the times each individual person took to match all 22 cards. Afterwards, each participant was given the same instruction to match the set of
Design
The replicated experiment is designed for each participant to be in experimental and control groups. The experimental condition was in an outdoor location. This design was chosen because it was necessary to have each person experience solitary conditions to better emphasize and create a bigger impact of the effect another person’s presence had on performance. Repeated trials and measures ensure a decrease in experimental error due to participants’ personal characteristics. One of the controlled characteristics was age (15-17),
In regarding ethical terms, a briefing was given to the participants as well as a consent form. The experiment was only conducted after the consent forms were signed. We realized the great importance of not physically or mentally harming the participants, leading us to conduct the experiment with caution to ensure no damage like this occurred.
B. Participants
The target group of people consisted of 4 participants ranging from ages 15-17, two male and two female. The 4 participants were in both control and experimental conditions.
To obtain the results, we tested the performance of the participants mentally and physically solitarily at first, and then again with a partner.
C.
Procedure
First, consent forms were released to the 4 chosen participants requiring both parent and teacher signatures. Those who chose not to participate were not forced to have their consent forms signed. A week after the release of the consent forms, the signed forms were collected and we started our experiment.
Each individual person was taken away from the group to be experimented on. Each participant was told that they were to flip over and match the 22 flashcards two at a time as fast as they could while we timed them. When they finished, we stopped the stopwatch and recorded their time.
After all participants finished the mental experimentation, they were again individually taken away from the group to be physically experimented on. They were told that they were given 5 minutes to shoot the basketball as many times as they could. After 5 minutes, the participants were told to stop as we counted the number of shots made.
After both experimentations, we repeated the mental challenge once again but this time with a partner. They were still given 22 flashcards to match two at a time as fast as they could while we recorded them. Once all the cards were matched, we stopped the timer and recorded their