Social Facilitation
Updated 2026-08-06
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Social facilitation describes how the presence of an audience or co-actors increases arousal, which strengthens the dominant response. For a well-practiced task the dominant response is correct, so performance improves; for a task still being learned it is likely wrong, so performance deteriorates. The same arousal produces opposite effects depending on how well the skill has been mastered.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Match audience to mastery: give a stage for practiced skills and privacy for ones still being learned. - Check the dominant response: ask which response is most likely under pressure before deciding to perform publicly. - Use observation selectively: watch experts to improve them, and avoid watching learners.
Anchor fast decisions
An audience raises arousal, and arousal increases the probability of the most strongly learned response. On a mastered task that response is the correct one, so performance improves. On a task still being acquired, the strongest response is usually an error, so the same arousal makes performance worse. The effect depends entirely on which response dominates.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- zh.wikipedia.orghttps://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A4%BE%E4%BC%9A%E5%8A%A9%E9%95%BFverified
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