Cockroaches, performance, and an audience: Reexamining social facilitation 50 years later

Publication date: November 2019Source: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 85Author(s): Dylan Perez Neider, Megumi Fuse, Gaurav SuriAbstractWhat are the underlying mechanisms driving social facilitation? Some social psychologists have proposed that social facilitation may be driven by basic mechanisms such as the level of arousal produced by the presence of an audience, while others have ascribed it to more socially and cognitively complex drivers such as a self-aware quest for social approval. In a now seminal study, Zajonc, Heingartner, and Herman (ZHH) (1969) demonstrated that the audience effect of social facilitation was exhibited in the Blatta orientalis cockroach: cockroaches were faster to complete a simple task (traversing a runway) when among other cockroaches than when alone, yet slower when the task was complex (traversing a maze). This finding suggested that arousal was a likely driver of social facilitation in the cockroach (since self-aware mechanisms were unlikely to apply). It also invited consideration of the possibility that arousal may be a contributing factor to social facilitation in humans. Despite ZHH's influence, a faithful direct replication has never been attempted. Such a replication is crucial in illuminating the underlying drivers of social facilitation.

Source: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology - August 1, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research