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social dynamics
The presence of others changes how you perform tasks.
Social facilitation is the tendency to improve on simple, well-learned tasks when others are watching.
Conversely, this same effect causes you to perform worse on complex or unfamiliar tasks while under observation. The mere physical presence of another person shifts your physiological arousal levels.
You are a different worker depending on who is in the room.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Robert Zajonc, 1965
- What the check found
- The claim accurately reflects Robert Zajonc's Drive Theory (1965), which explains how social presence increases arousal, thereby enhancing dominant responses (easy/well-learned tasks) and impairing non-dominant ones.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.