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social
You perform better at simple tasks when others watch.
The presence of an audience increases your speed on easy tasks.
Research noted that while observers improve performance on familiar activities, they hinder performance on complex or new ones. Your physiological arousal spikes in the presence of others, amplifying your most dominant habit. If the skill is not automatic, the arousal creates unnecessary interference.
The audience changes how your brain processes the effort.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Zajonc (1965)
- What the check found
- The claim aligns with Zajonc's drive theory regarding dominant responses. While 'speed' is a narrowing of 'performance,' it is a standard metric used in the seminal social facilitation experiments.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.