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Individuals behave differently in the presence of others. Some scholars argue the mere presence of others has the capacity to improve task performance, while other researchers demonstrate individuals become “social loafers,” exerting less effort in group tasks unless they perceive potential for evaluation. I investigate these claims in the context of evaluating poll‐worker performance using two randomized field experiments conducted in New York City during a special election that took place in February 2009 and during the presidential primary conducted in April 2016. The results suggest that manipulating the presence of observers, or even poll workers’ perceptions of the potential for evaluation, likely enhances their performance overall, resulting, especially, in greater efficiency and potentially strengthening voters’ confidence that their ballots were accurately counted and diminishing perceptions of electoral fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social psychology has demonstrated that people behave differently in social attention, compared to when alone. First and foremost, being in social attention affects people's performance and their interpersonal behavior by increasing arousal and reputational concerns, respectively. However, newer work demonstrates more fundamental intra-psychological effects of social attention. As mere reminders of social attention can activate reputational concerns, people's thoughts and behavior are affected by such reminders even when people's reputation is not at stake. These findings provide a deeper look at more intra-personal effects of social attention. As a result, recent research focuses on how social attention fundamentally influences people's subjective perceptions and experiences. In this review, we provide an overview of the far-reaching effects of social attention, identify relevant moderators and mediators, discuss socio-motivational and cognitive processes underlying these effects, and highlight avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A robust finding in social psychology research is that performance is modulated by the social nature of a given context, promoting social inhibition or facilitation effects. In the present experiment, we examined if and how social presence impacts holistic face perception processes by asking participants, in the presence of others and alone, to perform the composite face task. Results suggest that completing the task in the presence of others (i.e., mere co-action) is associated with better performance in face recognition (less bias and higher discrimination between presented and non-presented targets) and with a reduction in the composite face effect. These results make clear that social presence impact on the composite face effect does not occur because presence increases reliance on holistic processing as a “dominant” well-learned response, but instead, because it increases monitoring of the interference produced by automatic response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the influences of situational factors on user behaviour in usability tests. Sixty participants carried out two tasks on a computer-simulated prototype of a mobile phone. Employing a 3 × 2 mixed experimental design, laboratory set-up was varied as a between-subjects variable (presence of facilitator and two non-interactive observers, presence of facilitator or no person present) while task difficulty was manipulated as a within-subjects variable (low vs. high). Performance data, subjective measures and physiological parameters (e.g. heart rate variability) were taken. The results showed that the presence of non-interactive observers during a usability test led to a physiological stress response, decreased performance on some measures and affected the emotional state of test participants. The presence of a facilitator (i.e. a participating observer) also influenced the emotional state of the test participant. Practitioners involved in usability testing need to be aware of undue influences of observers, in particular, if the observers are non-interactive. The findings presented in this paper have implications for the practice of usability testing. They indicated a considerable influence of observers on test participants (physiology and emotions) and on the outcomes of usability tests (performance measures). This should be considered when selecting the set-up of a usability testing procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Computers As Social Actors (CASA) research paradigm has examined how individuals respond to computers programmed to interact in various ways. In the current research, we extend the principles of CASA to determine whether computer icons can be used to produce social facilitation effects. Varying task difficulty and the presence or absence of a computer icon (i.e., Microsoft word’s Clip), performance on a typing task is considered. Overall, results provide some support for the contention that the mere presence of a computer icon may influence task performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Wild brown capuchins (Cebus apella) in Raleighvallen, Suriname forage on larvae hidden inside bamboo stalks via searching and extractive behaviours. We found that developing proficiency at obtaining larvae from bamboo stalks extends through several years of juvenescence. Older juveniles pass through a transition from a juvenile pattern to an adult pattern of foraging efficiency and diet selection. Whereas most studies have investigated the contribution of direct interactions between a naïve individual and a competent forager on the acquisition of foraging expertise, we focused on indirect social influence through foraging artefacts left in the habitat by conspecifics. Young individuals foraged at bamboo stalks more often shortly after than shortly before encountering bamboo segments previously opened by foragers to extract larvae. We discuss this result in terms of stimulus enhancement and social facilitation. In capuchins, learning how to forage on difficult foods does not necessarily occur in the presence of other group members, and social influences can be delayed in time and separate in space from others. This study provides an original view on how the gradual acquisition of foraging competence in brown capuchins is aided jointly by physical maturation and indirect social input that provides opportunities to practice appropriate foraging actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social facilitation theory is one of the most paradigmatic examples of social psychology, understood as an experimental science. However, in this paper we intend to demonstrate that the research that allegedly supports it suffers from a number of defects. It uses biased population samples, and the tasks it sets its experimental subjects are limited to the practical or productive, ignoring the broader range of everyday activities such as conversing or, indeed, urinating. Social facilitation theory, far from being objective, is a microcosm of American social psychology ideology insofar as it ignores basic human functions, and fails to include stigmatized communities such as stutterers and people with bladder problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: An experiment examined the impact of indirect social monitoring on memory distortions found in ‘egoistic self-enhancers’, that is, individuals prone to self-reporting enhanced traits related to social status and dominance (). One-hundred-and-sixty-six students from a large urban university (117 women and 49 men, mean age=23.0years) were randomly assigned to two conditions. Those in the ‘Video-Camera’ condition completed a bogus personality feedback task designed to index self-enhancing memory biases () in presence of a video-camera aimed in their direction, while participants in the ‘Control’ condition completed the same task, but without the video-camera. The results show that high egoists in the ‘Video-Camera’ condition experienced significantly less positive memory distortion than high egoists in the ‘Control’ condition, suggesting that indirect social monitoring can interfere with early information processing biases found in egoistic self-enhancers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Following a brief discussion of the emergence of third party observation as an issue in neuropsychology, this article reviews the social psychological theory of social facilitation. Social facilitation refers to the impact of another person, whether as an observer or a performer of the same activity, on an individual's performance. Both performance enhancements and impairments can be caused by this phenomenon. The article concludes with a review of the empirical studies that have demonstrated that a third party observer significantly impacts an individual's performance on some neuropsychological tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of a third party observer on neuropsychological test performance was examined within the framework of social facilitation. Social facilitation refers to the influence of an observer's presence on human behavior. Previous studies of social facilitation have demonstrated that an observer improves performance on easy or well-learned tasks and diminishes performance on complex or novel tasks. To examine social facilitation effects on neuropsychological testing, the Trail Making Test, Verbal Paired Associates subtest from the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R), Finger Tapping Test, Grip Strength, and the Grooved Pegboard were administered to 60 individuals with a self-reported history of mild to severe closed head injury. Half of the participants received a standard test administration, and the other half were tested in the presence of a third party observer. A statistically significant difference between groups was found on the Verbal Paired Associates delayed recall from the WMS-R with the observed group recalling fewer word pairs than the unobserved group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-focused attention has been found to facilitate task performance in some instances and inhibit it in others. Among chronically anxious individuals it appears to consistently hinder performance. Less is known about the impact of self-focus on the performance of normal individuals. The present study examines the role of task difficulty, task self-relevance, and presence of evaluation anxiety in the performance effects of self-focus among normal individuals. Participants performed a simple reaction time (RT) and a lexical decision task, in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively, with or without self-focus. Self-focus and evaluation anxiety resulted in faster responding in simple RT, but there was no significant effect of self-focus on performance in the more difficult lexical decision task. Participants' heart rate (HR) was monitored and indicated that orienting was associated with slower RT in both experiments, and less orienting was found during self-focus and evaluation conditions. Results are interpreted in light of several self-focus theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on social facilitation (e.g. Harkins, 1987) has made it clear that the potential for evaluation plays a role in producing coaction effects, but has left unclear the source of these effects. Subsequent research (e.g. Szymanski & Harkins, 1987, 1993) has shown that the potential for self-evaluation and experimenter evaluation each produce performance greater than that found in a 'no evaluation' control group. However, the combination of these sources produces performance no better than either taken alone. In Experiment 1, we show that the potential for evaluation by a coactor also produces performance better than that found in a 'no evaluation' control group, and that the combination of these sources (coactor plus self) also produces performance no better than either taken alone. Experiment 2 shows that the combination of the potential for evaluation by the experimenter and a coactor does produce better performance than either source taken alone. These findings suggest that, although adding external sources of evaluation contributes to the potency of the coaction effect, adding the potential for self-evaluation to the potential for evaluation by external sources does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocal behavior of four pairs of adult Sichuan golden monkeys was studied at the San Diego, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco zoos between November 1984 and October 1986. Four call types made up 86% (1,357/1,578) of vocalizations that occurred during 45 h of tape-recording. All four major vocalization types were made by both sexes. There was, however, significant sexual asymmetry in their production: 82% to 99% of each type was produced by one sex or the other. Frequently, duets developed when an individual male or female responded to the vocalizations of its cagemate. Males vocalized more than did females in each of the four pairs, and males responded vocally to female calls more than twice as frequently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex social factors can influence physiological activity, behavior, and health, but little is known about how essential components of these factors (e.g., human association, observation) affect human physiology. To begin to address this issue, an experiment was conducted to contrast predictions from social facilitation, distraction/conflict, and physiological reactivity formulations regarding the physiological effects of mere observation. Skin conductance and heart rate were measured surreptitiously from 27 women during a period in which they believed that the experimenter was simply calibrating auditory and physiological recording equipment. Approximately half of the subjects were led to believe that they could be observed by the experimenter during this period, and the remainder were led to believe that they could not be observed. Following baseline recordings, a series of 10 orienting tones were presented. Predictions from the physiological reactivity formulation were supported: (a) no differences in basal levels of somatovisceral activity were found as a function of mere observation; (b) mere observation enhanced the skin conductance response to the initial orienting tone; and (c) these physiological differences were punctate, quickly dissipating and quickly habituating. Hence, mere observation has subtler physiological effects than thought previously. Implications are discussed regarding the possible mechanism underlying the stress-enhancing and stress-buffering effects of human association, and regarding the effects social and contextual factors may have in psychophysiological research. Results from an International survey, based on the responses of 57 authors of articles that have appeared in Psychophysiology since 1983, are reported to inform the latter discussion. Results suggest that, even when social factors in psychophysiological research are minimized or held constant within studies, subtle differences in the social context across studies within and across laboratories may contribute to the appearance that psychophysiological relationships are unreliable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]