Group effects on individual performance

- Mere presence and audience effects: social facilitation

- Classification of group tasks
- Social loafing and social impact

Individual performance, is an individual's ability to achieve the goals that he or she has set or
that have been set for him or her. This can be modified by the presence of others. Allport's
(1924) explanation of the phenomenon of social facilitation, according to which in a co-action or
audience situation, one develops a sense of rivalry that has a positive impact on one's
performance, seemed simple and appealing. But further research later showed that the effects
of co-action and audience were not always positive. Thus, experiments on these effects show
that the presence of others (active or passive) when performing a task has effects that are
sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Therefore, we cannot speak in all cases of social
facilitation. To explain this, Zajonc; an American philosopher focuses on the individual
characteristics of the subjects evaluated. Before explaining to you his theory I would like to
show you two quick extract of the movie the Wolf of Wall Street.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCfntaYBeqs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UspZGJ-TrI

In these two extract Leonardo di Caprio is asking the same task to these men. However we can
observe that in the first video they are unable to do it compared to the man in the second video.
This is a representation of Zajonc Drive theory

The presence of others increases our level of arousal (nervous energy, heart rate, blood
pressure, respiration, sweat.. which in turn augments the likelihood of our dominant behavior.
If the individual has a good grasp of the task at hand (because he or she has some experience, or
because he or she has been trained) the dominant response will be a good one. In this case, the
audience will be a good facilitator it will increase performance, since it will facilitate the correct
answer and we can talk about social facilitation. This is the case of the man in the second video.

On the other hand, if the individual does not master the task at hand because he or she has no
experience, or because he or she has not been trained the dominant response will be a wrong
answer In this case the audience and coaction effects will be a brake they will decrease
performance, there will be no social facilitation, but possibly social inhibition. This was the case
of the men in the first video.
Zajonc focuses on the individual characteristics of the subject being assessed: whether or not
the subject has a certain competence, and whether or not the presence of others facilitates or
hinders the provision of adequate responses and thus adaptation to the problem-situation.
These two opposite effects are not due to the characteristics of others but to the competence of
the subject being evaluated: if he is competent, the effects of audience and coaction are
facilitating, if he is not competent, no facilitating effects are observed.

Zajonc thus treats social facilitation as an innate phenomenon triggered automatically by the
presence of others; in some cases the subject is competent, the consequences of the presence
of others are beneficial; in others it is not, so there are no positive consequences. Whatever the
case, the presence of others is in fact only considered as a trigger, leading to an increase in
motivation.

Decreased individual performance in a simple collaborative task, attributed to lack of

coordination and social laziness.

In opposition to the social facilitation, which suggests an increase in individual performance

when peers are present audience or co-action there is the Ringelmann effect. In a study
launched in 1882, Ringelmann conducted a series of trials in which he measured the force
deployed by men in relatively simple motor tasks. In particular, he asked these men to pull a
rope with all their strength, and used a dynamometer to measure the performance of each
individual, alone or in a group.

Contrary to the belief that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, the experiments
revealed the decrease in individual performance as the number of participants increased. For
example, a group of seven men deployed a force together that was significantly less than the
force deployed by three of the same men separately. A group of 14 people deployed a force
corresponding to that of 10...

Several explanatory hypotheses have been proposed to explain the Ringelmann effect:
lack of coordination: the more the number of participants increases, the higher the losses due
to lack of coordination. This hypothesis put forward by Steiner was relativised by Ingham et al
(1974) who explained that lack of coordination alone is not sufficient to explain the magnitude
of the decrease(2).
social impact (social impact theory, Latané, 1981): during an experiment, Latané asks subjects to
shout as loud as possible. He notes that a subject who is alone, but who is made to hear the
shout of several people during the handover, diminishes his performance in the same way as if
the people were physically present. According to Latané, it is the perception of the group that
leads to the decrease in performance.
lack of evaluation: the fact that people in a group do not feel evaluated individually, nor do they
have the opportunity to evaluate their neighbours or themselves, would be a necessary
characteristic to bring about a Ringelmann effect.
decreased motivation: the effort made to perform the collective task would be a function,
among other things, of the evaluation of the profitability of this effort, in relation to the goal to
be achieved.