Social Facilitation

Social facilitation is a social phenomenon in which being in the presence of others improves an individual's performance on a task, so that people tend to do better on a task with other people present than when performing it alone. It was first documented by Norman Triplett, who found that cyclists rode faster when competing against other cyclists than when riding alone, and it has also been observed as an audience effect, such as individuals lifting heavier weights when being watched. Research shows the effect depends on task complexity: the psychologist Robert Zajonc proposed that simple, well-practiced tasks are helped by the presence of others because they rely on dominant behavioral responses, while more complex or unfamiliar tasks are hindered because the presence of others becomes distracting when a person must produce a less automatic response.