Audiences and crowds are a huge part of sport. From a handful of friends and family watching a local tennis final to nearly 100,000 people descending onto a football stadium to watch a major match, audiences can be seen at all levels of sport. So, it beggars the question – how does an audience affect people's performance?
Social Facilitation
Social facilitation is when people sometimes show increased effort when there is a real, imagined, or implied presence of others. The concept was first acknowledged by Norman Triplett in 1898 when he noticed that cyclists' performance benefited when training in a group. As research continued into the field, the researcher highlighted two types of social facilitation: co-action and audience effects. Co-action effects refers to an increase in performance when completing the task alongside others. For example, running 100m alongside seven other runners would likely aid quicker than running 100m alone. However, for this article, the focus will be on audience effects.
An audience effect refers to a type of social facilitation in which performance is influenced by the presence of others (an audience). As with co-action effects, an audience can facilitate or inhibit performance. However, the presence of an audience does not always have a positive impact on performance.
Social Inhibition
Social inhibition is the opposite of social facilitation. It refers to the impairment of performance when in the presence of an audience. In essence, an individual's performance suffers when they are watched
What determines facilitation vs inhibition?
So, the difficulty lies in understanding why one athlete may thrive when watched by others while another may flounder. Whether or not social facilitation or inhibition occurs depends upon the task. Individuals tend to experience social facilitation when familiar with a task or if it involves well-learned skills. In contrast, social inhibition occurs when someone is required to tackle a difficult or novel task.
Social facilitation is thought to involve three factors: cognitive factors, affective factors, and psychological factors.
Cognitive factors
This factor refers to the internal struggle between giving attention to a person watching and attention to the actual task in question. This attention may motivate a person to focus more on the task and therefore improve performance, but it may also lead to distraction from the task and lower focus.
Affective factors
Audiences arouse us because we have learned that they evaluate and judge our performance. We perceive that they are not merely passive spectators casually watching our activities. This evaluation apprehension increases our drive/arousal. We eagerly seek approval and fear disapproval from those we have never interacted with or met. Therefore, the presence of others can trigger an unwarranted drive in arousal due to evaluation anxiety.
Psychological factors
According to two researchers, Zajonc and Sales, instinctive/well-learned/highly practiced behaviour is improved with an audience, whereas novel or complex behaviour is impaired. This reaction is because the presence of watchers adds to an individual's arousal while they complete a task. When combined with the arousal generated from a difficult or unfamiliar task, an individual may feel stress and consequent poor performance. The extra arousal generated by others observing an activity can take us past our optimum level of arousal. The Yerkes-Dodson theory of optimal arousal supports this (see below for a detailed explanation of this theory).
In essence, if a task is easy or well-practised, then the dominant response will be the correct one (i.e. most likely), so the audience helps produce this. However, in a difficult task, the dominant response is likely the incorrect one(s), so the audience helps elicit this.
So why is this important to understand?
These three factors are important for any athlete, performer, or coach to understand, as they can play a huge role in performance. An audience or crowd is often inevitable at all levels of competition and performance. From a few onlookers to a passionate crowd of thousands, people may take an interest in an activity they see and begin to watch. Understanding how an audience may affect your performance can allow you to be proactive in controlling your arousal levels and focus. You can channel energy and awareness to counteract the effects of being watched and regain your performance when facing inhibition while embracing the facilitation.
Yerkes Dobson law explained
https://www.simplypsychology.org/what-is-the-yerkes-dodson-law.html
Some scientific reading on the topic
Baron, R. S. (1986). Distraction-conflict theory: Progress and problems. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 19, pp. 1-40). Academic Press.
Chen, S. C. (1937). The leaders and followers among the ants in nest-building. Physiological Zoology, 10(4), 437-455.
Cottrell, N. B., Wack, D. L., Sekerak, G. J., & Rittle, R. H. (1968). Social facilitation of dominant responses by the presence of an audience and the mere presence of others. Journal of personality and social psychology, 9(3), 245.
Dashiell, J. F. (1935). Experimental studies of the influence of social situations on the behavior of individual human adults.
Pessin, J. (1933). The comparative effects of social and mechanical stimulation on memorizing. The American Journal of Psychology, 45(2), 263-270.
PLATT, J. J., YAKSH, T., & DARBY, C. L. (1967). Social facilitation of eating behavior in armadillos. Psychological Reports, 20(3c), 1136-1136.
Travis, L. E. (1925). The effect of a small audience upon eye-hand coordination. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 20(2), 142.
Triplett, N. (1898). The dynamogenic factors in pacemaking and competition. The American journal of psychology, 9(4), 507-533.
Zajonc, R. B., & Sales, S. M. (1966). Social facilitation of dominant and subordinate responses. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2(2), 160-168.
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