PSY220H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Unification Church, Parachuting, Rosy Retrospection
Document Summary
Mere presence: people are not competing, do not reward of punish and in fact do nothing except be present as a passive audience or as co-actors: a group of people working simultaneously and individually on a non-competitive task. But also, sometimes the presence of others hinders performance too: cockroaches, parakeets and green finches learn mazes more slowly, efficiency at learning nonsense syllables, completing a maze and performing complex multiplication problems diminishes. Robert zajonc: arousal enhances whatever response tendency is dominant, increased arousal enhances performance on easy tasks. Easy anagrams are solved fastest when people are anxious: increased arousal promotes incorrect responding on complex tasks for which the correct answer is not dominant. Harder anagrams, people do worse when anxious. Teams with home advantage do better because of the players" familiarity with their home environment, less travel fatigue, territorial control and team identity when cheered by fans. It enhances arousal, which facilitates the dominant responses.
