PS270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Group Polarization, Misgivings, Social Facilitation
Document Summary
Chapter 7 notes: group influence: group: two or more people, who for longer than a few moments interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as us". Social facilitation: how are we affected by the presence of others: co actors: a group or people working simultaneously and individually on a non-competitive task. Crowding; the presence of many: sometimes an audience may elicit a poorer performance on challenging tasks, the effect of others presence increases with their number, being in a crowed intensifies positive/negative reactions. Why are we aroused in the presence of others: there are 3 possible factors: evaluation apprehension, distraction and mere presence. Distraction: when people wonder about how they are being evaluated they get distracted, the arousal comes not from the presence of others but rather from a non human distraction such as bursts of light. Mere presence: the mere presence of others produces arousal even without evaluation apprehension or arousing distraction.
