Social facilitation is when the presence of others enhances performance on easy or familiar tasks and reduces performance on hard or unfamiliar tasks (Zajon, Heingartner, & Herman, 1969). Furthermore, the evaluation apprehension theory states that this process is not completely universal, but only holds true when in the presence of others who are evaluating the performance (Geen, 1991; Henchy & Glass, 1968). Working on math problems in front of a class, presenting projects, and even playing video games have caused me to feel the effects of social facilitation. However, the two examples that I can remember clearly in my mind in which I experienced a negative effect and a positive effect was during a volleyball game at camp and during a piano performance.
In high school I would always go with my church youth group to summer camp, Super Summer, either as a camper or a camp counselor. Unfortunately, with summer camp comes sports, and I am not incredibly coordinated when it comes to playing them. I always at least try, but eventually it is better for everyone if I just watch and cheer on the team than actually play. :) After arriving at this particular camp, everyone is split up from their youth groups and put into a small group (usually 8-12 people who are in your grade) for the week so that you are not with anyone you have ever met before (very nerve-racking at first, but it was fun). Later in the week, all of the groups compete against each other in games and sports. One of the rotations that we had to play my first year at this camp was a weird form of volleyball in which there were four nets set up like an axis and you had to play against three other teams. I'm already bad at playing volleyball so putting me in an even more unfamiliar situation was a bad idea. Not only was I worried about playing the game, but I was worried about being watched by the people in my group who I had just met and the small audience of people who were either just watching or waiting for their team's next rotation. To make a long story short I completely missed the ball that was coming toward me and end up getting hit in the face. Now, I'm not always that bad at volleyball; it was just a time when social facilitation effects were not in my favor.
Another activity that I participated in before coming to college was playing the piano. I was not amazing, but I think it is safe to say that I was pretty good. Before competitions and recitals, one of my piano teachers would make us play the pieces to be performed repeatedly and eventually learn them so that we could play without music. I loved playing the piano and although at first they were difficult, after practicing for so long the pieces of music that I would have to perform became familiar and easy. Most performances were either played in front of parents, other performers, and/or judges, but social facilitation benefited me because I remember that I always felt that I played my best when performing than when alone.
Geen, R. G. (1991). Social motivation. Annual Review of Psychology, 42, 377-399.
Henchy, T., & Glass, D. C. (1968). Evaluation apprehension and the social facilitation of dominant and subordinate responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10, 446-454.
Zajonc, R. B., Heingartner, A., & Herman, E. M. (1969). Social enhancement and impairment of performance in the cockroach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 703-709.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Demonstrate-A-Concept Blog
The video would not upload here...so, the link for the video on youtube is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGriWFyye_o
When making social judgments, we often use heuristics, or cognitive shortcuts, to speed up processing and making decisions (Gilovich et al., 2002; Kahneman et al., 1982; Nisbett & Ross, 1980). One of the mental shortcuts demonstrated by Tversky and Kahneman (1973) is the availability heuristic, or the tendency to judge the likelihood of an event based on how quickly or easily an example comes to mind. They asked participants if words that start with the letter r or words that have r as their third letter are more common. They found that participants used the availability heuristic and incorrectly assumed that because words that start with the letter r came to mind more quickly, they were more common. One of the consequences of the availability heuristic is the vividness effect, or the tendency for us to rely on vivid personal testimonies, which come to mind easily, rather than on more reliable information like statistics (Stanovich, 2001).
To demonstrate the concept of the vividness effect, I asked eight people around campus about whether or not they would buy AT&T’s Samsung Sync SGH-A707 if they needed a new phone. Specifically, I informed them that the phone was rated as one of the top three best cell phones by Consumer Reports. Furthermore, I explained that this rating was based on user reports and results from its in-house testing laboratory. Next, I explained that I dislike the phone and have had a lot of issues with it. Consistent with the vividness effect, I expected most people to be more influenced by my personal testimony rather than the reliable information from Consumer Reports, and say that they would not purchase the phone.
The first person I asked is a good friend, and she said that she would not buy the phone at all. After I explained what the blog was about, she told me that her decision was based on my experiences. Although she has never actually used the phone, she has heard me voice my negative opinions about it before. This does illustrate the vividness effect, but I thought that it would be interesting to ask people who had never heard me voice opinions about the phone to see if I could receive the same results.
The next three people that I interviewed had very interesting responses. The second person said that she would consider purchasing the phone. Moreover, she explained that she knows people who have the phone and like it. I thought that it was interesting that although she said she would consider purchasing it, she was still basing her judgments in part on personal testimonies. The next person said that she would consider purchasing the phone. After talking to her further, she said that she is currently a research methods student and is therefore more aware of the importance of reliable information. The fourth person said that she would not purchase the phone. Unfortunately, my camera died before I could get further feedback on film about why she would not purchase it, but she did say that she always tends to trust people more than statistics. I thought that this is particularly interesting and clearly illustrates the vividness effect.
When interviewing the last four people, I decided that it would be more valuable to ask for feedback on why they decided to purchase or not purchase the phone. The fifth and sixth people interviewed said that they would not purchase the phone because they would use person testimonies, specifically my negative experiences, when making decisions about purchasing the phone. In addition, the seventh person said that she always tends to rely on information from others when making decisions rather than reliable, statistical information. Interestingly, the final person interviewed said that she would probably buy the phone because she values the information from Consumer Reports.
Taken together, the interviews conducted seemed to show that some people fall prey to the vividness effect by relying on personal testimonies rather than on more reliable information. After each interview I explained the vividness effect to the interviewees, and although some thought it was interesting, some insisted that they would still rely on personal experiences. It is interesting to note that two of the three people who said that they would consider purchasing the phone are science majors, and four of the five people who said that they would not purchase the phone are humanity majors. I thing that it would be interesting to read research on the vividness effect and what factors influence who falls prey to it more often. After all the interviews I thought it would be funny to ask my dad what he thought about the phone because he has seen firsthand the difficulties that my mom and I have had with it. Surprisingly, he decided to rely on consumer reports!
Gilovich, T., Grifin, D., & Kahneman, D. (Eds.). (2002). Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (Eds.). (1982). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Nisbett, R. E., & Ross, L. (1980). Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 207-232.
Stanovich, K. E. (2001). How to think straight about psychology. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
When making social judgments, we often use heuristics, or cognitive shortcuts, to speed up processing and making decisions (Gilovich et al., 2002; Kahneman et al., 1982; Nisbett & Ross, 1980). One of the mental shortcuts demonstrated by Tversky and Kahneman (1973) is the availability heuristic, or the tendency to judge the likelihood of an event based on how quickly or easily an example comes to mind. They asked participants if words that start with the letter r or words that have r as their third letter are more common. They found that participants used the availability heuristic and incorrectly assumed that because words that start with the letter r came to mind more quickly, they were more common. One of the consequences of the availability heuristic is the vividness effect, or the tendency for us to rely on vivid personal testimonies, which come to mind easily, rather than on more reliable information like statistics (Stanovich, 2001).
To demonstrate the concept of the vividness effect, I asked eight people around campus about whether or not they would buy AT&T’s Samsung Sync SGH-A707 if they needed a new phone. Specifically, I informed them that the phone was rated as one of the top three best cell phones by Consumer Reports. Furthermore, I explained that this rating was based on user reports and results from its in-house testing laboratory. Next, I explained that I dislike the phone and have had a lot of issues with it. Consistent with the vividness effect, I expected most people to be more influenced by my personal testimony rather than the reliable information from Consumer Reports, and say that they would not purchase the phone.
The first person I asked is a good friend, and she said that she would not buy the phone at all. After I explained what the blog was about, she told me that her decision was based on my experiences. Although she has never actually used the phone, she has heard me voice my negative opinions about it before. This does illustrate the vividness effect, but I thought that it would be interesting to ask people who had never heard me voice opinions about the phone to see if I could receive the same results.
The next three people that I interviewed had very interesting responses. The second person said that she would consider purchasing the phone. Moreover, she explained that she knows people who have the phone and like it. I thought that it was interesting that although she said she would consider purchasing it, she was still basing her judgments in part on personal testimonies. The next person said that she would consider purchasing the phone. After talking to her further, she said that she is currently a research methods student and is therefore more aware of the importance of reliable information. The fourth person said that she would not purchase the phone. Unfortunately, my camera died before I could get further feedback on film about why she would not purchase it, but she did say that she always tends to trust people more than statistics. I thought that this is particularly interesting and clearly illustrates the vividness effect.
When interviewing the last four people, I decided that it would be more valuable to ask for feedback on why they decided to purchase or not purchase the phone. The fifth and sixth people interviewed said that they would not purchase the phone because they would use person testimonies, specifically my negative experiences, when making decisions about purchasing the phone. In addition, the seventh person said that she always tends to rely on information from others when making decisions rather than reliable, statistical information. Interestingly, the final person interviewed said that she would probably buy the phone because she values the information from Consumer Reports.
Taken together, the interviews conducted seemed to show that some people fall prey to the vividness effect by relying on personal testimonies rather than on more reliable information. After each interview I explained the vividness effect to the interviewees, and although some thought it was interesting, some insisted that they would still rely on personal experiences. It is interesting to note that two of the three people who said that they would consider purchasing the phone are science majors, and four of the five people who said that they would not purchase the phone are humanity majors. I thing that it would be interesting to read research on the vividness effect and what factors influence who falls prey to it more often. After all the interviews I thought it would be funny to ask my dad what he thought about the phone because he has seen firsthand the difficulties that my mom and I have had with it. Surprisingly, he decided to rely on consumer reports!
Gilovich, T., Grifin, D., & Kahneman, D. (Eds.). (2002). Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (Eds.). (1982). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Nisbett, R. E., & Ross, L. (1980). Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 207-232.
Stanovich, K. E. (2001). How to think straight about psychology. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Blog #8-That's-Not-All Technique
One of the techniques used to influence people to comply is the that's-not-all technique. Burger (1986) studied this technique, or the idea that compliance increases when the person influencing someone makes a large request before asking for what they really want, by selling cupcakes to customers. Specifically, in one condition he sold the cupcakes for 75 cents, and in the other condition he told customers that the cupcakes were a dollar but had just been reduced to 75 cents. In his experiment, the same cupcakes for the same price in the second condition sold more than those in the first condition (sales increased from 44 to 73 percent). Burger (1986) demonstrated that the larger first request (dollar cupcake) makes the second request (75 cent cupcake) look smaller than it actually is.
As soon as I read about this in the text, I thought of the days when I was little and lots of my family would get together, spring clean their houses, and have one large garage sell. The night before we would set everything up and label everything with colored price tags (each family within the family would have their own color). I use to think it was so funny that on some of the large furniture items (like couches, beds, or dressers) they would tape the price on, mark it out with a large red marker, and write a new price on the bottom. When I asked my mom about it, she said that it would make people think that they were getting a deal. I thought that it was interesting that my mom, who has never taken psychology, demonstrated the that's-not-all technique without even realizing it!
Burger, J. M. (1986). Increasing compliance by improving the deal: The that's-not-all technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 277-283.
As soon as I read about this in the text, I thought of the days when I was little and lots of my family would get together, spring clean their houses, and have one large garage sell. The night before we would set everything up and label everything with colored price tags (each family within the family would have their own color). I use to think it was so funny that on some of the large furniture items (like couches, beds, or dressers) they would tape the price on, mark it out with a large red marker, and write a new price on the bottom. When I asked my mom about it, she said that it would make people think that they were getting a deal. I thought that it was interesting that my mom, who has never taken psychology, demonstrated the that's-not-all technique without even realizing it!
Burger, J. M. (1986). Increasing compliance by improving the deal: The that's-not-all technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 277-283.
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